The relationship between childhood trauma, PTSD symptoms, and perceived leadership competence: have we protected our future leaders?

Leadership is an important competency across different fields and is a key to socio-economic development. Although leadership involves various social-emotional competencies that can be profoundly affected by childhood trauma, it remains unknown about the potential relationship between childhood trauma and leadership. This study examined whether childhood trauma and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms would be negatively associated with leadership competence. A convenience sample of N = 411 Hong Kong adults (Age: M = 38.6, SD = 12.9) completed self-report measures of the studied variables in an online survey. Hierarchical multiple regression showed that childhood betrayal trauma (β = − 0.140, p =.008) but not non-betrayal trauma (β = 0.035, p =.491) was significantly, negatively associated with perceived leadership competence, even after controlling for covariates. When symptoms of complex PTSD were added into the model, disturbances in self-organization (DSO) symptoms were also a significant factor associated with perceived leadership competence (β = − 0.454, p