Evaluating Global Leadership: Does Culture Matter?

This chapter concerns the degree to which leader personality is specific to the geographical region in which leaders work or more generically global. In samples from several different countries (N = 11,969), we show that top leaders are significantly different from the general population on dimensions of occupationally relevant personality, but rather similar among themselves. In general, top leaders are more emotionally stable, and much more competitive, ambitious, outgoing, and well-informed than the average person. We then examine our top leader cohorts on a culture by culture basis, and find distinct cultural differences. We close by discussing implications for the selection, development, and coaching of top leaders.