Seminar – A legend in one’s own mind: the (missing) link between ambition and leadership effectiveness

Professor Francis Flynn, Stanford University

We expect that individuals who are more ambitious—those with a persistent striving for success and accomplishment—are more likely to emerge as leaders. But does their ambition also make them more effective leaders? Across a combination of four archival, longitudinal, and experimental studies, we uncover a discrepancy: while ambitious individuals think they may be better leaders, others disagree. In a longitudinal study of over 500,000 freshmen in the United States, more ambitious students were more likely to become leaders and hold positive views of their own leadership ability (Study 1). However, ambitious individuals were judged as no more effective in a leadership role than their less-ambitious peers (Studies 2-4). This finding held for MBA students judged by experts in a leadership skills competition (Study 2); a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults leading a small team in an experimental leadership task (Study 3); and a field sample of executives who were rated by themselves, their peers, their subordinates, and their managers (Study 4). We consider the implications of these findings for scholars and practitioners interested in leadership selection.

Speaker bio

Francis (Frank) Flynn received his PhD in organisational behaviour from the University of California, Berkeley. From 2000–2006, he served as an assistant and then an associate professor at Columbia Business School, joining Stanford GSB in September 2006. A winner of multiple teaching awards, Professor Flynn’s courses focus on leadership issues, particularly how young managers can learn to navigate complex political environments and build interpersonal influence.

Professor Flynn’s research centers on the topics of employee cooperation, work group dynamics, and leadership in organisations. His articles have appeared in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Psychological Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the discipline’s top research outlets.

Professor Flynn has worked for the Department of Commerce in the International Trade Administration, the Institute for Business and Economic Development, and the Institute for Urban and Regional Development. He has provided executive education for various companies, including Bank of America, Boston Consulting Group, Box, Caterpillar, Cisco, Cooley, Facebook, Flextronics, Genentech, Goldman Sachs, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intuit, Johnson & Johnson, Kaiser, LinkedIn, Logitech, Medtronic, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Prudential, Standard & Poor’s, Symantec, Twitter, Yammer, Yelp, and Yahoo! — training that focuses on improving employee decision making and interpersonal leadership skills.

Frank is also a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. He lives close to the Stanford campus with his wife, Christina, and his three sons, Colin, Jack, and Aiden.

For more information, please contact Luke Slater.