Cultural and evolutionary explanations are often seen as rivals in the social sciences. It is therefore not surprising that these perspectives have also communicated little in leadership research so far. Yet, these two fields have many overlooked complementarities, which can be appreciated when examining the role of ecological factors in shaping variations in cultural leadership prototypes (CLPs) – that is, societally shared ideal attributes and behaviors that followers expect from their leaders. In this paper, we integrate and review multidisciplinary research that clarifies these complementarities. First, we discuss how different CLPs might emerge as responses to the specific threats and opportunities provided by the ecology where human groups live. Second, we review research on the link between CLPs, related cultural patterns, and specific ecological factors, ranging from more physical (e.g., climate, diseases) to more social factors (e.g., population density, warfare). Third, we highlight how CLPs might not only be evoked by current ecological conditions but are also culturally transmitted, resulting in potential mismatches between CLPs and present ecologies. Our review shows that a deeper integration of cultural and evolutionary approaches to leadership is needed to understand why variations in CLPs can emerge, and why they persist or change over time.

文化和进化的解释常常被视为社会科学中的竞争对手。因此，迄今为止，这些观点在领导力研究中几乎没有传达什么，也就不足为奇了。然而，这两个领域有许多被忽视的互补性，在研究生态因素在塑造文化领导原型（CLP）变化中的作用时可以认识到这一点，即社会共享的理想属性和追随者期望领导者的行为。在本文中，我们整合并回顾了阐明这些互补性的多学科研究。首先，我们讨论不同的 CLP 如何作为对人类居住生态所提供的特定威胁和机遇的反应而出现。其次，我们回顾了关于 CLP、相关文化模式和特定生态因素之间联系的研究，范围从更多的物理因素（例如气候、疾病）到更多的社会因素（例如人口密度、战争）。第三，我们强调 CLP 不仅可能由当前的生态条件引起，而且还可能通过文化传播，从而导致 CLP 与当前生态之间潜在的不匹配。我们的回顾表明，需要对领导力的文化和进化方法进行更深入的整合，以了解为什么 CLP 会出现变化，以及为什么它们会随着时间的推移持续存在或发生变化。