The Biology of Leadership
Richard D. Arvey
Zhaoli Song
Nan Wang
Wen-dong Li
Recent Recognition that
Biological Factors might
Impact who becomes leaders
and their effectiveness
Purpose:
 Why such interest?
 Abstract and summarize what we know
 Suggest future research streams
Why Such Interest?



Decline of extreme Behaviorism and
demise of the Standard Social Science
Model
Initial Research findings: Behavior
Genetics, Anthropomorphic variables, etc.
New Technologies Available
What is Leadership?


We adopt typical/standard definition
that leadership involves influencing
others to achieve goals
Difference between “becoming” a
leader or moving into leadership
roles and being “effective” in these
roles.
ENVIRONMENAL DIFFERENCES
(Historical and Current)
GENECTIC DIFFERENCES
Chemical
Hormones
Blood Sugar
Physiological
Height/ Weight/
Gender/ Race
Psychological
Perception
Attention
Values
Cognitive Functioning
Personality
Interests/ Values
Physical Capacities
Leadership
Evolutionary Processes


Assumption is that evolutionary
processes involved in selecting
particular traits and/or behaviors
relevant for ascendance into
leadership roles
Need for leadership among followers
in order to adapt and coordinate
activities—key to survival
Five Major Transitions in Evolution of Leadership
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
Leadership emerged in pre-human species as
a mechanism to solve simple group
coordination problems
Behavior involving significant conflicts of
interest where dominant or socially important
individuals evolved as leaders
Dominance attenuated to pave the way for
democratic and prestige-based leadership to
facilitate group coordination
The increase in human group size created the
need to select leaders based on powerful
social and cognitive mechanisms
Increase in social complexity produced the
need for more powerful and formal leaders to
manage complex relationships
Add—Increase in technical complexity
produced need for smart and socially
adaptable leaders
King et al. (2008) and Hogan et al. (2009) articulated
the kinds of characteristics of leaders that are
implicated in their evolutionary analyses.
The typical suspects of
personality traits (e.g.
extraversion, dominance, etc.),
social skills (e.g., perceiving the
needs of followers, etc.),
physical factors (i.e., height,
weight, health, etc.), motivation,
etc. are suggested.
Comparative Animal Studies
King, et al. (2009) observes that across
species, “individuals are more likely to
emerge as leaders if they have a particular
morphological, physiological, or
behavioral trait increasing their propensity
to act first in coordination problems”
•Geese
•Fish
•Wolves
•Elephants
•Hawks
Several themes fall out:
1) There is certainly evidence for leaderfollower relationships,
2) Particular individuals take on
leadership roles
3) Some correlates exist between certain
characteristics and leadership (i.e. body
size, dominance, experience, etc.)
4) While there is some evidence that
individuals take on such roles, they are
not always consistent across time
and/or tasks
5) There appears to be some evidence
that environmental factors influence
who and when individuals take up
leadership roles (e.g. turbulence in
environment, particular task involved,
etc.).
Genetic Factors
The Question of whether leadership is
something one is “born” with or “made”
has been around for centuries
•Leadership Runs in Families
•But families share both genes and environments
•Use of Twin Studies
•Identical twins (who share 100% of genes)
compared to fraternal twins (who share only
around 50% of their genes)
•Assume common environments (same families,
cohorts, wealth, family rearing practices, etc.)
•When identical twins are more alike on a
phenomenon (i.e. leadership) than fraternal twins
genetic influences are implicated
•Statistical methods now permit the
estimation of how much of the variance
observed is due to genetic influences
(heritability) or environmental influences
•Evidence for Leadership
•Arvey, Rotundo, Johnson, Zhang, and McGue
(2006) used 238 identical male twins and 188
fraternal male twins to examine the heritability of
leadership role occupancy. Findings showed that
genetic influence accounted for 31% of the
variance.
•Similar study by Arvey, Zhang, Avolio, and Kruger
(2007) using female twins showed similar results
•Research on the heritability of “entrepreneurship”
showed similar heritability estimates.
New Directions with Regard to Leadership
using Twins
•Search for potential geneticenvironmental interactions
• Study by Zhang, Ilies, & Arvey (2009) examining
whether early family conflict (an environmental
experience) would interact with genetic factors in
influencing whether individuals moved into positions of
leadership.
•Search for possible mediators
•Gene-environment correlations:
•“But the environment is not a unitary set of
circumstances, and individuals efforts to seek or
create environments compatible with their genetic
endowments are fundamental to the process of
evolution” (Johnson, 2007, p. 424)
Anthropomorphic Factors
•Height: meta-analysis by Judge and Cable (2004)
showed that height was moderately correlated with
leadership emergence (.24) and leader performance (.18)
•Weight: There is theorizing that the relationships
between this variable and a variety of success variables
may differ by gender (see Judge and Cable, 2010)
•Physique
•Appearance
•Attractiveness
•Could be contextual (e.g. type of organization, gender differences, etc.)
Endocrinology
The endocrine system is a system of
glands, each of which secretes a type of
hormone into the bloodstream to regulate
the body (Wikipedia)
•Testosterone:
•Compelling evidence has documented an
association between testosterone and dominance
using both animal and human subjects. The
association between T and dominance is observed
in primates with a more developed social structure
•Some issues:
•Whether there is a direct causal relationship between T
and dominance
Some issues:
•Whether there is a direct causal relationship between T
and dominance
•Whether dominance and aggression are affected similarly
•The conditions under which T and dominating behavior is
aroused
•Whether other hormones in combination with T affect
dominance
•Serotonin: shows important functions in
regulating emotions, eating behaviors, biological
rhythms, behavioral arousal and motor activity
•Anderson and Summers (2007) discuss the serotonergic
system and it’s possible relevance to leadership, and they
propose that any relationship exists mainly through the
serotonergic regulation of mood and aggression
•Oxytocin: Related to trustworthiness
between humans (Zak, Kurzban, &
Matzner, 2005), and higher oxytocin levels
are associated with trustworthy behavior
or others’ intention to trust.
Neuroscience
•Techniques used: electro- and
magnetoencephalography (EEG and MEG)
and functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI )
•Identification of brain regions associated with
decision-making
• Using the technique of quantitative
electroencephalographs (qEEG). Waldman,
Balthazard, Peterson, Galvin and Thatcher (In
press) conducted qEEG assessments for 46 senior
leaders from a variety of industries, and found that
the right frontal brain coherence predicted leaders’
behavioral charisma perceived by followers.
•Balthazard et al. was interested in what constitutes complex
adaptive leadership. They used quantitative
electroencephalogram (qEEG) to detect brain activities of
military leaders differing in psychometric assessments of selfcomplexity, and some preliminary results seem to suggest
observable differences in certain areas of the brain are related
with high/low self-complexity.
Summary
It appears that biological
phenomenon are indeed related
to leadership
•Across a wide variety of variables
•Across different species
•Across both observable and
unobservable phenonmenon
Future Directions
•Continue to explore and affirm
relationships between biological and
leadership variables
•Explore more complex relationships:
•Mediation
•Interactions (both between biological variables
and environments and with each other
•Utilize more sophisticated methodology
(e.g. longitudinal and developmental
models)