What do people desire in their leaders? The effect of leadership experience on desired leadership traits Austin Lee Nichols Department of Business, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine how leadership experience affects the value leaders place on leadership traits. In particular, the author sought to determine if individuals with different amounts of leadership experience deferentially desire traits related to dominance and cooperation. Design/methodology/approach – Participants reported the importance of dominant and cooperative traits for an ideal leader, and reported the number of leadership roles that they had experienced. Findings – The desirability of dominance-related traits decreased as leadership experience increased, but only for women. In contrast, the desirability of cooperation-related traits remained the same, regardless of leadership experience or gender. Practical implications – Overall, these findings suggest leaders learn to desire different traits as they gain leadership experience. Implications of this research may exist in both business and political domains. In business, several leadership outcomes depend on trait desirability. In addition, interview and selection decisions may depend on the leadership experience and gender of the decision-maker. Organizations should carefully select members of the organization to make these critical hiring decisions. In politics, candidates would be wise to consider the leadership experience and gender of constituents in their self-presentation attempts. Originality/value – This research presents the first examination of the effect of leadership experience on the desirability of leader personality traits. In addition, this is one of the first studies to refocus on the dominance/cooperation dichotomy and “ideal” leadership – a promising focus for future trait research. Keywords Gender, Leadership, Experience, Personality, Traits Paper type Research paper From serving as the captain of a little league baseball team to becoming the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, leadership experience is available throughout life and comes in many different forms. Although research has examined the effects of leadership experience on leaders’ attitudes and behaviors (e.g. Maas, 1950; Schilling, 2007), researchers have not examined how this experience affects the degree to which leaders desire certain personality traits for other leaders. If leadership experience affects trait desirability, and these desired traits predict important leadership outcomes, then leadership selection and promotion may benefit from an examination of the influence experience has on trait desirability. To date, much research has focussed on implicit leadership theories (ILTs) to understand people’s beliefs about the traits and abilities that characterize a leader (Lord, 1985; Lord et al., 1984, 1986; Schyns and Meindl, 2005). Although some research has examined the effect of certain rater variables on a variety of traits, none has yet to focus on their past leadership experience. To narrow the current investigation, I looked at two traits with contrasting stereotypes, yet consistent importance in the leadership literature: dominance and cooperation. Leadership & Organization Development Journal Vol. 37 No. 5, 2016 pp. 658-671 © Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0143-7739 DOI 10.1108/LODJ-09-2014-0182 Received 10 September 2014 Revised 10 January 2015 5 May 2015 6 May 2015 Accepted 7 May 2015 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7739.htm 658 LODJ 37,5 Downloaded by University of Central Florida At 07:24 14 June 2016 (PT)