Impact of Leader Competency Type with Leader Promotability: Extending Self-Other Agreement Research

Abstract

Leader development research and practice have relied on multisource feedback assessment (MSF or 360-degree assessment) for years. Self-other rating agreement (SOA) is one area of MSF research that sustains particular interest. SOA studies have repeatedly aggregated leadership behaviors together when using SOA as a predictor of performance. As a result, we know little about SOA and its impact on leader outcomes based on the type of leader behavior used for SOA. We hypothesized (1) self-other in-agreement high ratings of work centric behaviors (e.g., confronting problem employees) will have a stronger positive relationship with promotability than non-work centric behaviors (e.g., putting people at ease), and (2) over-estimating self-ratings, compared to others’ ratings, will have a negative relationship with promotability with work centric behaviors but not with non-work centric behaviors. We tested these two hypotheses with 438 leaders and results show that in-agreement high ratings are associated with higher outcomes regardless of the type of behavior, but, as predicted, overrating work centric behaviors negatively relates to promotability. We discuss the important practical and research implications these findings have for organizations.