Mark van Vugt, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Kent, thinks that leadership is genetic. His theory, published in the journal “Personality and Social Psychology Review”, states that leadership is the product of human evolutionary history and, as such, played a crucial role in the success of humans and is now deeply embedded in our genes; so much so that the human brain possesses a hardwired leadership prototype, a fixed idea of how a leader should behave and what they should look like, that is innate and difficult to change.

A few thoughts from his theory:

• For millions of years there was no formal leadership in human groups. Essentially, it was the best hunter or the fiercest warrior that emerged as leader. In present times, we still evaluate leaders in that way. The most admired leaders are the ones that help us defeat an enemy group – or unite various factions.

• Living for millions of years in small groups with close personal contacts between leaders and followers has ensured that what we are looking for in leadership is an intimate personal touch. Ideally we would like our leaders to know us personally and take an active interest in our lives. Successful leaders are still the ones that make people feel special.

• Leaders who try to dominate followers are particularly disliked. In ancestral times, overbearing and selfish leaders were simply ignored, ridiculed or sometimes even killed. This egalitarian ethos is still visible in modern society.