Personality traits of executive women: A descriptive study

This foundational descriptive study explored the personality traits of executive women in the foodservice industry. Specifically, the study sought to understand the personality dimensions of executive women as defined by the five factor model and how these traits differed from those of the general population of women reported by Costa and McCrae (1992). The 62 executives were members of a nonprofit business association called the Women's Foodservice Forum. These women held positions of chief executive officer, senior vice president, executive vice president, vice president, or equivalent, representing multiple companies. The participants completed the NEO-FFI assessment instrument (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Results indicate that executive women scored higher on measures of extraversion, openness, and conscientiousness, and lower on neuroticism, with agreeableness being non significant. Except for the agreeableness, these dimensions are consistent with leadership trait theory. This foundational study provides support for leadership trait theorists that espouse that leaders will score in this way. The implication of these findings is that it may aid in identifying potential leaders since executive women score themselves consistent with leadership trait theory and score differently than the general population of women. Future research that could augment this study would be to compare the personality traits of executive women and men, and broadening the study population to a multiple industry perspective allowing for greater generalizability.