Personality and leadership: a qualitative and quantitative review. (2002)

“After ‘extraversion’, ‘conscientiousness’ and ‘openness to experience’ were the strongest and most consistent correlates of leadership.”

Timothy A. Judge, University of Florida; Joyce E. Bono, University of Minnesota; Remus Ilies University of Florida; Megan W. Gerhardt University of Iowa
Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 765: 2002

“Of the (five) specific traits (researched), Extraversion emerged as the most consistent correlate of leadership. … results also confirmed that Extraversion was more strongly related to leader emergence than to leader effectiveness… the results for Extraversion make sense, as both sociable and dominant people are more likely to assert themselves in group situations.

“After Extraversion, Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience were the strongest and most consistent correlates of leadership. Conscientiousness displayed the second strongest correlation with leadership and, in the multivariate analysis … was the strongest predictor of leadership …. Conscientiousness was more strongly related to leader emergence than to leadership effectiveness; the organizing activities of conscientious individuals (e.g., note taking, facilitating processes) may allow such individuals to quickly emerge as leaders.

“Neuroticism … failed to emerge as a significant predictor of leadership …

“Overall, Agreeableness was the least relevant of the Big Five traits.”

Access the full paper here: Personality and leadership