It Runs in the Family: A Goal Orientation Perspective on Parental Influence to Leadership

Abstract

The majority of extant leadership research has focused on leaders’ stable traits and experiences in adulthood to understand the antecedents of leadership behaviors. By taking a developmental perspective, our research builds on implicit leadership theory and goal orientation theory and proposes an integrated model of leadership development that specifies the link between parenting styles received by leaders while growing up and leadership behaviors exhibited to their followers in their adulthood. In a survey conducted among Chinese executives and their team members working in a variety of different organizations, we found that authoritarian parenting leads to authoritarian and autocratic leadership styles through the mediating role of performance prove-goal orientation while authoritative parenting leads to developing and benevolent leadership through the mediating role of learning goal orientation. These findings suggest that parenting styles have far-reaching effects on leadership behaviors. We hope that our study provides a platform for future research by drawing attention to the previously under-examined developmental antecedents of leadership development.