Is White Always the Standard? Using Replication to Extend What We Know about Leadership Prototypes

In 2008, Rosette, Leonardelli, & Phillips published a study in which they examined whether race was an implicit component of the business leadership prototype. At the time of the study Rosette et al. (2008) underscored that among the then 43 United States Presidents, none had been a racial minority and suggested that this leadership example had implications for how U.S. citizens acquired their implicit leadership prototypes. With the election of Barack Obama, the first African American President of the United States, an era of important technological, demographic and cultural changes emerged as to reshape the American socio-cultural landscape. Events in the last decade have demonstrated how prototypes within the general populace (e.g. the heterosexual marriage prototype) have become amenable to change. Moreover, recent research suggests that underlying racial attitudes as assessed by the Implicit Association Test (IAT) have shifted positively towards neutrality. The aim of the present study is to build on the work by Rosette et al. (2008) by examining whether recent changes have had a broadening and more racially inclusive effect on the business leader prototype. Grounding our direct replication study within the implicit leadership theory (ILT) literature, we retest the theoretical assumptions of Rosette et al. (2008).