Caveman Executive Leadership: Evolved Leadership Preferences and Biological Sex

Abstract

There is increasing recognition that human behavior in general, andbusiness behavior in particular, is subject to social and biologicaleffects. This research investigates the well-known but unsatisfactorilyexplained advantage that males have over females in obtaining executiveleadership. We argue that environmental-cultural explanations areincomplete and propose an explanation that adds to the emerging evidencethat behavior is subject to evolutionary effects. More specifically, wetake the perspective of evolutionary psychology in this research. Theexplanation presented here is grounded in the evolutionary theory ofnatural selection such that a psychological adaptation for a preferencefor male leaders evolved to promote individual survivability in theviolent ancestral history of humans. We present convergentinterdisciplinary findings as well as supporting evidence from threestudies with distinct research designs, domains, and perspectives ofanalysis to strengthen the validity of our argument. In all, thisresearch offers a more complete theoretical explanation for malepredominance in executive leadership and provides an additionaltheoretical approach to the investigation of modem biases that have beencostly to the business community.