Born to lead? A twin design and genetic association study of leadership role occupancy

We address leadership emergence and the possibility that there is a partially innate predisposition to occupy a leadership role. Employing twin design methods on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate the heritability of leadership role occupancy at 24%. Twin studies do not point to specific genes or neurological processes that might be involved. We therefore also conduct association analysis on the available genetic markers. The results show that leadership role occupancy is associated with rs4950, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) residing on a neuronal acetylcholine receptor gene (CHRNB3). We replicate this family-based genetic association result on an independent sample in the Framingham Heart Study. This is the first study to identify a specific genotype associated with the tendency to occupy a leadership position. The results suggest that what determines whether an individual occupies a leadership position is the complex product of genetic and environmental influences, with a particular role for rs4950.     

Do leadership role occupancy and transformational leadership share the same genetic and environmental influences?

Using data collected from 107 pairs of identical and 89 pairs of fraternal female twins, this study examined the genetic and environmental associations between transformational leadership and leadership role occupancy. Results show that 78% of the covariance between the two leadership variables was attributable to overlapping genetic factors, while 22% of the covariance to overlapping environmental factors. In particular, 13% (2%) of the variance in leadership role occupancy was accounted for by the same genetic (environmental) factors related to transformational leadership. Unique sets of genetic and environmental variables, which are not associated with transformational leadership, explained 16% and 69% of the variance in leadership role occupancy, respectively. The results suggest that multiple manifestations of leadership (i.e., transformational leadership and leadership role occupancy) are differentially heritable. Although the association between these two variables is largely due to overlapping genetic rather than environmental factors, unique (i.e., non-overlapping) genetic and environmental influences still play an important role in impacting these leadership variables.     

Putting emergence back in leadership emergence: A dynamic,multilevel, process-oriented framework

The study of leadership emergence has increased substantially over the past few decades. However, due to a lack of integrative theory, we believe limited advancement has been made regarding the full process of leadership emergence. To address this concern, first, we conceptualize the leadership emergence process from a complexity perspective and define emergence as a dynamic, interactive process grounded in three principles of emergent phenomena. Second, we review how previous research has modeled leadership emergence by focusing on the content areas of the lower-level elements, the mechanisms that facilitate their emergence, and the dynamism of the process once it has emerged. Third, based on the findings from the review, we introduce a process-oriented framework of leadership emergence. Fourth, we offer propositions to guide developing and testing emergent leadership processes, and we conclude with recommendations for future leadership process research. Our hope is that by realigning the study of leadership emergence with complexity and multilevel theory, we can reorient this area to focusing more on the process mechanisms within emergence, connecting back to research progress made over 60?years ago.     

Revisiting emergence in emergent leadership: An integrative,multi-perspective review

We draw attention to how and why multiple perspectives on emergence can promote leadership scholarship within the broad umbrella category of emergent leadership. Tracing the derivation of emergent leadership and related concepts since 1941, we identify four empirically derived themes: Entries, or how and where definitions were introduced and adopted; Essences, identification of key components and processes; Eclipses, where certain constructs and approaches have gained prominence over others; and Erasures, where particular lines of inquiry and methodologies have been subsumed, ignored, or removed from easy access by researchers. In critically reviewing the emergent leadership literature, we apply these themes to reveal a number of flaws that inhibit emergent leadership research, including: inconsistent measures, narrow sampling frames, tautological definitions, limited theorization, and very little attention to implications for the development of leader-follower relations. Based on this analysis, and with reference to contemporary issues, we propose an agenda for future research on emergent leadership that is informed by interdisciplinary perspectives that give prominence to emergence dynamics.     

Implications of dispositional and process views of traits for individual difference research in leadership

This article assesses the conceptual and methodological limitations associated with traditional dispositional approaches to personality and leadership, and it proposes that more process-oriented approaches will better enable leadership research to explore emergent leadership phenomena such as perception and effectiveness. By reconceptualizing the structure of the self as a dynamic, but stable entity, we maintain that an explicit focus on events as a fundamental level of analysis is needed, which will help reduce the inaccuracies of aggregate retrospective leadership measures that collapse across different situations and time. Event-level research methodologies can also help account for the effects that situational contingencies have on leader behavioral flexibility, the development of leadership skills, and leadership emergence within shared or distributive leadership structures.     

Complexity leadership in bureaucratic forms of organizing: A meso model

We consider Complexity Leadership Theory [Uhl-Bien, M., Marion, R., & McKelvey, B. (2007). Complexity Leadership Theory: Shifting leadership from the industrial age to the knowledge era. The Leadership Quarterly.] in contexts of bureaucratic forms of organizing to describe how adaptive dynamics can work in combination with administrative functions to generate emergence and change in organizations. Complexity leadership approaches are consistent with the central assertion of the meso argument that leadership is multi-level, processual, contextual, and interactive. In this paper we focus on the adaptive function, an interactive process between adaptive leadership (an agentic behavior) and complexity dynamics (non-agentic social dynamics) that generates emergent outcomes (e.g., innovation, learning, adaptability) for the firm. Propositions regarding the actions of complexity leadership in bureaucratic forms of organizing are offered.     

From genes to minds to cultures: Evolutionary approaches to leadership

Evolutionary perspectives are part of any comprehensive explanation of leadership and, more generally, hierarchy formation in groups. This editorial describes contributions to a special issue on the theme of “The evolution and biology of leadership: A new synthesis”, and we reach four main conclusions. First, leadership has been a powerful force in the biological and cultural evolution of human sociality. Humans have evolved a range of cognitive and behavioral mechanisms (adaptations) that facilitate leader-follower relations, including safeguards against overly dominant leaders. Second, how these adaptations interact with local ecological and cultural contexts produces cultural variation in leadership preferences, and in the structure of human organizations more broadly. Third, an evolutionary perspective creates consilience between the social and natural sciences, by integrating leadership theory from diverse fields such as biology, psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, economics, and political science. Fourth, evolutionary approaches – and specifically the collection of articles in this theme issue – produce and test novel hypotheses, such as regards (i) the critical role of leadership in cooperation, (ii) the importance of contextual factors in leader emergence and effectiveness, (iii) interactions between genetic and cultural influences on leadership, and (iv) obstacles and opportunities for women leaders.     

An ACE in the hole: Twin family models for applied behavioral genetics research

Many studies investigate the genetic and environmental influences on traits using twin data and ACE models (A = additive genetic effects, C = shared environment effects, E = unshared environment effects). Unfortunately, relying on twins leads to biased results and limits what researchers can study. We introduce twin models and describe their problems. We show how to solve these problems with data from twins and their families, which allow modeling new effects such as the parent-to-child transmission of traits. We illustrate twin family models using extraversion (extroversion) data from the Virginia 30,000 twin family dataset, giving model specifications and code for the program Mplus. We conclude that if researchers are interested in understanding a broad sense of genetic influences on observed variables, traditional twin models are adequate. However, when data from twins and families are available, twin family models offer better and more interesting estimates of genetic and environmental effects.     

Women's political leadership participation around the world: An institutional analysis

Understanding institutional systems is critical for the advancement of women's participation in leadership in varying contexts. A unique and global analysis of the contextual factors that affect women in political leadership, this paper extends prior research in the field. This is a cross-country study where we ask, “How are societal-level institutional forces related to women's participation in political leadership?” We collected data from 8 secondary sources on 181 countries and conducted linear regression analyses with six institutional influences: the business environment, societal development, the economic environment, physical and technological infrastructure, political freedom, and culture. Results indicate that to increase the political leadership participation of women, we need to evaluate the following: customs and trade regulations, graft, the gender gap in political empowerment, public spending on education, the economic viability of the country, access to power and the internet, political freedom, and cultural variables like performance orientation, collectivism, and power distance.     

In the eye of the beholder? An eye-tracking experiment on emergent leadership in team interactions

Integrating evolutionary signaling theory with a social attention approach, we argue that individuals possess a fast, automated mechanism for detecting leadership signals in fellow humans that is reflected in higher visual attention toward emergent leaders compared to non-leaders. To test this notion, we first videotaped meetings of project teams and collected leadership ratings for the team members from three rating sources. Second, we provided 18 naïve observers with 42 brief, muted video clips of the team meetings and analyzed their eye gazing patterns. Observers gazed at emergent leaders more often, and for an average longer duration, than at non-leaders. Gender effects occurred such that male emergent leaders received a higher number of fixations than female emergent leaders. Non-verbal behavior analysis indicated that emergent leaders showed a higher amount of active gestures and less passive facial expressions than non-leaders. We discuss theoretical and methodological directions for emergent leadership research in teams.     

研发团队共享领导力行为的产生和对创新绩效的作用：基于垂直领导力的影响

 共享领导力是提高多元性、知识型的组织绩效的有效方式，但已有对研发组织领导力理论的研究大都侧重于垂直领导力对创新的影响，对共享领导力关注不足，而共享领导力作为一种随着团队发展而动态形成的领导力类型，已被证明是提高多元性、知识型组织绩效的有效方式；目前将共享领导力作为整体概念的研究思路能从宏观视角把握其作用机制，但不足以从微观层面揭示共享领导力的动态性的产生和作用。        基于领导力行为理论，从7个行为维度对共享领导力和垂直领导力进行解构，考虑垂直领导力的影响，从微观层面研究共享领导力的产生及对创新绩效的作用。运用访谈和参与性观察对4个研发团队进行全生命周期数据收集，通过多案例研究方法和规范的质性分析技术探究共享领导力行为在团队不同发展阶段的形成过程，以及垂直领导力行为对该形成过程的影响。区分创新绩效中的过程绩效、产品绩效和学习绩效，进一步揭示共享领导力和垂直领导力在促进不同创新绩效过程中发挥的不同作用。        研究结果表明，共享领导力不同行为的产生既直接依赖于垂直领导力，又通过依存环境间接依赖于垂直领导力；共享领导力的不同行为并非一次性形成，而是分别产生于团队生命周期的不同阶段，即在团队构建期首先形成跨边界领导行为，在成员磨合期形成激励行为和关怀行为，在规范执行期形成授权行为和变革领导行为；共享领导力行为的这种动态性决定了其直接作用于团队创新的学习绩效和产品绩效，对过程绩效没有直接作用，而垂直领导力行为则对过程绩效具有直接促进作用，并通过共享领导力间接作用于学习绩效。        在理论层面，从共享领导力行为角度分析其产生和作用，从微观层面挖掘其动态特性，解释了共享领导力和垂直领导力在促进创新绩效过程中的替代和互补关系，从而完善共享领导力的动态概念理论，也为后续的动态研究提供新思路。在实践层面，为研发团队管理中依据团队不同阶段和不同类型的创新绩效需求发展不同的共享领导力行为提供理论支持。     

Predictors of the emergence of transformational leadership in virtual decision teams

This study examined the etiology of transformational leadership in virtual team contexts. First, we compared 127 members of virtual decision-making teams with 135 members of traditional face-to-face teams in terms of the relationship between aspects of personality and the emergence of transformational leadership. The type of communication media (face-to-face versus “pure” virtual) was found to interact with extraversion and emotional stability in the prediction of emerging transformational leadership. In line with prior findings, we showed how these personality characteristics were relevant to transformational leadership emergence in our face-to-face teams. However, they were largely unrelated to such leadership in the virtual team context. We also focused specifically on the virtual context by analyzing the content of team interactions. After accounting for the effect of degree of activity level, the linguistic quality in one's written communication was found to predict the emergence of transformational leadership in virtual teams.     

Leader cognition: Approaches and findings

Although few scholars would dispute the point leaders must think, cognition has not, perhaps, received the attention it warrants in studies of leadership. The intent of the present special issue is to examine how cognition influences leader emergence and performance. In this introductory piece we argue that cognitive skills, often domain specific cognitive skills, strongly influence leader emergence and performance. The conditions that moderate the impact of these skills are also examined along with the ways in which cognitive capacities shape subsequent leader behavior. The implications of cognition for leader development and directions for future research are discussed.     

A mixed blessing? Dual mediating mechanisms in the relationship between dopamine transporter gene DAT1 and leadership role occupancy

Trait theories of leadership have documented the role of individual characteristics in affecting leadership. Twin studies have further revealed significant genetic effects on leadership role occupancy. In the era of genomics, the current research examines how a dopamine transporter gene, DAT1, is involved in genetic influences on leadership role occupancy. Study 1 found DAT1 10-repeat allele to negatively relate to proactive personality, which in turn was positively associated with leadership role occupancy. The negative indirect effect was significant, but the overall relationship between this gene and leadership was not. In addition to replicating Study 1's findings using a nationally representative sample, Study 2 revealed another countervailing mechanism: DAT1 was positively related to (moderate) rule breaking, which was positively associated with leadership role occupancy. Consistent findings across the two studies suggest that the pathways linking specific genes to leadership are complex and a middle-ground approach is needed in such multidisciplinary investigations.     

Let’s agree about nice leaders: A literature review and meta-analysis of agreeableness and its relationship with leadership outcomes

In this study, we draw from 22 years of research in leadership to investigate the ambiguous relationship between the personality trait agreeableness and leadership. First, we conduct a comprehensive review of the leadership literature to build a foundational understanding of leader agreeableness that includes providing a broad definition for agreeableness, identifying emerging trends, and proposing an agenda for future research. Second, using the literature review as our theoretical foundation, we conduct a meta-analysis from the same body of literature to quantitatively decompose the relationship between leader agreeableness and leadership emergence and effectiveness. We also hypothesize and test the contextual moderating effects for gender, leadership level, and cultural context (as reflected by individualism-collectivism). Collectively, our findings provide a framework for future research on leadership agreeableness and support the notion that nice (highly agreeable) leaders can emerge as effective leaders.     

The many faces of emotional leadership

This article focuses heavily on overviewing and analyzing the seven articles in this special issue on emotions and leadership. The articles are discussed in terms of four key leadership issues. The first issue concerns the traits necessary for leadership. Empathy is shown to be an important variable that is central to both emotional intelligence and leadership emergence. The second issue concerns the relationship of emotions to the leadership process. It is argued that a key leadership function is to manage the emotions of group members, especially with regard to feelings related to frustration and optimism. The third issue involves our perceptions about leaders. Leaders' emotional displays are demonstrated to have a larger impact on perceptions of leaders than the content of the leaders' messages, at least in some circumstances. The fourth area involves the relationship between leadership and performance. Leaders' influences upon emotional process variables are found to have a large impact on performance. The article develops several propositions that summarize the content of this special issue and, in addition, develops new propositions that suggest future areas of research. The article concludes by touching on the review process and acknowledges the reviewers for this special issue.     

Traits and time in leadership emergence: A longitudinal study

We extend Implicit Leadership Theory, which addresses criteria that individuals use to identify leaders, by examining whether the predictors of leadership emergence change over time. Building on leader-distance research, we predict that time influences the traits on which individuals base their selection of others as leaders: Initially, before individuals have had many opportunities to interact, and distance between them is high, they select leaders according to easily-noticeable physical and psychological traits; however, with time, as distance decreases, they rely on more covert psychological traits. We carried out a three-day field study in an intensive workshop for individuals entering an executive-MBA program (n = 64). Data were gathered from participants at four points in time. We found that the criteria by which people nominate leaders change over time from easily-noticeable traits (facial attractiveness, gender, extraversion) to more covert personality traits (conscientiousness).     

Explaining ambidextrous leadership in the aerospace and defense organizations

Researchers have increasingly been using the term of organizational ambidexterity to denote the simultaneous use of exploration and exploitation in organizations. Exploration refers to innovation, whereas exploitation addresses cost efficiency. However, despite the plethora of research output on ambidexterity, very few studies are actually providing insights into what specific behaviors and leadership styles accomplish ambidexterity and how organizational constraints influence ambidextrous leadership. In this research, we aim to explain the key properties of ambidextrous leadership, where we propose that ambidexterity is most efficiently promoted by ambidextrous leaders who combine two leadership styles: transformational leadership and transactional leadership. In our study, we associate transformational leadership to exploration, whereas transactional leadership is linked to exploitation. We conduct a research on ambidextrous leadership in the aerospace and defense organizations while also taking into account how organizational structure and environmental dynamism impact leadership styles. The results of our research reveal that both leadership styles are present at the senior management level. Top management, however, mostly uses transactional leadership in part because of structural and environmental constraints while also employing some limited form of transformational leadership style. Therefore, our study concludes that in this particular field the ambidextrous leaders are primarily focused on exploitative activities, while only a limited amount of their time is being allocated on exploration-oriented objectives.