When leadership traits meet historic success: Hassan Rouhani and the nuclear deal of 2015

Abstract

This study aims to show how dispositional characters of political leaders are affected by situational developments during the time‐in‐office. Although newly emerging literature of leadership traits demonstrate that significant events alter leaders’ traits, they mainly focus on the measurement of shocking events on dispositional features, leaving the effect of achievements underexplored. The Iranian nuclear deal of 2015 is one of the most significant successes in the last decade of world politics. Gambling his political career on nuclear talks by promising the Iranian people to solve Iran's decades‐long isolation, President Hassan Rouhani played a momentous role in negotiating the deal. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was globally recognized as a success of Rouhani's leadership. Using the Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA), this article will show the role of Rouhani's personality in the realization of the historic nuclear deal and measure the effect of such a success on Rouhani's leadership traits.