PurposeWhy some people are motivated to become leaders is important both conceptually and practically. Motivation to lead compels people to seek out leadership roles and is a distinct predictor of leader role occupancy. The goal of our research is to determine contextual (socioeconomic status and parenting quality), interpersonal (sociometric status), and personal (self-esteem and gender) antecedents of the motivation to lead among young adults.Design/methodology/approachThe authors tested the model using two samples of Canadian undergraduate students (Sample 1: N = 174, M age = 20.02 years, 83% female; Sample 2: N = 217, M age = 18.8 years, 54% female). The authors tested the proposed measurement model using the first sample, and tested the hypothesized structural model using the second sample.FindingsThe proposed 5-factor measurement model provided an excellent fit to the data. The hypothesized model also provided a good fit to the data after controlling for potential threats from endogeneity. In addition, gender moderated the relationship between sociometric status and affective-identity motivation to lead, such that this interaction was significant for females but not males.Practical implicationsThe findings make a practical contribution in understanding how parents, teachers, and organizations can encourage greater motivation to lead, especially among young adults who have faced poverty and marginalization and tend to be excluded from leadership positions in organizations.Originality/valueThe authors conceptualize and test the contextual, interpersonal, and personal predictors of affective-identity motivation to lead among young adults.

SummaryWe investigate the indirect effects of socioeconomic status, both at birth and at age 5, on the likelihood of holding a formal leadership position 26 years later via two sequential mechanisms: children's self‐control at age 10 and adolescents' psychological well‐being at age 16. We test this model using multisource data from the British Cohort Study, an ongoing research project studying individuals born in England, Scotland, and Wales in the week of April 5–11, 1970. The data were collected at five different time points, from birth through early adulthood. Results show that the cumulative effects of early socioeconomic status predict children's self‐control at age 10, and self‐control in turn predicts a higher likelihood of leadership role occupancy at age 26 via psychological well‐being at age 16. The findings of the current study illustrate how a range of individual and family factors measured across the lifespan predict leadership role occupancy, with implications for better understanding how socioeconomic adversity and privilege enhance individuals' likelihood of becoming leaders early in their careers.

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