Kimberly Byars ’92, Ph.D. ’25
Byars weaves doctoral research into her leadership approach
When asked about Clemson University, Kimberly Byars says it has always felt like home. From the first summer she attended the Clemson Career Workshop as a rising high school junior to her first day on campus, she never once doubted that Clemson was the place for her.
As a first-generation college student at 18 years old, Byars was responsible for her 2-year-old son, who stayed with her mother in Gaffney, South Carolina, during the school year while the young mother attended Clemson. He then lived with her on campus during the summers and his breaks.
After graduating with her marketing degree, Byars returned to Gaffney, where she built a career that includes a leadership role as sales and marketing manager across multiple BMW dealerships. She also launched her business, Affluent Affairs, a luxury wedding planning company.
Years later, she was led back to Clemson through an article sent by her nephew about the executive leadership Ph.D. program in the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business. Reading about the program piqued Byars’ interest, and she decided to apply.
“Acceptance into this program represented an extraordinary opportunity I couldn’t pass up,” Byars recalls. “The program exceeded my expectations in every way. What I found most valuable was deepening my understanding of research methodology while building meaningful connections with my cohort colleagues.”
When selecting her dissertation topic, Byars noticed a pattern in many successful leaders who had overcome significant childhood challenges. In her dissertation, she expanded on upper echelons theory, which examines how visible executive characteristics such as education, age and career history affect company outcomes. More specifically, she wanted to determine if executives who processed their experiences of adversity could influence organizational performance.
To do this, she surveyed 165 executives, measuring their childhood experiences, psychological traits such as resilience and grit, and their companies’ financial performance. By using structural equation modeling, she tested whether post-traumatic growth — the personal development that can follow adversity — mediates the relationship between early challenges and firm performance.
Her evidence suggests that executives who experience post-traumatic growth often lead more successful organizations than peers with similar education and experience but less exposure to adversity.
“I found that executives who experienced difficult childhoods but developed wisdom and strength from those experiences actually ran more successful companies than those who had not faced such challenges,” she explains. “It shows that we need to look beyond just demographics and formal credentials to understand what makes executives effective.”
Through research, Byars has learned more about herself as a leader. “Research has shown me that our experiences, both the challenges and the triumphs, influence leaders and ultimately the impact we can have on the people and organizations we serve,” she says.
FUN FACT: While pursuing her undergraduate degree, Byars was a Clemson Football hostess for then-head coach Danny Ford.
