Like mama always said: family socio-economic status, maternal attitudes and leader role occupancy in adulthood

Abstract

Leadership research has always recognised the importance of childhood factors for the occupation of formal or informal leader positions later in life. Still, empirical research in the field has mainly been based on retrospective accounts from selective and small samples. Such research has also concentrated on individual traits and experiences, less on characteristics of the family. Our aim is to fill this void by prospectively examining the role of the family of origin on educational attainment and holding a managerial position in adulthood. Analyses were based on the Stockholm Multigenerational Study, including register and survey data, regarding 3,088 males born between 1950 and 1976 and their mothers’ attitudes to education and child-rearing in the late 1960s. Our results showed a significant effect of family socio-economic status (SES) on managerial role occupancy in late adulthood. This effect was mainly mediated through educational level. However, a noteworthy share of the total effect of family SES was channelled through maternal attitudes towards education. Positive attitudes towards education in the home environment accounted for an equally large share of the total indirect effect of family SES as the offspring’s cognitive capacity did. Authoritarian attitudes to child-rearing among mothers were also found to have a negative impact on cognitive capacity and educational level – two well-known antecedents to leader emergence. Parental attitudes may boost or modify structural characteristics and individual traits associated with holding formal leader roles such as a managerial position – but also showed an independent effect several decades later.