Studies show that genetics matter in who becomes a leader. However, we know little about the dynamic properties of the heritability of leadership emergence or how genetics might interact with environmental conditions to shape leadership emergence. We track leadership role occupancy at three time points among a cohort of 1,079 Danish twin pairs over ten years. Our results suggest that genetics matter less when the cohort is young and increase over time as the cohort grows older. We argue that labor market entry costs coupled with free access to education constrain the effect of genetics in the cohort during early adulthood, suggesting differing effects of the environment on genetic expression as the cohort ages. Sorting based on individual predisposition towards leadership likely strengthens as the cohort grows older and gains labor market experience. This result implies that we should not view the effect of genes on leadership role occupancy as static and that environmental experiences could disproportionately affect critical early leadership advancement. Our study reinforces calls to consider dynamic properties such as gene x environment interactions to advance our broader understanding of leadership’s biology.

中文翻译：

---

领导角色占用遗传力的动态：来自三波双胞胎样本的证据


研究表明，遗传学对谁成为领导者很重要。然而，我们对领导层涌现的遗传性的动态特性或遗传学如何与环境条件相互作用以塑造领导层涌现知之甚少。我们跟踪了 10 年内 1,079 对丹麦双胞胎队列中三个时间点的领导角色占用情况。我们的结果表明，当队列年轻时，遗传学的重要性较低，并且随着队列年龄的增长而随着时间的推移而增加。我们认为，劳动力市场进入成本加上免费接受教育限制了成年早期遗传学对队列的影响，这表明随着队列年龄的增长，环境对遗传表达的影响不同。随着群体年龄的增长和劳动力市场经验的积累，基于个人领导倾向的排序可能会加强。这一结果意味着我们不应该将基因对领导角色占用率的影响视为静态的，并且环境经验可能会不成比例地影响关键的早期领导力发展。我们的研究加强了考虑动态特性（如基因 x 环境相互作用）的呼吁，以促进我们对领导力生物学的更广泛理解。