In the era of intense competition, universities too try to secure the top most position among global 500 universities. With regard to Iranian universities, a TWENTY-YEAR VISION emphasizes the fact that Iran may achieve the top academic position in the Middle East by 2025. The present paper intends to review effective individual factors including the performance of professors in augmenting universities’ status. Since a desired scientific status needs the efforts of faculties and prudent administrators, attempt has been made to examine the effects of professors’ narcissism, self-efficacy and locus of control on their performance. The research is quantitative and the data was gathered through a questionnaire. The findings show that high ranking universities consist of academics with high self-efficacy and internal locus of control. Simultaneously, high ranks manifest high narcissism. However, the results show an insignificant relationship between professors’ propensity to learn and performance. In sum, considering the latest findings, one can conclude that professors’ personality is highly effective in their propensity to learning, hence it can be for important factor in employing academic professors.