Can Becoming a Leader Change Your Personality? An Investigation with Two Longitudinal Studies

Abstract

Organizational research has predominantly adopted the classic dispositional perspective to understand the importance of personality traits in shaping work outcomes. However, the burgeoning literature on personality psychology has documented that personality traits, although relatively stable, are able to develop throughout one’s whole adulthood. A crucial force driving adult personality development is transition into novel work roles. In this paper, we introduce a dynamic, role-based perspective on the adaptive nature of personality during the transition from the role of employee to that of leader (i.e., leadership emergence). We argue that during such role transitions, individuals will experience increases in job role demands, a crucial manifestation of role expectations, which in turn may foster growth in conscientiousness and emotional stability. We tested these hypotheses in two three-wave longitudinal studies using a quasi-experimental design. We compared the personality development of two groups of individuals (one group promoted from employees into leadership roles and the other remaining as employees over time), matched via the propensity score matching approach. The convergent results of latent growth curve modeling in the two studies support our hypotheses regarding the influence of becoming a leader on enhancing conscientiousness and the mediating role of job role demands.