Running Head: The Roots of Leadership The Roots of Leadership

The capabilities essential for individual performance and productivity at high levels are major concerns of society. Since human competence can be studied at many levels, the research presented here addresses a higher level of competence (i.e., leadership) and its relationship to early socialization patterns. It was hypothesized that early life experiences either enhance or diminish leadership capacities. To illuminate a possible parent-leader linkage, 447 entering and exiting male and female college students were surveyed to test whether or not a relationship existed between earlier life experiences with parents and adult capacities for leadership. The collected parenting dimension scores and leader trait scores were analyzed to determine their interrelationships. Results show that the greatest magnitude of variance in the dependent variable of leadership was attributable to mother and father acceptance. It is supposed that abundant parental acceptance with limited firm disciplin