Nature vs. Nurture: Are Leaders Born or Made? A Behavior Genetic Investigation of Leadership Style

Authors

Andrew M. Johnson, The University of Western Ontario
Philip A. Vernon, The University of Western Ontario
Julie M. McCarthy, The University of Western Ontario
Mindy Molson, University of California - Los Angeles
Julie Aitken Harris, The University of Western OntarioFollow
Kerry L. Jang, University of British Columbia

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-1998

Journal

Twin Research

Volume

1

Issue

4

First Page

216

Last Page

223

URL with Digital Object Identifier

http://dx.doi.org/10.1375/136905298320566195

Abstract

With the recent resurgence in popularity of trait theories of leadership, it is timely to consider the genetic determination of the multiple factors comprising the leadership construct. Individual differences in personality traits have been found to be moderately to highly heritable, and so it follows that if there are reliable personality trait differences between leaders and non-leaders, then there may be a heritable component to these individual differences. Despite this connection between leadership and personality traits, however, there are no studies of the genetic basis of leadership using modern behavior genetic methodology. The present study proposes to address the lack of research in this area by examining the heritability of leadership style, as measured by self-report psychometric inventories. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), the Leadership Ability Evaluation, and the Adjective Checklist were completed by 247 adult twin pairs (183 monozygotic and 64 same-sex dizygotic). Results indicated that most of the leadership dimensions examined in this study are heritable, as are two higher level factors (resembling transactional and transformational leadership) derived from an obliquely rotated principal components factors analysis of the MLQ. Univariate analyses suggested that 48% of the variance in transactional leadership may be explained by additive heritability, and 59% of the variance in transformational leadership may be explained by non-additive (dominance) heritability. Multivariate analyses indicated that most of the variables studied shared substantial genetic covariance, suggesting a large overlap in the underlying genes responsible for the leadership dimensions.