The Leadership Quarterly 20 (2009) 855–875

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The Leadership Quarterly j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / l e a q u a

The bright and dark sides of leader traits: A review and theoretical extension of the leader trait paradigm
Timothy A. Judge a,⁎, Ronald F. Piccolo b, Tomek Kosalka c a b c

University of Florida, United States Rollins College, United States University of Central Florida, United States

a r t i c l e
Keywords: Leadership Personality Leader trait

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
The leader trait perspective is perhaps the most venerable intellectual tradition in leadership research. Despite its early prominence in leadership research, it quickly fell out of favor among leadership scholars. Thus, despite recent empirical support for the perspective, conceptual work in the area lags behind other theoretical perspectives. Accordingly, the present review attempts to place the leader trait perspective in the context of supporting intellectual traditions, including evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics. We present a conceptual model that considers the source of leader traits, mediators and moderators of their effects on leader emergence and leadership effectiveness, and distinguish between perceived and actual leadership effectiveness. We consider both the positive and negative effects of specific “bright side” personality traits: the Big Five traits, core self-evaluations, intelligence, and charisma. We also consider the positive and negative effects of “dark side” leader traits: Narcissism, hubris, dominance, and Machiavellianism. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

If one sought to find singular conditions that existed across species, one might find few universals. One universal that does exist, at least those species that have brains and nervous systems, is leadership. From insects to reptiles to mammals, leadership exists as surely as