Abstract: this article discusses in detail the results of a psychological study of the prevailing professionally important personality traits of leaders of various levels of management, conducted in 2019 on the basis of the managerial link of one of the structural divisions of Russian Railways. The purpose of the empirical study was to determine the severity of professionally important qualities of heads of different levels of management using the example of managers of the Russian Railways joint-stock company. The author checks the assumption that among leaders of various levels of management, certain professionally important personality traits have the greatest expression, including: performing (risk-taking, leadership abilities, subjective control), personal (conformism-non-conformism, calm-anxiety), communicative (communicative inclinations and organizational inclinations), motivational (avoidance of failure, striving for success) and cognitive (level of intelligence). Based on expert assessment of the leading professionally important qualities of top, middle and lower level managers, a reference model of the modern executive managerial committee was created. The result of the study was a comparison of the individual structure of professionally important qualities of managers of different levels of management and a reference model. The author shows that for heads of the highest level of management the severity of communicative and organizational inclinations is characteristic; for middle-level managers – the desire for success and quick wit; for leaders at the lower level – not too expressed anxiety and subjective control. The main conclusion of the work was the conclusion that the effective implementation of professional managerial activities of a modern leader of any level of management is provided by a specific set of professionally important personality traits.
Keywords: professionally important qualities, leader, management level, reference model