Supporting Facets of Teamwork and Leadership Skills of Business Students

Todays students are tomorrows team members and leaders in successful organizations. In the changing environment, the human character is developing and adapting to the new paradigms. Thus, teachers role is fundamental in developing the character strengths of students ready for the 21st-century demands. This study investigates how curiosity, creativity, authenticity, perseverance, perspective, capacity for love, social intelligence, self-regulation, gratitude, courage, equity, enthusiasm, and open-mindedness predict students' leadership and teamwork capabilities. The research instrument was defined using an existing open-science inventory from the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP), the Revised Values in Action Character Strength Scales (IPIP-VIA-R). The survey was disseminated among the students of the Faculty of Business, and the respondents completed the questionnaire online. The sample included 355 full-time bachelors and masters students. While leadership and teamwork are closely linked, they exhibit distinct patterns of influence when considering the variables under study. Creativity, courage, curiosity, creativity, open-mindedness, self-regulation, and social intelligence are more strongly correlated with leadership than teamwork, which is primarily underlined by authenticity, capacity for love, equity, enthusiasm, and gratitude. The findings indicate several significant correlations among analyzed personality traits and some gender differences in preferences of character strengths. Therefore, fostering a holistic educational environment and nurturing students character strengths require more attention from responsible parties to fulfill the labor market needs of successful leaders and great team members