Power motives, personality correlates, and leadership outcomes: A person-centered approach.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: We investigated how these motivations combined within individuals to form unique profiles, and how these different profiles relate to personality traits and team behaviors. BACKGROUND: Dominance, prestige, and leadership motives each play a key role in shaping social success or failure in gaining social rank and influence. METHOD: We used latent profile analysis across two samples (engineering student project teams, Nstudent = 1088; working adults, Nworker = 466) to identify profile configurations and how such profiles related to important outcomes. RESULTS: We identified qualitatively distinct profiles ultra-dominance profile (prominent dominance motive with high prestige and leadership motives); prestigious leadership profile (moderately high prestige and leadership motives, low dominance motive); and weak social power motive profile (low on all three motives). Individuals with the prestigious leadership profile were more likely to emerge as leaders, compared to those with a weak social power motive profile. People with an ultra-dominance profile scored higher on narcissism and tended to perceive themselves as leaders, despite not being deemed more leader-like by teammates. CONCLUSION: Using a person-centered approach allowed us to identify three power motive profiles across independent samples and generate insights into how these profiles manifest different social behaviors and outcomes.