Citizens are increasingly motivated by leaders when they vote in elections. While the aggregate importance of leaders has been demonstrated in research on the personalisation of politics, we know little about the specific traits of political leaders and how they influence voter behaviour. Leaders can possess (or lack) a number of traits, for example competence, trustworthiness, honesty, compassion, intelligence and being inspirational. When it comes to voting on election day, which of these traits matter most to voters when considering the options between leaders? And which of these traits are seen as less important for a leader to possess? This paper investigates these questions using data from the Australian Election Study (AES) over the period from 1993 to 2022, covering 22 major party leaders across 11 federal elections. We provide new insights to advance our understanding of how leader traits influence voter behaviour for three main reasons. First, the AES has one of the world’s longest time series on the qualities of political leaders to facilitate an analysis which spans a period of 30 years. Second, the high frequency of elections (around every 3 years) combined with a high rate of leader turnover has led to one of the largest numbers of individual major party leaders to analyse within a single country case. Third, compulsory voting compels disengaged citizens to cast a vote on election day – these voters may be driven more by leader qualities than by parties or policies. As a result of these distinct features of the Australian case, the paper advances our understanding of how leadership traits shape voter behaviour. We find that leader integrity traits, including trustworthiness and honesty, are the most important drivers of voter behaviour, while the perceived intelligence and empathy of leaders are far less important.
