Ambitious people aren't born leaders, research suggests

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Do ambitious people make good leaders? Ambition can lead people to strive for leadership roles. But could there be a mismatch between qualities that motivate people to strive for leadership and qualities that make people good leaders?

Shilaan Alzahawi and colleagues asked 472 executives enrolled in a leadership development program offered by a West Coast business school in the United States to rate their ambition. The authors then compared these ambition scores with 360-degree leadership assessments obtained from the executives themselves, as well as their current managers, peers, and subordinates.

The authors found, as expected, that leadership ambition increases self-ratings of effectiveness in a leadership role. That is, leaders with high self-reported ambition also rated themselves as highly-effective leaders. However, the authors found no relationship between leadership ambition and third-party ratings of leadership effectiveness; highly ambitious executives, compared to less ambitious executives, were rated as no more effective in their leadership roles by their managers, peers, or direct reports.

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