Personality influences on ethical, servant, and authentic leadership: A meta-analysis

Abstract

This meta-analysis aimed to determine the trends in the evidence on the personality influences on three emerging forms of positive leadership: ethical leadership (EL), servant leadership (SL), and authentic leadership (AL). Following a search of PsycINFO, EBSCO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar from 2000 to 2020, we identified 22 studies meeting the inclusion criteria. We included only studies that reported effect sizes and excluded those that utilised repeated samples. For the data analysis, we employed Hunter-Schmidt’s random effects meta-analytic procedures via the “psychmeta” package in R. Based on 105 correlations from the 22 studies, results indicated agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness personality traits to characterise EL and SL, but not AL. We conclude that personality traits likely explain the two emerging moral leadership orientations of EL and SL more than they do AL. Further studies are needed to better understand the personality antecedents of AL in the workplace.

Keywords:

• authentic leadership
• ethical leadership
• meta-analysis
• personality
• servant leadership