Genetics and Leadership

The Determinants of Leadership: The Role of Genetic, Personality, and Cognitive

Factors

Richard D. Arvey Maria Rotundo

University of Minnesota University of Toronto

Matt McGue Wendy Johnson

University of Minnesota

Under review with the Journal of Applied Psychology. Not to be cited or quoted without
permission
 Genetics and Leadership 1

Abstract

A sample of 646 male twins (331 monozygotic or identical, 315 dizygotic or fraternal

twins) completed a survey indicating their leadership role occupancy in work settings.

Data on these individuals were also available for personality and cognitive variables. As

predicted, two personality variables (Social Potency and Achievement) and a cognitive

variable (a vocabulary test) were significantly correlated with the leadership variable.

Subsequently, univariate and multivariate genetic analyses showed that a substantial

portion of this leadership variance was accounted for by genetic factors (39 percent)

while non-shared (or non-common) environmental factors accounted for the remaining

variance in this leadership variable. Genetic influences were shown for the personality

and cognitive factors as well. Finally, results indicated that the genetic influences for the

leadership factor were substantially associated with or common with the genetic factors

influencing the personality factors but not with the cognitive variable.
 Genetics and Leadership 2

The Determinants of Leadership: The Role of Genetics, Personality, and Cognitive

Variables

What are the determinants of leadership in work and organizational settings? This

question has been pursued for decades. Throughout the years, a variety of constructs and

predictors have been posited as determinants of leadership including general intelligence,

personality, values, and even genetic factors. Though the proposition that individual

differences or “traits” can predict and/or explain differences in emergent or effective

leadership has sometimes been viewed with skepticism, current research has more firmly

established the robustness of these types of variables in predicting leadership criteria. For

example, Judge, Bono, Illies, and Gehrardt (2002) present the results of their meta-

analysis showing that personality variables are consistently and reliably correlated with

leadership variables, Chan and Drasgow (2001) demonstrate that a number of cognitive,

personality, and motivational constructs are related to leadership across samples from

different international environments, and Schneider, Paul, White, and Holcome (1999)

show that a variety of constructs drawn from personality, interests, and motivation

domains predicts leadership among high school students.

Because of the firm foundation regarding the relationships between the constructs

of individual differences and leadership, it is not far-fetched to ask whether leadership is

genetically influenced. Indeed, the notion that leadership has genetic influences has been

articulated in practitioner and scholarly articles over the years. For example, in a recent

Harvard Business Review article, Sorcher and Brant (2002) say: “Our experience has led

us to believe that much of leadership talent is hardwired in people before they reach their
 Genetics and Leadership 3

early or mid-twenties” (p. 81). In contrast, Kellaway (2002) reports the efforts of a major

US Bank to develop all of its employees (95,000 of them) into leaders, reflecting the

belief that leadership is entirely under developmental influences. It is interesting to note

that almost no research exists that examines this “nature-nurture” issue using a

contemporary behavior genetics research design, even though Bass (1990, p. 911) and

Arvey and Bouchard (1994, p. 70) suggest that such analyses would be quite appropriate.

In addition, Arvey and Bouchard (1994) indicate that while there may be evidence for

genetic influences on variables like leadership, such relationships are most likely

mediated through other intermediate constructs (i.e. psychological and physiological

variables). The current study explores the relationships of different personality and

cognitive constructs with leadership as well as the roles genetic influences play in these

associations.

Background: Several literature bases are important in developing the model and

objectives for this study.

First, the research base establishing a genetic basis for leadership is limited. To

our knowledge, only one previous study has examined this issue. Johnson, Vernon,

McCarthy, Molson, Harris and Jang (1998) report the results of a study using 183 MZ

and 64 DZ same-sex twin pairs. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ ; Bass

& Avolio, 1991) and other leadership measures (e.g. adjective checklist items) were

completed by these twins. Two factors resembling transactional and transformational

leadership dimensions were derived from MLQ items by factor analytic procedures.

Results indicated that 48% and 59% of the variance in the transactional and

transformational leadership dimensions respectively was associated with genetic factors.

 Genetics and Leadership 4

The data also indicated that the genetic factor for the transformational dimension

reflected a non-additive or dominant effect—that is, the impact of one gene depends on

influence of another instead of simply “adding up”. Other analyses showed that there

were common genetic factors in the covariance found between these two leadership

dimensions from the MLQ and several other leadership scales. This is an important entry

into the research issue of whether leadership has some genetic associations. We expand

on this research in several ways. First, we incorporate alternative measures of leadership

that focus on leadership role occupancy that are perhaps more clearly distinguishable

from other measured facets of leadership style. Second, we incorporate an expanded

model proposing and testing a model of the determinants of leadership proposing that

cognitive and personality variables are related to role occupancy (see below). This is

important because simply showing that a construct is heritable leaves many unanswered

questions regarding how the genetic mechanisms work and through which processes.

Moreover, we investigate whether and to what degree any observed relationships between

personality and cognitive variables and our leadership variable are due to common

genetic factors.

A second literature base has to do with the research demonstrating relationships

between personality dimensions and leadership. While a number of studies have

demonstrated that personality variables are useful in predicting various aspects of job

performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991, Hough, 1992; Lord, DeVader, & Alliger, 1986),

there is also evidence that such variables predict a variety of leadership criteria. As

mentioned above, Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt (2002) meta-analyzed 222

correlations from 73 samples providing personality data according to the five-factor

 Genetics and Leadership 5

model (Digman, 1990) and found that measures of Extraversion correlated .31, measures

of Conscientiousness correlated .28, measures of Openness correlated .24, and measures

of Neuroticism correlated -.24 with leadership emergence (after corrections for

unreliability but not range restriction). Similar findings have been reported previously by

Hogan, Curphy, and Hogan (1994), Yukl (1998), Bass (1990), and Daft (1999). Thus,

there is a substantial research base establishing a link between personality variables and

leadership.

In addition, the genetic basis for personality is well established dating back to

Loehlin and Nichols (1976). Since then similar results have been obtained for a variety of

personality measures. A few examples include the study by Jang, Livesley, and Vernon

(1996) who used a twin methodology where 123 pairs of monzygotic (MZ) twins and 121

dizygotic (DZ) twins were assessed using the revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa

& McCrae, 1992). This inventory is used to capture the five factors of personality

mentioned above. The estimates of genetic influence (or heritabilities) of these

dimensions were as follows: Neuroticism (41%), Extraversion (53%), Openness (61%),

Agreeableness (41%), and Conscientiousness (44%). Using twin pairs (about 800) drawn

from the National Merit Twin Study, Loehlin, McCrae, Costa, and John (1998) showed

that the “Big Five” personality factors were substantially and comparably heritable with

about 50% of the variance in these personality constructs being associated with genetic

factors; however little or no influence due to shared family environment was found

among these twin pairs. Similar estimates were obtained by Rieman, Angleitner, and

Strelau (1997) using twin samples recruited for their study in Germany. Rowe (1994)

summarizes his own earlier study (Loehlin and Rowe, 1992) where multiple studies and
 Genetics and Leadership 6

samples were analyzed which differed in terms of their genetic relationships (e.g. twins,

parent-child, adoptive siblings, etc.) as well as other sample characteristics (e.g. different

age groups, different geographical areas, etc.). The heritability estimates for the big five

personality dimensions ranged from .39 to .49, with the heritability for Extraversion

demonstrating the highest estimate (.49). Rowe concluded that “Individuals who share

genes are alike in personality regardless of how they are reared, whereas rearing

environment induces little or no personality resemblance” (Rowe, 1994, p. 64). Moving

beyond personality measures relying on the Five Factor taxonomy, Tellegen, Lykken,

Bouchard, Wilcox, Segal, and Rich (1988) report a study using twins who were assessed

on the 11 major personality traits as measured by the Multidimensional Personality

Questionnaire (MPQ, Tellegen, 1982). Their data indicated that genetic influences were

significant and substantial for all 11 scales (ranging from .39 for achievement to .58 for

constraint). For excellent contemporary reviews affirming the heritabilities of personality

traits see Bouchard (1997) and Bouchard and Loehlin (2001).

Finally, there is a research base showing that measures of intelligence are

correlated with leadership variables. For example, meta-analytic results reported by

Lord, DeVader, and Alliger (1986) indicate that the mean true correlation of measures of

intelligence and leadership is .50. Other reviews by Stogdill (1974), Bray and Howard

(1983) and others support the intelligence—leadership relationship. More recently,

Schneider, Ehrhart, and Ehrhart (in press) showed that one of the most consistent

predictors of leadership in high school students was grade point average, a typical proxy

of mental ability. There is also a robust research base demonstrating that general

cognitive ability is heritable (Bouchard & McGue, 1981) where approximately 50 percent
 Genetics and Leadership 7

of the total variance of such constructs can be accounted for by genetic factors and about

one quarter by shared environmental factors1 (Plomin, McClearn, & McGuffin, 2001;

Plomin and Rende, 1991). Thus, the inference that cognitive ability will be related to

leadership and that a genetic component might underlie this relationship is not difficult to

make.

Research Objectives. Given this background, the objectives of the present research are to

investigate the following: 1) to affirm the relationships of a variety of personality, and

cognitive ability measures with leadership, 2) to investigate the role of genetic influences

in explaining these personality and mental ability constructs as well as leadership itself,

and 3) to investigate the degree to which any observed relationships between these

predictor constructs and leadership variables are due to common genetic influences.

Method and Results

Sample. The sample for this study was drawn from the Minnesota Twin Registry. The

Registry is the product of an ongoing effort to locate as many as possible of the 10,000

surviving intact twin pairs born in Minnesota from 1936 to 1981 (Lykken, Bouchard,

McGue, & Tellegen, 1990). The Minnesota Twin Registry subsample examined in the

present study was assessed as part of the Minnesota Parenting Project, a broad study of

life outcomes in men born between the years 1961 and 1964. The sample was restricted

to men born in those years in order to hold age, sex, and birth cohort relatively constant.

For purposes of this study, the relevant aspect of the sample was that it was representative

of young working-age men born in Minnesota during this time. We sent surveys to 558

male twin pairs (1,116 individuals) who participated in this earlier study. A total of 646

completed surveys were returned, yielding a response rate of 58%. Of the 646 returned
 Genetics and Leadership 8

and completed surveys, 426 included both members of the twin pair. Of these 213 twin

pairs (426 participants), 119 pairs were monozygotic twins and 94 pairs were dizygotic

twins. As was their Minnesota birth cohort, the sample was primarily White (98%), and

had an average age of 36.7 years (SD = 1.12). A total of 78% were married or living with

a partner, and 14% were single. Other relevant characteristics of the total sample and twin

types are presented in Table 1. The largest proportion of the sample described

themselves as working in the production, construction, operating, maintenance, material

handling (34.3%) or professional, paraprofessional, or technical (26.6%) occupations. No

differences were observed between twin types on these variables.

The participants' zygosity had been determined as part of the Minnesota Parenting

Project, using a five-item questionnaire that has been shown to exceed 95% accuracy

compared to serological methods for establishing zygosity (Lykken, Bouchard, McGue,

and Tellegen, 1990).

Measures Used. A variety of measures reflecting the different constructs were used.

They are as follows:

Leadership: The definition and measurement of leadership has vexed researchers for

years. Yukl (1998) and others have provided an overview of the major research

approaches taken. These include the: 1) power-influence approach, 2) trait approach, 3)

behavioral approach, and 4) situational approach. These different approaches are well

known and articulated in many sources; thus, we will not repeat here a description of

these various paradigms. For the present research, we measured leadership from a

leadership “emergence” perspective where leadership is defined and measured in terms of

the various formal and informal leadership role attainments of individuals in work
 Genetics and Leadership 9

settings (see Judge, et al., [2000] for a discussion of “emergence” versus “effectiveness”

leadership distinctions). We focused exclusively on leadership in work because of its

relatively greater interest to behavioral scientists in this area (e.g. industrial

psychologists).

Our leadership measure was developed using a “bio-history” methodology where

respondents indicated past participation or role occupation in leadership positions. The

bio-history or biographical approach to psychological measurement is a well-known and

acceptable procedure in assessing autobiographical or historical events among individuals

(Mumford & Stokes, 1992), including assessments of leadership potential and

effectiveness (Stricker & Rock, 1998; McElreath & Bass, 1999; Chan & Drasgow, 2001).

Respondents in our study replied to several items: 1) List the work-related professional

associations in which they served as a leader (m=2.23, s.d.=.58), 2) Indicate whether they

had “taken charge of a special project”, 3) Indicate whether they had “planned or

coordinated a special event” at work, and 4) Indicate whether they had held positions at

work that would be considered managerial or supervisory in nature (a number of different

options were presented, e.g., manager, supervisor, director, vice-president, etc.). Table 2

presents the sample responses to these items. Chi-square analyses revealed that the

monozygotic twins had held significantly more work group and director leadership

positions on the job (p. <.05) than the dizygotic twins. No other differences were

observed.

We developed four initial scores for each individual for leadership role

occupancy. The first score was developed by assigning 7 points if he checked President

(the highest ranking category), 6 points if he checked Vice-President (the next highest-
 Genetics and Leadership 10

ranking category) but not President, 5 points if he checked Manager but neither of the

other 2 higher ranking categories, etc. We standardized this score. A second score was

developed based on the number of leadership roles assumed in professional associations

(standardized). A third score was based on whether the individual had taken charge of a

special project (standardized), and a fourth score was based on whether the individual had

planned a special event (also standardized). We averaged across these four variables to

create our leadership composite; we had no a-priori justification for providing differential

weights for the four scores. We argue that this composite represents one form of a

multidimensional construct—the aggregate model--discussed by Law, Wong, and

Mobley (1998)2. This model is described as when a composite variable is formed by

algebraically summing a number of other variables conceptually related to the construct

of interest; the variables are not necessarily statistically interrelated nor does the resulting

composite necessarily represent an underlying latent construct. There were 3 outlying

observations on this scale and trimmed these three observations to a value 2.00. The

mean for this composite scale was .00 (s.d.=.67, n= 646) with a range between –.87 to

2.00. There was a significant mean difference (F=5.36, p<.05) between monozygotic

twins (m = .059) and dizygotic twins (m = -.065), but the effect size was relatively small

between these two groups (.18). The scale correlated significantly (p<.01) with scales

formed using similar items where respondents reported their past leadership activities in

high school (.21), college (.18), and in current community activities (.22).

Other psychometric properties of this scale behaved as expected. For example,

the scale was not significantly related to a number of variables for which there were no a-

priori expectations of a relationship (i.e., marital status, etc.), it was negatively correlated
 Genetics and Leadership 11

with variables for which a reverse relationship was expected (i.e. those who lived on a

farm scored lower on this scale, -.10), and it was positively correlated with total

household income (r=.23, p<.01)—a reasonable expectation (Kuhn & Weinberger, 2002).

Finally, in an effort to verify that individuals were indeed in the leadership roles that they

indicated, we conducted telephone interviews with 11 individuals who were among the

top scorers on this variable. We asked them to provide additional details concerning the

various roles they occupied (e.g. how many people they supervised, what kinds of

responsibilities were involved, etc.) In almost every case, there was sufficient data for us

to feel that the information provided was verified.

Personality measures. The 198-item form of the Mutidimensional Personality

Questionniare (MPQ; Tellegen, 1982; Tellegen & Waller, 2001) was administered to the

larger twin population from which this sample was drawn. This inventory yields scores

on 11 primary trait scales developed through factor analysis. The mean 30-day test-retest

reliability is .87 for these MPQ primary scales. It is important to note that the sample

(and larger population) completed this inventory as part of a separate survey six years

earlier than the survey administered regarding the leadership measures described above.

Thus, there was a considerable time difference between the completion of this personality

inventory and the leadership survey. This reduces the possibility of inflated correlations

due to same-time method bias and establishes some plausibility for the premise that

personality predicts leadership rather than vice-versa. As mentioned in the introduction,

the trait scales based on the MPQ scales have demonstrated relatively high heritabilities

based on other samples. Also, while the trait scales from the MPQ do not map exactly

into the taxonomy provided by the Five Factor organization of personality dimensions,
 Genetics and Leadership 12

there is sufficient similarities between several of the dimensions and facets subsumed

under the Five Factor structure (see Hough & Ones [2002} and Bouchard & Lochlin

[2001] for a cross-walk between the Five Factor model and the MPQ scales and Church

[1994] for an empirical examination of the relationships between MPQ scales and Costa

& McCrae’s [1995] NEO Personality Inventory, which directly measures dimensions

organized around the Five Factor model). We elected to use three scales drawn from the

MPQ—Social Potency, Achievement, and Social Closeness. A description of these three

scales is provided in Appendix A. The choice of these three scales was based on several

factors. First, the Social Potency scale corresponds well with the Extroversion dimension

of the Big Five and, as mentioned in the introduction, the Extroversion dimension

showed the highest meta-analytically derived correlation with leadership (.31). Second,

Judge, et al. (2002) showed that the lower-order dominance trait of the Extroversion

dimension showed a relatively high (.37) correlation against leadership criteria (see Table

3 in Judge, et al., 2002). Similarly, the MPQ Achievement scale corresponds to the lower

order personality trait of achievement also shown by Judge, et al. (2002) to be highly

correlated (.35) against leadership criteria. In addition, the MPQ Achievement scale is

indicated as being rationally and empirically similar to the Conscientiousness factor in

the Five Factor model (see Hough & Ones [2002] and Table 3 in Church [1994]). This

Conscientiousness dimension also shows a relatively high meta-analytic correlation

against leadership (.29) according to the Judge et al (2002) study. Finally, the Social

Closeness MPQ scale empirically maps onto the Extroversion dimension of the Five

Factor model (see Table 3, Church, 1994) and is conceptually similar to the lower order

personality trait of sociability shown by Judge et al. (2002) to be correlated against

 Genetics and Leadership 13

leadership criteria (.24). The correlations between these three MPQ scales ranged from

-.07 to .35 and were thus relatively independent of each other. Based on these previous

findings, we predict these three MPQ scales to be significantly correlated against our

measure of leadership emergence.

Cognitive Measure: The verbal component of the Weschler Adult Intelligence

Scale (WAIS-R) was administered over the telephone to a random subset of the

individuals as part of their earlier participation in the Minnesota Parenting Project. Like

the MPQ, this test was administered several years prior to the present investigation. It

should be noted that only a subsection of the sample had these data available (n=346).

The mean for the Vocabulary score was 46.35 (s.d.=11.8); MZ’s scored significantly

higher (m = 47.99) than DZ’s (m = 43.86) on this measure (F= 10.40, p< .01).. The

means, standard deviations for the personality, cognitive, and leadership variables are

shown in Table 3.

Analytical Approach. As a first step in the analyses we correlated the various personality

and cognitive variables against the leadership variable. These values are also shown in

Table 3. It is clear from these single-order correlations that the leadership variable is

significantly correlated against all four of these variables as predicted. The MPQ scale of

Social Potency showed the highest correlation (.35) whereas the Social Closeness scale

showed the lowest (.15). The multiple correlation coefficient (.40) between these

variables and leadership was also significant at the .01 level but the Social Closeness

variable did not exhibit a significant beta-weight (p <.40) and therefore this variable was

dropped from further analyses.

 Genetics and Leadership 14

The second step in our analyses was to estimate the amount of variance in the

various measures due to genetic and environmental components. Our quantitative genetic

model is based on the assumption that the observed phenotypic variance (Vp) is a linear

additive function of genetic (Vg) and shared (Vs) and non-shared (Vn) environmental

variance, respectively. Symbolically,

Vp = Vg + Vs + Vn.

Under this model, the non-shared environmental variance represents residual

variance not explained by either of the other two sources, confounded with measurement

error.

The expected covariance between any two members of a twin pair as a function of

the variance components given above can be specified as,

COV(MZ) =Vg + Vs

COV(DZ) = .5*Vg + Vs

Vg, or the proportion of the total variance attributable to additive genetic sources,

can therefore expressed as:

Vg = 2[Cov(MZ)-Cov(DZ)].

Or alternatively as:

2(MZ intraclass correlation-DZ intraclass correlation)

where intraclass correlations are calculated separately for the monozygotic (MZ) and

dizygotic (DZ) twins using the formula:

(MSB-MSW)/(MSB + MSW), (1)

 Genetics and Leadership 15

and MSB is the Mean Square Between twin pairs and MSW is the Mean Square Within

twin pairs from a One-way Analysis of Variance with twin pairs as the independent

variable.

Heritability estimates are based on several assumptions. The first is that twins

(both MZ and DZ) are representative of the population as a whole for the trait in

question. For personality traits, in particular as measured by the MPQ, this appears to be

the case (Johnson, Krueger, Bouchard, & McGue, 2002). Second, we assume that MZ

twins share environmental influences to the same degree as DZ twins. Several attempts

have been made to uncover circumstances in which this assumption does not hold, with

generally negative results. We attempted to test the validity of this assumption in this

sample. A portion of the sample had completed a questionnaire assessing the degree of

closeness of their relationship with their co-twin. For the MZ pairs that provided these

data, the closeness of the twin relationship was not related to the twin similarity on the

leadership variables3.

Another assumption is that there is no assortative mating (meaning that the

parents of the twins were not similar) for the traits in question. When present, assortative

mating tends to increase DZ twin correlations, but has no effect on Mz twin correlations.

Thus, because some assortative mating (with coefficients ranging from .10 to .20) exists

for most personality-related traits (Price & Vandenberg, 1980), this assumption generally

has the effect of understating heritability estimates. Such relatively small values,

however, are unlikely to reduce estimates of genetic influence substantially. We also

assume that there are no genetic and environmental interactions. Again, though the

concept of such interactions has great intuitive appeal, few replicable genotype-
 Genetics and Leadership 16

environment interactions have been found (Plomin, DeFries, & McClearn, 1988),

although progress is being made in terms of detecting such interactions (Rutter & Silberg,

2002; Legrand, McGue, & Iacono, 1999).

The final assumption is that the genetic variance is additive in the sense that if

multiple genes influence the trait, they do so independently of each other. Violations of

this assumption could mask shared environmental effects in reared-together twin studies,

but without reared-apart twins, we have no way of addressing the extent to which the

assumption holds in the current study.

For the purposes of conducting our various genetic analyses we wished to remove

skew from the leadership variable and therefore performed a log-transformation of this

variable, re-standardized it, and multiplied it by 100. To place the personality and

cognitive measures on the same scale as the leadership variable, they were likewise

standardized and multiplied by 100.

Table 4 shows the twin intraclass correlations for the personality and leadership

measures, along with heritabilities they imply. As reported in other studies, the MPQ

scales we used showed strong heritabilities. Of note is that the leadership variable

demonstrated an implied heritability of .55, a considerably high value.

At this point of our analyses, there was fairly good evidence for the heritabilities

of the various independent predictor variables in our model as well as for the leadership

variable. However, more sophisticated analyses can be applied 1) to provide more

accurate estimates of heritabilities, 2) to separate environmental influences into shared

and non-shared environmental sources and 3) to provide more clear estimates of the

extent to which there are common influences among the predictor and the leadership
 Genetics and Leadership 17

variables. To this end, we first estimated the genetic influences (along with estimates of

the influences of shared and non-shared environmental factors) associated with each of

the variables derived from our leadership model using standard structural equation

modeling procedures and the method of maximum likelihood as operationalized in the

software program Mx (Neale, 1994). Using the separate trait covariance structures for the

MZ and DZ twins, the procedure models the influencing factors according to the

assumptions outlined above. The basic model for twin data includes three factors that

influence an observed measurement (phenotype) or latent variable: additive genetic

effects (A), common environmental effects, i.e. influences shared by members of the

same family (C), and non-shared environmental effects and/or error (E). As shown in

equation 2, variance in a phenotype can be expressed as the sum of variance attributable

to each of the three factors, A, C, and E., each weighted by a parameter (h, c, or e) that

determines their relative influence:

Vleadership = h2 + c2 + e2 (2)

Figure 1 presents the path model used to describe the relationships among the

variables for two individuals who are either MZ or DZ twins. This is the path model used

for the present analyses and is found in Heath et al. (1989). The paths e, h, and c

represent the relative influences of the non-shared environmental, additive genetic, and

shared environmental latent variables on an observed or latent leadership variable. MZ

twins share all their genetic materials, thus the correlation of 1.0 between the additive

genetic components of Twin 1 and Twin 2 of the MZ pair; DZ twins share, on average,

one half of their genes so that the corresponding correlation is .5 for the DZ twins. The

common environment between pair members of both twin sets is set at 1.0, reflecting the
 Genetics and Leadership 18

assumption of equal common environmental influence, whereas the path between the

non-shared environmental factors for the twins is, by definition, specified as zero. The

modeling procedure estimates the three proportions, and reports the degree to which the

resulting parameter estimates fit the assumptions.

Table 5 shows these results of these structural equation heritability analyses for

the different variables in our model. Perhaps of most importance is to examine the

heritability of the observed leadership variable4. The heritiability was .47 (95%

confidence interval .09-.58) for this variable. To evaluate model fit we reviewed both the

Akaike Information Criterion (AIC; Akaike, 1983) and the RMSEA. The AIC=Chi-

square stat-2df provides a summary index of both model fit and parsimony; models that

have large negative values of AIC are preferred over those with smaller negative or

positive AIC values. As can be seen, the univariate model fit particularly well for the

leadership variable—the RMSEA was .00 and the AIC value was negative5. Thus, there

is good evidence for genetic influence on each of this observed variable. Also, the

variance accounted for by the shared environmental factors was zero, whereas the non-

shared Environmental and/or measurement error factor accounted for the remaining

amount of the variance (.53) for this leadership variable.

Also, as shown in Table 5, there is good evidence for the heritabilities of the two

personality variables as well (above .40) and the values observed are quite close to those

obtained by Telligen et al. (1988) for these specific variables. Also, of note is that the

Shared Environment played almost role in accounting for the variance for these variables

as well. The genetic influence for the Vocabulary variable was 43, a value somewhat

lower than what might be expected given the extensive research on the heritability of this
 Genetics and Leadership 19

variable. This lower value might be due to a more restricted range on this variabble

compared to a full-scale IQ measure. The proportion of variance due to the shared

environment component was .28 for Vocabulary, which is also slightly deviant from

previous research findings showing lower or no contribution of this component. The fit

statistics for this particular variable were not strong either.

Next, we fit a multivariate model to the twin data to estimate the proportions of

genetic and environmental influences on the various personality and leadership measures

as well as to assess the genetic correlations between them. This approach was used

because of the multivariate nature of the data (multiple independent and dependent

variables were involved) instead of examining the genetic and environmental influences

one variable at a time6. It is important to note that the model we fit is an outgrowth of our

sample and study objectives. It is a descriptive model; we are not testing it against

alternatives. Thus future research should replicate these results in other samples and test

alternative models.

To fit this model, we made use of expectation maximization to generate MZ and

DZ variance-covariance matrices. This procedure relies on maximum likelihood

estimation procedures to generate the variance-covariance matrices making use of all

available data, whether or not the data are completed for each individual. This method

relies on the assumption that whatever data are missing are missing at random in the

sense of the Little and Rubin (1987) discussion. We believe that this assumption was

defensible because the process that generated the missing data (i.e., different

questionnaires administered to different portions of the sample at different times) had

nothing to do with the variables being observed and because there were no significant
 Genetics and Leadership 20

differences on other variables used in our study between those individuals for whom

cognitive data were collected and those who did not have such data.

The results of our analyses revealed that because the maximum likelihood surface

was relatively flat, there were two solutions with similar fit statistics. (Chi-square values

of 23.2 and 22.9 with 52 df, p=1.000.). We present the solution (Chi-square = 23.2) that

provided heritability estimates that most closely resembled those obtained from the above

univariate analyses. However, the proportion of variance estimates and the genetic

correlations from both solutions were similar7. Table 6 shows the proportions of variance

attributable to genetic, shared environmental, and non-shared environmental sources for

each of the traits based on this model. The fit statistics for this model were: AIC = -80.80

and the RMSEA = .000 indicating a very good fit.

Again, the proportion of variance attributed to genetic influences for the

leadership variable was relatively high (.39). As with the univariate model, no variance is

attributed to the shared environment component. In some contrast with the univariate

analysis, the proportion of variance attributed to genetic influences on vocabulary was

only .39, but no variance was attributed to the shared environment. This finding is more

consistent with previous research findings. Similar values were observed for the two

personality variables, though the estimate of genetic influence is still relatively low.

The structural equation analyses also generated several interesting correlational

results. First, the modeled phenotypic (or observed) correlations of the personality and

cognitive factors with the leadership variable was .36 for Social Potency, .26 for

Achievement, and .06 for the vocabulary variable, indicating that the personality factors
 Genetics and Leadership 21

were relatively more important than the cognitive factor in their association with the

leadership variable.

Second, the genetic correlations between the various personality and cognitive

variables and the latent leadership variable were generated and are shown in Table 7. The

genetic correlation reflects the extent to which whatever genetic variance is associated

with two variables is likely to be in common. The squared value of a genetic correlation

represents the proportion of the heritability of the latent leadership measure that can be

explained by the genetic factors affecting each of the personality and cognitive factors.

Consider two completely heritable traits such as eye and hair color. Though heritability is

100% for each, the genetic correlation is much lower, though it may not in fact be zero,

as dark eyes and hair tend to be found in the same person, as do blue eyes and blonde

hair. We also report the shared and non-shared environmental correlations. Similarly,

their squared values represent the proportions of the shared and non-shared

environmental factors affecting leadership that can be explained by the shared and non-

shared environmental factors affecting personality. We also show the correlations

between the leadership variable and each of the personality and cognitive variables in

Table 7 for comparative purposes.

These data indicate that a substantial amount of the genetic influence on the

leadership variable was common to the other personality variables. For example, the

genetic correlation between the Social Potency and Leadership variable pair was .61

indicating that 37 percent of the genetic variance for leadership is shared or in common

with that of the Social Potency. The genetic correlation between the Achievement and

Leadership variable pair was .42, indicating that .17 percent of the genetic variance for
 Genetics and Leadership 22

leadership is shared with this personality factor. On the other hand, the genetic

correlation for the Cognitive and Leadership pair is only .07, indicating that less than 1

percent of the genetic variance accounting for Leadership is in common with the

Cognitive factor.

One further question concerns the percentage of the genetic variance in leadership

that is due to both personality and cognitive ability jointly? To estimate this, one can add

the proportions of variance to the extent to which they are independent. Achievement

and Vocabulary and Vocabulary and Social Potency are virtually independent

(correlations are .01 and .07 respectively) and Social Potency and Vocabulary are

correlated .18, so their common variance is 3%. Accordingly, the percentage of the

genetic variance (based on squaring the genetic correlations found in Table 7) due to both

personality and vocabulary would be 37% from Social Poise, plus 17% from

Achievement, plus 1% from Vocabulary minus the common variances for a total of 53%.

This is an approximate value, however.

One of the objectives of the present research was to investigate the degree to

which personality and cognitive variables would mediate any genetic influence observed.

These data suggest that the relationship between the personality and leadership variables

is mediated through a common genetic mechanism to some degree, but that genetic

influences on cognitive ability and leadership are independent. The genetic influences on

leadership are mainly dispersed among the two different personality factors.

The relatively high correlations observed for the shared environment factor

reflects the notion that the small amounts of variance accounted for by this factor for the

various variables covary, but are probably not accurate.

 Genetics and Leadership 23

Discussion

This study was largely exploratory in nature. We were interested in examining the

roles of different constructs of individual differences in predicting leadership. We were

also interested in the role of genetic influences in explaining these constructs as well as

any observed covariation among them. This research demonstrated that personality and

cognitive factors predicted leadership in this sample, that these relationships were

substantial, and that they accounted for a sizable portion of the variance—a not surprising

set of findings given the extant literature.

However, very little research has explored the combination of personality and

cognitive factors in predicting leadership and even less has explored the underlying

genetic and environmental influences involved. Thus, this research offered new

evidence in this arena. Findings clearly indicated that genetic factors influence the

personality, cognitive, and leadership factors derived in this study and confirmed earlier

research showing that personality and cognitive factors have strong genetic influences.

Of perhaps most interest in this study is the finding that the leadership variable

had an estimated heritability of .39 (based on the multivariate model), meaning that 39

percent of the variance in this factor was accounted for by genetic factors. Non-shared

environmental influences accounted for 61 percent of the variance. Shared or common

environmental factors such as family-wide influences were essentially non-influential for

this variable, accounting for zero percent of the variance. The findings in this study also

revealed that some of the genetic factors that influence leadership are the same or similar

to the genetic factors influencing personality variables but there is little common genetic

influence for the cognitive and leadership variables. It is also very important to keep in
 Genetics and Leadership 24

mind that almost half the genetic variance in leadership is not shared with the various

personality and cognitive measures, suggesting that leadership may have other

independent genetic influences as well.

It is very important to under-score the findings here that while genetics influences

account for a sizable portion of leadership variance, environmental factors are

substantially important in determining leadership. The question of whether leaders are

“born or made” is perhaps a red herring. Leadership is a function of both the

environmental and genetic factors that impact individuals—not one or the other. What is

of great interest is the question of determining more precisely the kinds of environmental

experiences that are most helpful in predicting and/or developing leadership and the ways

in which these experiences possibly interact and/or correlate with genetic factors. Also,

there is a need to explore the potential developmental processes associated with

leadership and whether genetic and environmental influences might vary across the

careers of individuals. Perhaps there is some age-dependent change such as that observed

with cognitive variables where the proportion of genetic influence increases throughout

development (McGue, Bouchard, Iacono, & Lykken, 1993).

It is also important to recognize that the estimates for genetic influence obtained

here were sample-specific. Thus, other samples from other populations with perhaps

different variable ranges will yield other estimates. For example, it would be of great

interest to replicate this study using females subjects. In addition, because a variable or

construct exhibits a genetic influence does not mean that it is unchangeable.

Environmental interventions can have sizable impact on samples and populations, even

when a trait is highly heritable (Maccoby, 2000).

 Genetics and Leadership 25

Limitations. There are a number of potential issues and/or limitations with this study that

need to be recognized. Perhaps the first is the issue of whether the measure of leadership

we utilized was appropriate. For example, leadership might have been conceptualized as

inspirational or charismatic behaviors rather than as role occupancy as used in the present

study. This well may be true, but we believe that the role occupancy measure might

represent possibly better and more objective “threshold” indices. It is more likely than not

that individuals in positions of authority, supervision and management, etc. will be

regarded as leaders, at least formally within their respective organizations. There also

may be some restriction of range on the leadership measure we used. The sample of male

twins studied were relatively young and in mid-and early career stages; thus limiting the

number of leadership roles that might be available to them at the time they were

surveyed. We also do not address the issue of leadership effectiveness. It may well be

that the genetic factors that influence leadership effectiveness differ from those that

influence leadership emergence.

A second issue concerns the self-report nature of our survey data. It could be that

individuals falsely reported their leadership roles and behavior. This, of course, is the

issue of whether the variables we examined were valid. We reported a variety of

evidence indicating that the measures used were construct valid as exhibited through the

demonstration of their relationships with other variables—that is, they were imbedded in

a network of relationships with other variables that made sense (Arvey, 1992). In

addition, previous research associated with the bio-history method has demonstrated

good verifiability and accuracy of such measures. Certainly, future research should

consider the use of alternative methods and metrics in measuring leadership when further
 Genetics and Leadership 26

exploring the role of genetics and leadership. For example, it would be interesting and

informative to gather data from peers and associates of individuals regarding both

leadership and personality evaluations of a targeted twin sample.

The issue of common method variance is also a concern, as in any situation where

participants completed all instruments. However, many of these scales and scores were

gathered at different points in time separated by as much as six years, which should offset

this difficulty to some degree.

Even though a total of 646 subjects were used in the present study, this is not a

large sample given the nature of the modeling methods used, which typically require

fairly large N sizes to develop precise point estimates and confidence intervals. Thus,

replication of this research across different samples of twins using different measures of

leadership and its individual differences antecedents is critical. Different methodologies

(including adoptive and other designs) would also be valuable.

Finally, we note that we have done nothing to identify specific genes or

environmental characteristics associated with leadership and leave this task to future

research efforts.

.
 Genetics and Leadership 27

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 Genetics and Leadership 34

Footnotes
 Genetics and Leadership 35

Appendix A

Content Summary of the MPQ Scales Used in Study

Scale Name Description of High Scorers Description of Low Scorers

Social Is sociable, likes people; takes pleasure in, Likes being alone; does not mind pulling up roots;

Closeness and values, close interpersonal ties; is warm is aloof and distant; prefers to work problems out on

and affectionate; turns to others for comfort own

and help

Social Is forceful and decisive; is persuasive and Prefers others to take charge and make decisions;

Potency likes to influence others, enjoys or would does not like to persuade others; does not aspire to

enjoy leadership roles; takes charge of and leadership; does not enjoy being the center of

likes to be noticed at social events attention

Achievement Works hard; likes long hours; enjoys Does not like to work harder than is strictly

demanding projects; persists where others necessary; avoids very demanding projects; sees no

give up; puts work and accomplishment point in persisting when success is unlikely; is not

before many other things; is a perfectionist terribly ambitious or a perfectionist

 Genetics and Leadership 36

Table 1

Sample Characteristics

Monozygotic Dizygotic Total

N = 334 N = 316 N = 650

Age M=36.71 M=36.76 M=36.73

s.d .=1.13 s.d.=1.10 s.d. .=1.12

Occupation

Managerial & Administrative 20.7% 16.5% 18.6%

Professional, Paraprofessional &

Technical 28.4% 24.7% 26.6%

Sales & Related 11.1% 10.1% 10.6%

Clerical & Administrative Support .6% .6% .6%

Service 6.9% 9.5% 8.2%

Agricultural, Forestry, Fisheries

& Related occupations 3.3% 6.0% 4.6%

Production, Construction, Operations,

Maintenance, and Material Handling 31.4% 37.3% 34.3%

 Genetics and Leadership 37

Table 2

Sample Responses on Bio-History Leadership Items

MZ DZ Total

N=334 N=316 N=650

Taken charge of a special project 62.3% 60.1% 61.2%

Planned or coordinated a special event 47.3% 39.9% 43.7%

Number of Professional Associations Where Leadership Played a Role

1 12.3% 10.4% 11.4%

2 6.3% 5.7% 6.0%

3 3.0% 1.9% 2.5%

4 0.9% 1.3% 1.1%

5 1.2% 0.6% 0.9%

6 0.0% 0.2% 0.2%

7 0.6% 0.6% 0.6%

Hold or Have Held a Position

Work Group Leader 38.6%* 29.7% 34.4%

Team Leader 36.8% 25.07% 31.2%

Shift Supervisor 22.5% 19.2% 20.9%

Manager 37.3% 26.6% 29.5%

Director 10.8%* 5.17% 8.0%

Vice-President 4.2% 4.4% 4.3%

President 7.5% 6.3% 6.9%

Other 10.8% 15.8% 13.2%

*Chi-square analysis showed significant difference in percentage between monozygotic and

dizygotic twins at p.<.05 level.

 Genetics and Leadership 38

Table 3.

Means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations of leadership, personality, and cognitive ability

measures.

Mean s.d. 1 2 3 4 5

1 Leadership 0.00 0.67 1.00

2 Social Potency 49.28 9.89 .35** 1.00

3 Social Closeness 49.03 9.91 .15** .34** 1.00

4 Achievement 49.22 9.91 .23** .25** -0.07 1.00

5 Vocabulary (WAIS) 46.35 11.79 .17** .27** 0.04 -0.05 $1.00

*p <.05, ** p <.01
a
Sample sizes vary; n = 345 for vocabulary, 533 for others
 Genetics and Leadership 39

Table 4

Twin Intraclass Correlations for Personality and Leadership Measures

Measure MZ DZ Implied Heritability

Social Potency (MPQ) .58 .19 .79

Achievement (MPQ) .47 .11 .72

Vocabulary (WAIS) .77 .49 .56

Leadership .48 .21 .55

Note: MZ = monozygotic twin pairs; DZ = dizygotic twin pairs.

Implied heritability determined by Falconer formula 2(rmz-rdz).

 Genetics and Leadership 40

Table 5

Maximum-Likelihood Model-Fitted Attributions of Variance for Personality and Leadership Measures

Measure Genetics a Shared Non-Shared

Environment a Environment a
N pairs(MZ/DZ) A C E AIC RMSEA

Social Potency (MPQ) (106/69) .55 .00 .45 -1.704 .071

(0-.54) (0-.38) (.34-.59)

Achievement (MPQ) (106/69) .43 .00 .57 -2.701 .051

(.04-.56) (0-.53) (.44-.72)

Vocabulary (WAIS) (75/48) .43 .28 .29 .932 .149

(.02-.78) (0-.65) (.21-.41)

Leadership (119/94) .47 .00 .53 -4.883 .000

(.09-.58) (0-.31) (.42-.67)

a = Values in parentheses represent 95% confidence intervals

 Genetics and Leadership 41

Table 6

Multivariate Model-Fitted Attributions of Variance of Personality, Cognitive,

and Leadership Variables

Proportion of variance due to

Variable Genetic Shared Environment Non-Shared Environment

Social Potency (MPQ) .35 .00 .65

(.06-.44) (.00-.32) (.49-.80)

Achievement (MPQ) .30 .00 .70

(.00-.40) (.00-.34) (.53-.94)

Vocabulary (WAIS) .39 .00 .61

(.05-.46) (.00-.33) (.48-.72)

Leadership .39 .00 .61

(.03-.48) (.00-.38) (.45-.76)

Note: 95% confidence intervals in parentheses.

 Genetics and Leadership 42

Table 7

Correlation Results from Multivariate Model

Variable Pairs

Social Potency- Achievement- Vocabulary-

Correlation Leadership Leadership Leadership

Genetic .61 .42 .07

Shared environmental .61 .77 .89

Non-shared environmental .05 .04 .05

Correlation between Leadership variable and Personality or

Vocabulary variable .36 .23 .06

Note: The squared value of the genetic correlation represents the proportion of the heritability of the

leadership measure that can be explained by the genetic factors affecting each personality and ability

measure. The genetic correlation reflects the extent to which whatever genetic variance is associated with

two traits is likely to be in common. The shared and non-shared environmental correlations' squared values

represent the proportions of the shared and non-shared environmental factors affecting leadership that can be

explained by the shared and non-shared environmental factors affecting personality and cognitive ability

variables.

a
= values in parentheses are 95% confidence intervals
 Genetics and Leadership 43

Figure Caption

Figure 1. Univariate genetic model: E1, A1, C1, represent latent variables of nonshared

environmental effects, additive genetic effects and shared or common environmental effects,

respectively. Lead1 and Y1 represent the latent variable of leadership and its phenotypic

measurement. Similar denotations are made for Twin 2.

 Genetics and Leadership 44

1
The amount of variance accounted for by shared environmental factors decreases over the lifetimes of individuals (Plomin, et al., 2000).
2
This form is alternatively described in personnel research literature as a “heterogeneous” criteria or composite variable that does not

necessarily need to demonstrate inter-relatedness among its subparts (see for example, Schmidt & Kaplan (1971).
3
We used only the MZ twins for this analysis because we can be sure of the degree of genetic relationship between them. DZ twins share, on

average, 50% of their genes and thus there is uncertainty regarding the genetic similarity between any two same pair DZ twins.
4
For this particular set of analyses we “double entered” the data meaning that the data for each twin was entered twice—once as the first twin

and once as the second twin. This is helpful when there are potential variance differences among twin types.
5
For this variable, we also examined the fit for a model that included environmental factors only. The observed fit statistics were worse (and

statistically worse) under this model compared to the full model described above.
6
See Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, & McGuffin, 2000 and their appendix for more details concerning the statistical methods used.
7
E.g., the proportion of variance estimate for the leadership variable was .31 for the alternative solution, compared to .39 for the solution we

present.
Genetics and Leadership 45