The Linguistic Link: How Language Proficiency Influences Global Leadership Emergence

Marketa Rickley, Ph.D. and Dishi Hu, Ph.D.

Department of Management

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Individual differences in traits, abilities, skills, motivation, experiential backgrounds, and even physical attributes are each considered to be important for leader emergence. But mixed results from studies in global business settings indicate that the relationships between individual differences and leader emergence may be more nuanced than scholars have concluded. One overlooked factor that could explain the inconsistent empirical findings is the significance of language proficiency. We hypothesize that without language proficiency, other individual difference characteristics – like extraversion, cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence, international experience, or physical appearance – lose their potency in global leadership settings. To test this possibility, we propose that language skills will moderate the effects of personality traits, cognitive abilities, interpersonal skills, experiential backgrounds, and physical attributes on leader emergence. We plan to use data from the X-Culture project to test our proposed model.

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