The expansive executive: How the drive to mastery helps and hinders organizations

What drives executives has a great deal to do with how they lead. Executives generally are highly motivated to attain mastery—to achieve at a high level, to be exceptionally capable, to be acknowledged as masterful, and so on. An intense drive to mastery is certainly a prerequisite to effective executive leadership. But in some executives there can be virtually no limit to the extent of their ambition for themselves and their organizations. These driven individuals are capable of going to counterproductive extremes to satisfy their appetites for mastery. So, based on intensive research on character and leadership on senior managers, this article shows how the “expansive” temperament can be a boon or a bane to an organization's existence.