“Are CEOs Born Leaders? Lessons from Traits of a Million Individuals”, 2018-11 (; backlinks):
What makes a successful CEO?
We combine a near-exhaustive sample of male CEOs from Swedish companies with data on their cognitive and noncognitive ability and height at age 18 [using population registry & military draft data].
CEOs differ from other high-skill professions most in noncognitive ability. The median large-company CEO belongs to the top 5% of the population in the combination of the 3 traits. The traits have a monotonic and close to linear relation with CEO pay, but their correlations with pay, firm size, and CEO fixed effects in firm policies are relatively low.
Traits appear necessary but not sufficient for making it to the top.
…Psychologists use test results and family characteristics in combination with one-on-one semi-structured interviews to assess conscripts’ psychological fitness for the military. Psychologists evaluate each conscript’s social maturity, intensity, psychological energy, and emotional stability and assign a final aptitude score following the stanine scale. Conscripts obtain a higher score in the interview when they demonstrate that they have the willingness to assume responsibility, are independent, have an outgoing character, demonstrate persistence and emotional stability, and display initiative. The aptitude score loads positively on Extraversion (“outgoing character”) and negatively on Neuroticism (“emotional stability”).17 Importantly, a strong desire to serve in the military is not considered a positive attribute for military aptitude (and can even lead to a negative assessment), which means that the aptitude score can be considered a more general measure of noncognitive ability (2011).