Personality and entrepreneurial leadership:: A study of the heads of the UK's most successful independent companies

Through an empirical study of the heads of the UK's top independent companies, comparing them with sample norms and a management control group, the paper re-examines the question of whether there is an entrepreneurial leadership personality profile. Several distinctive features are reported and discussed. Contrary to common stereotypes, the leaders are not open-minded risk-takers so much as single-minded, thick-skinned, dominating individuals. Results are discussed within the frame of the new discipline of evolutionary psychology.