What Drives Ambition? Personality, Self-Perceived Leadership Potential, and the “Desire to Be Your Own Boss”

Abstract

This study focuses on the correlates of an individual's rating of their leadership potential. 1194 adults completed a six-factor High Potential work-related questionnaire and they also self-rated their leadership potential as well as their actual desire to become their own boss. Neither age nor sex was related to the two dependent variables, but nearly all the traits were. Stepwise regressions showed Competitiveness, Risk Approach and Conscientiousness were particularly related to self-related leadership potential. Three traits, namely Competitiveness, Risk Approach and Curiosity were related to the desire to become their own boss which accounted for 16% of the variance. SEM showed Conscientiousness, Curiosity, Risk Approach, Ambiguity Acceptance, and Competitiveness were significant positive predictors of self-rated Leadership Potential (R 2 = .33). Similarly, Curiosity, Risk Approach, Competitiveness , and Leadership Potential were significant positive predictors of par-ticipants' desire to be their own boss, whilst Adjustment was a negative pre-dictor. Implications and limitations are acknowledged.