Born to Lead? A Twin Design and Genetic Association Study of Leadership Role Occupancy

Advancing our understanding of humble leadership in healthcare: a scoping review

PURPOSE

This study aims to advance the understanding of humble leadership (HL) in health care.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

This study presents a scoping review to explore and synthesize the existing knowledge in the literature. The search process encompassed three main online databases, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science. Due to the novelty of the topic of HL in health care and the lack of research in this area, all articles published until the end of February 2023 were considered in this study.

FINDINGS

A total of 18 studies were included. The results showed that in the period of 2019-2023 more attention was paid to HL in health care than in previous years. The research design used in these articles included quantitative (n = 13) and qualitative (n = 5) methods and the statistical population included nurses, hospital employees and health-care department managers. Based on the results obtained, the definition of HL can be divided into two general approaches, including self-evaluation and the way one treats others. In addition, humble leaders in the health-care sector should exhibit certain behavioral characteristics and finally, the results indicated that HL has several positive consequences; however, little attention has been paid to the factors influencing HL in health care.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

This research will help practitioners gain a deeper understanding of the various applications of HL in health care.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no comprehensive research review has yet been conducted on the application of HL in health care.

Nontechnical Skills for Surgeons as a Framework to Evaluate Cardiopulmonary Bypass Management Skills of Resident Trainees

BACKGROUND

Nontechnical skills are critical in cardiac surgery but currently there is no formal paradigm to teach these in residency training. We investigated the use of the Nontechnical skills for surgeons (NOTSS) system as a framework to assess and teach nontechnical skills related to cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) management.

METHODS

Single-center retrospective analysis of Integrated and Independent pathway thoracic surgery residents who participated in dedicated nontechnical skills evaluation and training. Two CPB management simulation scenarios were utilized. All residents received a lecture on CPB fundamentals and then individually participated in the first simulation ("Pre-NOTSS"). Immediately following this, nontechnical skills were rated by self-assessment and by a NOTSS trainer. All residents then underwent group NOTSS training followed by the second individual simulation ("Post-NOTSS"). Nontechnical skills were rated as before. NOTSS categories assessed included Situation Awareness, Decision Making, Communication and Teamwork, and Leadership.

RESULTS

Nine residents were divided into 2 groups: Junior (n = 4, PGY1-4) and Senior (n = 5, PGY5-8). Pre-NOTSS resident self-ratings were higher for Senior than Junior in the categories of Decision Making, Communication and Teamwork, and Leadership while trainer ratings were similar between the groups. Post-NOTSS, resident self-ratings were higher for Senior than Junior in Situation Awareness and Decision Making while trainer scores were higher for both groups in Communication and Teamwork and Leadership.

CONCLUSIONS

The NOTSS framework in conjunction with simulation scenarios provides a practical framework to evaluate and teach nontechnical skills related to CPB management. NOTSS training can lead to improvements in both subjective and objective ratings of nontechnical skills for all PGY levels.

Simultaneous selection of multiple important single nucleotide polymorphisms in familial genome wide association studies data

We propose a resampling-based fast variable selection technique for detecting relevant single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in a multi-marker mixed effect model. Due to computational complexity, current practice primarily involves testing the effect of one SNP at a time, commonly termed as 'single SNP association analysis'. Joint modeling of genetic variants within a gene or pathway may have better power to detect associated genetic variants, especially the ones with weak effects. In this paper, we propose a computationally efficient model selection approach-based on the e-values framework-for single SNP detection in families while utilizing information on multiple SNPs simultaneously. To overcome computational bottleneck of traditional model selection methods, our method trains one single model, and utilizes a fast and scalable bootstrap procedure. We illustrate through numerical studies that our proposed method is more effective in detecting SNPs associated with a trait than either single-marker analysis using family data or model selection methods that ignore the familial dependency structure. Further, we perform gene-level analysis in Minnesota Center for Twin and Family Research (MCTFR) dataset using our method to detect several SNPs using this that have been implicated to be associated with alcohol consumption.

Empowerment Mitigates Gender Differences in Tertius Iungens Brokering

Tertius iungens brokering that brings together people who might not otherwise meet is crucial for organizational effectiveness. But we know little about whether and why women and men differ in their propensity to engage in this brokering. Our paper focuses on the origins and mitigation of gender differences in the propensity to bring people together. In study 1, we showed that the Totterdell et al. [Totterdell P, Holman D, Hukin A (2008) Social networkers: Measuring and examining individual differences in propensity to connect with others. Soc. Networks 30(4):283–296] propensity-to-join-others scale that we used in study 2 and the Obstfeld [Obstfeld D (2005) Social networks, the tertius iungens orientation, and involvement in innovation. Admin. Sci. Quart. 50(1):100–130] tertius iungens scale overlapped not only conceptually, but also empirically, and that these measures of tertius iungens were distinct from mediation- and separation-brokering propensities [Grosser TJ, Obstfeld D, Labianca G, Borgatti SP (2019) Measuring mediation and separation brokerage orientations: A further step toward studying the social network brokerage process. Acad. Management Discoveries 5(2):114–136]. In study 2, we used a natural experiment to examine the tertius iungens brokering propensities of 876 identical and 625 fraternal same-sex twins. We found that brokering propensity was lower for women than for men, although the propensity toward sociability in terms of making friends and acquaintances was lower for men. We also found that for women, relative to men, tertius iungens brokering propensity was largely affected by environmental influences, such as the experience of stereotyping and discrimination, rather than representing an inherited disposition. Moreover, the differences between men and women with respect to brokering were mitigated for empowered samples, such as well-educated or entrepreneurial individuals. Our research asks new questions about how environmental pressures and empowerment affect social networking. Gender differences in brokering may be amenable to mitigation through empowering practices that include education and entrepreneurial experience.

Quantifying the heritability of belief formation

Individual differences in behaviour, traits and mental-health are partially heritable. Traditionally, studies have focused on quantifying the heritability of high-order characteristics, such as happiness or education attainment. Here, we quantify the degree of heritability of lower-level mental processes that likely contribute to complex traits and behaviour. In particular, we quantify the degree of heritability of cognitive and affective factors that contribute to the generation of beliefs about risk, which drive behavior in domains ranging from finance to health. Monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs completed a belief formation task. We first show that beliefs about risk are associated with vividness of imagination, affective evaluation and learning abilities. We then demonstrate that the genetic contribution to individual differences in these processes range between 13.5 and 39%, with affect evaluation showing a particular robust heritability component. These results provide clues to which mental factors may be driving the heritability component of beliefs formation, which in turn contribute to the heritability of complex traits.

Genetics, leadership position, and well-being: An investigation with a large-scale GWAS

Our study presents the largest whole-genome investigation of leadership phenotypes to date. We identified genome-wide significant loci for leadership phenotypes, which are overlapped with top hits for bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and intelligence. Our study demonstrated the polygenetic nature of leadership, the positive genetic correlations between leadership traits and a broad range of well-being indicators, and the unique association of leadership with well-being after accounting for genetic influences related to other socioeconomic status measures. Our findings offer insights into the biological underpinnings of leadership.

Twin studies document leadership role occupancy (e.g., whether one holds formal supervisory or management positions) as a heritable trait. However, previous studies have been underpowered in identifying specific genes associated with this trait, which has limited our understanding of the genetic correlations between leadership and one’s well-being. We conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on individuals’ leadership phenotypes that were derived from supervisory/managerial positions and demands among 248,640 individuals of European ancestry from the UK Biobank data. Among the nine genome-wide significant loci, the identified top regions are pinpointed to previously reported GWAS loci for bipolar disorder (miR-2113/POUSF2 and LINC01239) and schizophrenia loci (ZSWIM6). We found positive genetic correlations between leadership position and several positive well-being and health indicators, including high levels of subjective well-being, and low levels of anxiety and depression (|r_g| > 0.2). Intriguingly, we observed positive genetic correlations between leadership position and some negative well-being indicators, including high levels of bipolar disorder and alcohol intake frequency. We also observed positive genetic correlations between leadership position and shortened longevity, cardiovascular diseases, and body mass index after partialing out the genetic variance attributed to either educational attainment or income. The positive genetic correlation between leadership and bipolar disorder seems potentially more pronounced for those holding senior leadership positions (r_g: 0.10 to 0.24), partially due to shared genetic variants with educational attainment. Our findings provide insights into the polygenic nature of leadership and shared genetic underpinnings between the leadership position and one’s health and well-being. We caution against simplistic interpretations of our findings as advocating genetic determinism.

Why do you treat me in such ways? An attachment examination on supervisors’ early family environment and subordinates’ responses

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to fill important gaps by using the attachment theory and examining the effects of supervisors’ early family environment on their behaviors toward subordinates and subordinates’ responses.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors used samples of 334 supervisor–subordinate pairs from a manufacturing company.

Findings

The study finds that supervisors’ harmonious family environment has a positive influence on subordinates’ responses (job satisfaction, work-to-family enrichment and task performance) through the effect of supervisors’ positive working model and caregiving behavior. On the contrast, supervisors’ conflicting family environment has a negative influence on subordinates’ responses through the effect of supervisors’ negative working model and aggressive behavior.

Originality/value

Existing studies mainly explore the influence of organizational environment on supervisors’ treatment of their subordinates. However, few have examined the relationship between supervisors’ early family environment and their treatment of their subordinates.

Pandemic Leadership: Sex Differences and Their Evolutionary-Developmental Origins

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a global societal, economic, and social upheaval unseen in living memory. There have been substantial cross-national differences in the kinds of policies implemented by political decision-makers to prevent the spread of the virus, to test the population, and to manage infected patients. Among other factors, these policies vary with politicians' sex: early findings indicate that, on average, female leaders seem more focused on minimizing direct human suffering caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, while male leaders implement riskier short-term decisions, possibly aiming to minimize economic disruptions. These sex differences are consistent with broader findings in psychology, reflecting women's stronger empathy, higher pathogen disgust, health concern, care-taking orientation, and dislike for the suffering of other people-as well as men's higher risk-taking, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and focus on financial indicators of success and status. This review article contextualizes sex differences in pandemic leadership in an evolutionary framework. Evolution by natural selection is the only known process in nature that organizes organisms into higher degrees of functional order, or counteracts the unavoidable disorder that would otherwise ensue, and is therefore essential for explaining the origins of human sex differences. Differential sexual selection and parental investment between males and females, together with the sexual differentiation of the mammalian brain, drive sex differences in cognition and behavioral dispositions, underlying men's and women's leadership styles and decision-making during a global pandemic. According to the sexually dimorphic leadership specialization hypothesis, general psychobehavioral sex differences have been exapted during human evolution to create sexually dimorphic leadership styles. They may be facultatively co-opted by societies and/or followers when facing different kinds of ecological and/or sociopolitical threats, such as disease outbreaks or intergroup aggression. Early evidence indicates that against the invisible viral foe that can bring nations to their knees, the strategic circumspection of empathic feminine health "worriers" may bring more effective and humanitarian outcomes than the devil-may-care incaution of masculine risk-taking "warriors".

An Experimental Examination of Demand-Side Preferences for Female and Male National Leaders

Females constitute a far smaller proportion of political leaders than their proportion in the general population. Leading demand- and supply side explanations for this phenomenon account for some of the variance but leave a great deal unexplained. In an effort to account for additional variance, this research evaluates the issue informed by the biological theory of evolution by natural selection, a foundational explanation for the diversity and function of living organisms. It experimentally assesses how varying types of inter- and intragroup threat-a recurring ancestral problem-affect demand for female and male national leaders. This work analyzes data collected from individuals (N = 826) in the U.S. during the 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Study. The results suggest the predominant preference for male over female leaders in some contexts may be the non-adaptive and non-functional but lingering outcome of an adaptive preference for physically formidable allies that was shaped by natural selection in ancestral environments.

Divergence in social traits in Trinidadian guppies selectively bred for high and low leadership in a cooperative context

In many animal species, individuals with certain morphological, physiological, or behavioural traits may have a disproportionately large role in determining group behaviour. While most empirical studies of leadership have focused on behaviour of individuals exploring new environments or foraging, little is known about leading behaviour in other ecological contexts. Here, we use a selective breeding design in the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata) to quantify the heritability of leadership in a cooperative context, and determine the behavioural traits associated with it. Firstly we found that phenotypic selection for high and low leadership (HL and LL, respectively) over three filial generations resulted in pronounced differences in leadership tendency with a moderate degree of heritability. In our assay of other social traits, LL males were more aggressive and sampled their social environment less than HL males, but HL and LL females did not differ in either aggressiveness or sociability. Traits such as boldness and exploratory tendency did not diverge between the two lines. Leading behaviour was thus associated with social traits in males, but not females; suggesting that there may be sex-specific mechanisms driving the emergence of leadership in this context. We discuss our findings in the context of the evolution of cooperation.

Life History Theory and Recovery From Substance Use Disorder

Recovery has emerged as an important paradigm in addictions treatment but the field has yet to achieve consensus on how it should be defined and measured. The recovery construct has been extended beyond sustained reductions in use or abstinence to enhancements in global health/well-being and also prosocial community reintegration. However, few studies have included these broader domains in their measurement of recovery and few scientific theories have been advanced to explain why reductions in substance use occasion these broader life changes. This article applies life history theory to recovery for the first time to help define recovery, advance recovery measurement, and explain why broad change across multiple life domains should facilitate sustained recovery progress. We conclude with a discussion of future directions and challenges for future research informed by our life history framework for recovery.

It Runs in the Family: A Study of Political Candidacy Among Swedish Adoptees

What motivates citizens to run for office? Recent work has shown that early life parental socialization is strongly associated with a desire to run for office. However, parents not only shape their children's political environment, they also pass along their genes to those same children. A growing area of research has shown that individual differences in a wide range of political behaviors and attitudes are linked to genetic differences. As a result, genetic factors may confound the observed political similarities among parents and their children. This study analyzes Swedish register data containing information on all nominated and elected candidates in the ten parliamentary, county council, and municipal elections from 1982 to 2014 for a large sample of adoptees and their adoptive and biological parents. By studying the similarity in political ambition within both adoptive and biological families, our research design allows us to disentangle so-called "pre-birth" factors, such as genes and pre-natal environment, and "post-birth" factors like parental socialization. We find that the likelihood of standing as a political candidate is twice as high if one's parent has been a candidate. We also find that the effects of pre-birth and post-birth factors are approximately equal in size. In addition, we test a number of potential pre- and post-birth transmission mechanisms. First, disconfirming our expectations, the pre-birth effects do not seem to be mediated by cognitive ability or leadership skills. Second, consistent with a role modeling mechanism, we find evidence of a strong transmission in candidacy status between rearing mothers and their daughters.

Point/Counterpoint: Are Outstanding Leaders Born or Made?

The question of whether outstanding leaders are born or made has been debated for years. There are numerous examples of historical figures that came naturally to leadership, while others developed their leadership skills through tenacity and experience. To understand leadership, both nature (the genetic component) and nurture (the environmental influences) must be considered. This article represents the work of two Academic Leadership Fellows Program groups who debated each position at the 2016 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Interim Meeting in Tampa, Fla., in February 2016.

Genes, psychological traits and civic engagement

Civic engagement is a classic example of a collective action problem: while civic participation improves life in the community as a whole, it is individually costly and thus there is an incentive to free ride on the actions of others. Yet, we observe significant inter-individual variation in the degree to which people are in fact civically engaged. Early accounts reconciling the theoretical prediction with empirical reality focused either on variation in individuals' material resources or their attitudes, but recent work has turned to genetic differences between individuals. We show an underlying genetic contribution to an index of civic engagement (0.41), as well as for the individual acts of engagement of volunteering for community or public service activities (0.33), regularly contributing to charitable causes (0.28) and voting in elections (0.27). There are closer genetic relationships between donating and the other two activities; volunteering and voting are not genetically correlated. Further, we show that most of the correlation between civic engagement and both positive emotionality and verbal IQ can be attributed to genes that affect both traits. These results enrich our understanding of the way in which genetic variation may influence the wide range of collective action problems that individuals face in modern community life.

Improving Bioengineering Student Leadership Identity Via Training and Practice within the Core-Course

The development of a leadership identity has become significant in bioengineering education as a result of an increasing emphasis on teamwork within the profession and corresponding shifts in accreditation criteria. Unsurprisingly, placing bioengineering students in teams to complete classroom-based projects has become a dominant pedagogical tool. However, recent research indicates that engineering students may not develop a leadership identity, much less increased leadership capacity, as a result of such efforts. Within this study, we assessed two similar sections of an introductory course in bioengineering; each placed students in teams, while one also included leadership training and leadership practice. Results suggest that students in the leadership intervention section developed a strong self-image of themselves as leaders compared to students in the control section. These data suggest that creating mechanisms for bioengineering students to be trained in leadership and to practice leadership behaviors within a classroom team may be keys for unlocking leadership development.

Cardiac arrest leadership: in need of resuscitation?

BACKGROUND

Leadership skills directly correlate with the quality of technical performance of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and clinical outcomes. Despite an improved focus on non-technical skills in CPR training, the leadership of cardiac arrests is often variable.

AIMS

To assess the perceptions of leadership and team working among members of a cardiac arrest team and to evaluate future training needs.

METHODS

Cross-sectional survey of 102 members of a cardiac arrest team at an Acute Hospital Trust in the UK with 892 inpatient beds. Responses sought from doctors, nurses and healthcare assistants to 12 rated statements and 4 dichotomous questions.

RESULTS

Of 102 responses, 81 (79%) were from doctors and 21 (21%) from nurses. Among specialist registrars 90% agreed or strongly agreed that there was clear leadership at all arrests compared with between 28% and 49% of nurses and junior doctors respectively. Routine omission of key leadership tasks was reported by as many as 80% of junior doctors and 50% of nurses. Almost half of respondents reported non-adherence with Advanced Life Support (ALS) guidelines. Among junior members of the team, 36% felt confident to lead an arrest and 75% would welcome further dedicated cardiac arrest leadership training.

CONCLUSIONS

Leadership training is integrated into the ALS (Resus Council, UK) qualification. However, this paper found that in spite of this training; standards of leadership are variable. The findings suggest a pressing need for further dedicated cardiac arrest leadership training with a focus on improving key leadership tasks such as role assignment, team briefing and debriefing.

Genetics and Organizational Behavior

Articles on the genetics of complex human behaviors and psychological traits provided in past volumes of journals published by Annual Reviews tended to adopt a pathological perspective and focused heavily on the disorders of human affect and behaviors. In our review, we expand our focus to the more general, nonclinical population, and in particular on the advances in the understanding of the genetics of attitudes and behaviors in work settings. We review the recent and emerging literature using a behavioral genetics approach to examine the influence of genetics on a wide array of important constructs in organizational behavior (OB) research and provide unique theoretical insights offered by this approach. We discuss practical implications and future research directions from a broad person-environment interactionist perspective by taking a genetics approach.

Critical Essay: Building new management theories on sound data? The case of neuroscience

In this critical essay, I contend that accelerating demands for novel theories in management studies imply that new methodologies and data are sometimes accepted prematurely as supply of these novel theories. This point is illustrated with reference to how neuroscience can inform management research. I propose two demand forces that foster the increased focus on neuroscience in management studies, these being (i) the direction of public research funding, and (ii) publication bias as a boost for journal impact factor. Looking at the supply side, I note that (i) the statistical power of studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (or fMRI, the 'gold' standard) is unacceptably low, (ii) the use of imprecise 'motherhood' statements, and (iii) the dismissal of ethical concerns in the formulation of management theories and practice informed by neuroscience. I then briefly outline the bad consequences of this for management theory and practice, emphasize why it is important to prevent these consequences, and offer some methodological suggestions for future research.

Childhood Sporting Activities and Adult Labour-Market Outcomes

We here ask whether childhood sport participation is positively correlated with adult labour-market outcomes. There are many potential channels for this effect, although, as usual, identifying a causal relationship is difficult. We appeal to two widely-separated waves of Add Health data to map out the correlation between childhood sports and a number of adult labour-market outcomes. We show that different types of childhood sports are associated with both managerial responsibilities and autonomy at work when adult. We take the endogeneity of sport seriously, and appeal to a variety of techniques, including the use of data on siblings, in order to obtain estimates that are as close to unbiased as possible. Last, we compare the effect of sporting activities to that of other leisure activities.

Leadership Development: An Outcome-Oriented Review Based on Time and Levels of Analyses

Contemporary organizations face critical challenges associated with possessing and leveraging leadership capabilities. Researchers studying leadership development have responded to this practical imperative, although research on the topic is still in the early stages of scientific development. In assessing the state of the science in leadership development, we review an array of theoretical and research approaches with the goal of stimulating thoughtful intellectual discourse regarding fundamental questions, such as, what is leadership, and what is development. We highlight the breadth of this phenomenon by reviewing theory and research that has considered the development of leadership in individuals, dyads, and teams/organizations. Additionally, we describe a set of proximal and distal signs that indicate leadership may be developing, and we promote experiences, interventions, and interactions as factors that enhance the leadership development process.

Normative seeds for deadly martyrdoms

Even if Lankford's biographical examination of perpetrators of suicidal attacks serves to alert us on the role played by individual factors in their recruitment, psychological frailties, distress, or coercion do not exhaust the causal pathways to deadly martyrdom. Normative personality attributes must be explored further in order to ascertain plausible roots of murderous sacrifice. We have advanced (Tobeña 2004b; 2009; 2011) a template of normative temperamental traits that could lead activists to the threshold of volunteering for murderous missions.

A sociogenomic perspective on neuroscience in organizational behavior

We critically examine the current biological models of individual organizational behavior, with particular emphasis on the roles of genetics and the brain. We demonstrate how approaches to biology in the organizational sciences assume that biological systems are simultaneously causal and essentially static; that genotypes exert constant effects. In contrast, we present a sociogenomic approach to organizational research, which could provide a meta-theoretical framework for understanding organizational behavior. Sociogenomics is an interactionist approach that derives power from its ability to explain how genes and environment operate. The key insight is that both genes and the environment operate by modifying gene expression. This leads to a conception of genetic and environmental effects that is fundamentally dynamic, rather than the static view of classical biometric approaches. We review biometric research within organizational behavior, and contrast these interpretations with a sociogenomic view. We provide a review of gene expression mechanisms that help explain the dynamism observed in individual organizational behavior, particularly factors associated with gene expression in the brain. Finally, we discuss the ethics of genomic and neuroscientific findings for practicing managers and discuss whether it is possible to practically apply these findings in management.