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Recent discussions of organizational performance have emphasized growing complexity and an accelerating pace of change and have called for new models of leadership for managing the paradoxes and dilemmas that they pose The coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic amplified these dynamics and created an opportunity to examine one of the newer models by comparing the effects of versatile leadership in precrisis and crisis conditions in a field study using a quasi-experimental design with matched samples The results indicated strong positive relationships between versatile leadership and multiple measures of effectiveness in both conditions but showed significantly stronger relationships with team adaptability, team productivity, and overall effectiveness in the crisis condition The implications of these findings are considered for leaders, organizations, and the professionals who study and advise them about dealing with crises specifically and with the paradoxical demands of disruptive change in general © 2020 American Psychological Association

This chapter demonstrates how integrating personality assessment with 360 Feedback can provide a powerful combination for leadership development based on strategic self-awareness. The combination is strategic in that it broadens self-awareness of what one does, and it is powerful in that it deepens self-awareness about why one does it, which can help leaders make lasting changes to better align with the skills, competencies, and values needed for high performance in their jobs and the desires of their organizations. Combining 360 Feedback with personality assessment can also be powerful in selection-oriented talent management processes, from the identification of leadership potential, to succession planning, to hiring decisions. However, these high-stakes applications are distinct from developmental applications and involve a number of different considerations. For the sake of focus and simplicity, the chapter only addresses 360 Feedback in a development context.

In their focal article, Reynolds, McCauley, Tsacoumis, and the Jeanneret Symposium Participants (2018) stress the importance of context in leadership assessment. For instance, they argue that senior executives work in a different context compared to lower-level managers and that this should be taken into account. A simple example is that the competency of strategic thinking is critical for executive performance but much less so, if at all, for front-line supervisors. The claim that context matters in leadership and in the assessment of leaders is easy to grasp but difficult to apply in practice.

This study advanced knowledge on charisma by (a) introducing a new personality-based model to conceptualize and assess charisma and by (b) investigating curvilinear relationships between charismatic personality and leader effectiveness. Moreover, we delved deeper into this curvilinear association by (c) examining moderation by the leader's level of adjustment and by (d) testing a process model through which the effects of charismatic personality on effectiveness are explained with a consideration of specific leader behaviors. Study 1 validated HDS charisma (Hogan Development Survey) as a useful trait-based measure of charisma. In Study 2 a sample of leaders (N = 306) were assessed in the context of a 360-degree development center. In line with the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect, an inverted U-shaped relationship between charismatic personality and observer-rated leader effectiveness was found, indicating that moderate levels are better than low or high levels of charisma. Study 3 (N = 287) replicated this curvilinear relationship and further illustrated the moderating role of leader adjustment, in such a way that the inflection point after which the effects of charisma turn negative occurs at higher levels of charisma when adjustment is high. Nonlinear mediation modeling further confirmed that strategic and operational leader behaviors fully mediate the curvilinear relationship. Leaders low on charisma are less effective because they lack strategic behavior; highly charismatic leaders are less effective because they lack operational behavior. In sum, this work provides insight into the dispositional nature of charisma and uncovers the processes through which and conditions under which leader charisma translates into (in)effectiveness. (PsycINFO Database Record

It is a cool honor and opportunity to be selected as the fourth editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research (CPJ). This is a unique scholarly publication. Sure, it extols the familiar virtues of science and practice. But I like how CPJ puts the accent on practice (notice which goes first in the subtitle, Practice and Research). I recall with ironic delight my first rejection letter from an esteemed scientific journal that claimed to be “applied.” The editor explained that the ideas were original and that the findings were interesting but the paper was just too practitioner-oriented. Evidently in that applied journal it was a fatal mistake to speak to people who apply research in the real world.

In this study, dark-side traits are conceptualised as extreme extensions of the “bright-side” traits of the Five-Factor Model that often have counterproductive effects. We predict which dark-side traits will be related to ratings of “too little” and “too much” of four leader behaviors and how low levels of Emotional Stability may accentuate the relationship between dark-side traits and excessive leader behavior. Analyses in a sample of 320 American and European managers and executives rated by 4,906 co-workers provided support for most predicted relationships, with medium-sized overall multivariate effects. Support for a moderating effect for Emotional Stability was also found. Scores near the normative mean on the dark-side traits were associated with optimal levels of the leader behaviors, whereas both high scores and, unexpectedly, low scores were associated with extreme, ineffective leader behaviors. Implications are considered for future research on the role of the dark side in leadership, re-conceptualising the interpretation of low scores on dark-side personality scales, and the coaching and development of managers.

This article describes the too little/too much (TLTM) scale as an innovation in rating scale methodology that may facilitate research on the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect. Two studies demonstrate how this scale can improve the ability to detect curvilinear relationships in leadership research. In Study 1, leaders were rated twice on a set of leader behaviors: once using a traditional 5-point Likert scale and once using the TLTM scale, which ranged between –4 ( much too little), 0 ( the right amount), and +4 ( much too much). Only linear effects were observed for the Likert ratings, while the TLTM ratings demonstrated curvilinear, inverted U-shaped relationships with performance. Segmented regressions indicated that Likert ratings provided variance associated with the too little range of the TLTM scale but not in the too much range. Further, the TLTM ratings added incremental validity over Likert ratings, which was entirely due to variance from the too much range. Study 2 replicated these findings using a more fine-grained, 9 -point Likert scale, ruling out differences in scale coarseness as an explanation for why the TLTM scale was better at detecting curvilinear effects.

Employability is defined as the capacity to gain and retain formal employment, or find new employment if necessary. Reasons for unemployment are often attributed to economic factors, but psychological factors associated with employability also contribute to the problem. Consequently, industrial-organizational psychologists should be uniquely suited to contribute to policy solutions for enhancing employability. This review begins by surveying the most common research approach to employability—the study of career success—which psychologists believe is determined by cognitive abilities, personality, and educational achievement. Next, we review the literature concerning what employers actually want. This section highlights the importance of social skills (being rewarding to deal with) as a key determinant of employability. We conclude by proposing a model for understanding the psychological determinants of employability and for bridging the gap between what psychologists prescribe and what employers want.

Psychological theories view leadership as a social influence process in which leaders use interpersonal behaviors to motivate followers to contribute to group goals. On the other hand, business-oriented models emphasize the leadership of organizational functions such as strategy, structure, staffing, and work systems. In this article, this distinction is conceptualized as representing the interpersonal how and the organizational what, respectively, and the two perspectives are viewed as complementary ways that leaders can impact organizational performance. Evidence is provided to show how leadership professionals tend to have a bias in favor of one, and corresponding neglect of the other, perspective. A study is then presented to test relationships between behaviors indicative of the how and the what and leadership effectiveness. Based on ratings of 421 senior managers from 4,670 superiors, peers, and subordinates, the results demonstrate the significant and roughly equivalent contributions for both the interpersonal how and the organizational what in predicting the perceived effectiveness of leaders and the unique routes through which each aspect of leadership affects team performance. Implications for research and practice are discussed in terms of integrative, multidisciplinary approaches to understanding and improving leadership.

This study tests predictions about links between personality and ratings of four leader behavior styles. It also examines the assumption that strengths can become weaknesses by determining the level of personality scores associated with ratings of “the right amount” vs. “too much” of the leader behaviors. Multivariate analyses in a sample of 126 managers and executives rated by 1,512 coworkers supported 93% of the predicted personality-leader behavior relationships, with an average observed effect size of R 2 .26. Distinct personality profiles defined each of the leader behaviors, and complementary behaviors were defined by opposing personality profiles. Consistent with recent findings of curvilinear personality-performance relationships, personality scores about 1 SD above the normative mean predicted doing too much of the leader behaviors. However, scores slightly below the mean also predicted doing too much of some leader behaviors. The findings indicate that leader behavior is related to a broad range of personality dimensions and show how both high and low scores on personality dimensions can compromise performance through an association with excessive behavior.

It has become popular in the practices of leadership development and talent management to segment managers at different organizational levels in order to focus on the unique requirements thought to characterize jobs at each level. This movement has been spurred by popular books that emphasize differences in the nature of managerial work at different hierarchical levels. Seemingly independent of popular work in this area has been scientific research to describe differences in managerial jobs across organizational levels. The present article summarizes the extensive research literature on level differences in managerial jobs in terms of three broad generalizations: The number of distinct management levels, five different ways to characterize work at each level, and how radical differences in work at each level pose adaptive challenges to managers who transition into positions of greater authority and responsibility. The article closes with commentary on the current state of theory and research and offers su...

Past research on how the requirements of managerial jobs differ across organizational levels has mostly been descriptive. No previously published study has directly tested whether the behaviors that predict effectiveness are different at different levels. The authors tested whether organizational level moderated the relationships between subordinate ratings on seven dimensions of managerial behavior and superior evaluations of overall effectiveness using a set of identical measures in a sample of 2,175 supervisors, middle managers, and executives representing 15 different industries and dozens of organizations in the United States. Multivariate analyses revealed significant differences in the pattern of behaviors associated with effectiveness across levels. Many differences were discontinuous (e.g., positive predictors of effectiveness at one level were negative predictors at another) and generally consistent with the dominant themes in the descriptive literature characterizing the unique requirements of ...

This article concerns how to evaluate the integrity of managers, with an emphasis on identifying those with low integrity. After defining our terms, we review leadership research showing that subordinate perceptions of their manager’s integrity determine how much they trust their manager which, in turn, influences their attitudes and performance. Next we evaluate a common method for assessing the integrity of managers. This method defines integrity as a leadership competency and measures it using coworker ratings of observed ethical behavior. We found that these behavioral ratings suggested only a negligible proportion of managers may have integrity issues and did not distinguish high- from low-performing managers. We then propose an alternative method based on subordinate expectations about the likelihood that their boss would behave unethically. This method suggested that a much larger proportion of managers may have integrity issues and did distinguish high- from low-performing managers. Based on these findings, we offer recommendations for assessing integrity in practice and urge the leadership field to seriously consider the prevalence and impact of managerial misconduct.

There is little question that leadership is vital to organizational effectiveness; however, there is a lack of comprehensive models of the processes and intervening factors that explain the link between individual leaders and organizational performance. This article concerns an evidence-based framework, the leadership value chain, that traces the characteristics of individual leaders to their leadership style; leadership style to effect on team and unit processes; team and unit processes to team and unit results; and team and unit results to effectiveness across a broad range of organizational-level performance measures. The point of the leadership value chain is to identify the sequence of key variables and considerations that relate individual leaders to organizational effectiveness. Of all the things to consider, these are the things that must be considered to determine the value of leadership. The authors use examples to show how this framework can provide a heuristic for thinking strategically about ...

Because flexible leadership is vital to organizational adaptability and performance, it is important to measure flexibility to identify leadership potential and to guide the development of managers. The most common method for measuring the flexibility of managers involves coworker ratings to survey items that ask about general tendencies for a manager to change behavior in response to changing situational conditions. Unfortunately, there are significant limitations to this approach. This article discusses an alternative method grounded in complexity theories of organizations and leader behavior. In this view, flexible leadership is conceptualized as the mastery of opposing but complementary behaviors in terms of how one leads as well as in terms of what organizational issues a leader focuses on. The mechanics of assessing this conception of flexible leadership are described in detail along with a demonstration of its ability to predict leadership effectiveness. Pros and cons associated with applying the mastery of opposites approach are discussed along with suggestions for how consultants and talent managers can use it.

This study examined ethnicity and psychological predictors of beliefs in guilt and innocence in the O. J. Simpson trial. A mixed-gender, multiethnic sample of 441 college students completed measures examining trial beliefs, trial-related attitudes, ethnic identification, pro- and anti-Black attitudes, and authoritarian personality traits. Results revealed that: (1) mean differences existed among ethnic groups on all variables examined; (2) proximal attitudes mediated relations between psychological characteristics and trial outcome beliefs; and (3) specific relations depended (to some extent) on ethnic group membership. Differences within and between ethnic groups may reflect schematic differences due to differential experiences with societal institutions, identification with (or rejection of) mainstream values, and race relations in American society.

A look into the very distant past of human existence shows that some conditions are more conducive to leadership than others and that followers naturally prefer specific forms of leadership and resist other forms. By understanding and acting on the three fundamental individual needs that result from group living and the three tough problems faced by ancient tribes, leaders can better connect with their followers.

Every individual has a personality, and because the primary responsibility of managers is dealing with people, it's important for managers to grasp the different types of personality and the implications of each type for the work world. With a clear understanding of how people are alike and the important ways in which they differ, managers are in a strong position to be effective leaders. In particular, knowledge of personality translates into effectiveness in hiring employees, leading employees, and managing yourself.

Despite keen interest, questions remain about defining and measuring the behavioral flexibility of managers. This paper reports a conceptual and empirical comparison of three alternative methods of assessing this construct. Results suggest that the way managerial flexibility is typically assessed in practice – as a trait-like characteristic with coworker ratings that describe a general tendency to vary behavior across situations – is deficient. However, more complex models that represent flexibility as a higher-order construct reflecting mastery of specific and opposing behaviors in both the social/interpersonal domain and the functional/organizational domain show promise. They demonstrate construct validity evidence, predict as much as 42% of the variance in overall effectiveness, and provide more specific diagnostic information to guide behavior change.

Often overlooked in management theory and education, how leaders function in an intrapersonal sense—the “inner game” of leadership—is pivotal. We develop this idea in a specific application by desc...

The fundamental assumption underlying the use of 360-degree assessments is that ratings from different sources provide unique and meaningful information about the target manager’s performance. Extant research appears to support this assumption by demonstrating low correlations between rating sources. This article reexamines the support of this assumption, suggesting that past research has been distorted by a statistical artifact—restriction of variance in job performance. This artifact reduces the amount of between-target variance in ratings and attenuates traditional correlation-based estimates of rating similarity. Results obtained from a Monte Carlo simulation and two field studies support this restriction of variance hypothesis. Noncorrelation-based methods of assessing interrater agreement indicated that agreement between sources was about as high as agreement within sources. Thus, different sources did not appear to be furnishing substantially unique information. The authors conclude by questioning common practices in 360-degree assessments and offering suggestions for future research and application.

This study provides a strategy for examining the traits of the Five Factor Model in a situation where no direct measure is available. Big Five wcales were rationally created from the 43-item Adjective Q-Sort adapted from Block 's Self-Descriptive Q-Set (Block & Block 1980). In the first study, expert judges evaluated each of the Q-Sort items on the five personality dimensions to provide conceptual measures of the five factors. Preliminary sets of items were honed using internal consistency criteria. The second study employed these scales in a sample of 112 African American 1Oth-grade students. Results indicated thatfour ofthefive scales demonstrated predictable relations to subscales of a self-concept measure, and allfive exhibited empirical relations to several parent socialization items of the Black Family Process Q-Sort. Theoretical suppositions relating personality traits to parental socialization practices are discussed.

The experience of anticipatory and reactive stress associated with goals was examined as a function of the trait of emotional stability. During the first few weeks of the academic year, first-year college students completed a measure of emotional stability, provided a set of their goals, rated these goals on anticipated stress, and 6 months later, re-evaluated the same set of goals on reactive stress. Results indicate that emotional stability relates to reactive stress but not anticipatory stress. While this general finding held for the academic, social, pleasure, independence, and moral/religious goal domains, three other content domains required substantive qualifications. Emotional stability related to both anticipatory and reactive stress in the health domain, and to neither kind of stress in the organization and material wealth domains. Potential explanations of these differences and implications for using trait and goal units conjointly are discussed.

The purposes of this study were to conduct afactor analysis of Baldwin and Bell's African Self-Consciousness (ASC) Scale, evaluate the effect of demographic variables on one's African self-consciousness, and relate the ASC Scale scores to criterion behaviors in a non-Southern and noncollege population. The scale was administered to 147AfricanAmericans residing in three Southern California cities. The ASC Scale's reliability, factor structure, and construct validity were examined. The scale had a Cronbach's alpha of .78. Principal axesfactoranalysis foundfourfactors, and it is suggested that 32 out of 42 items be retained to formulate the revised subscale dimensions identified as Personal Identification With the Group, Self-ReinforcementAgainstRacism, Racial and Cultural Awareness, and Value for African Culture. The ASC Scale appears to be a viable instrument for use in research investigating African Americans.

For me, in addition to being an unexpected personal loss, it had a distinct professional impact. I was just stepping into my tenure as the editor of Consulting Psychology Journal (CPJ) and had been talking with Bob about taking on a special project. I had an idea that we could formalize a new kind of paper that would make it possible for CPJ to capture more of the impressive knowledge that is held by consulting psychologists. I asked Bob if he would test this idea out by writing about what he had learned from his years of experience and reflection in the field. Bob seemed an ideal candidate because of his constant striving to understand and improve himself and his practice, as well as others in the field and their respective practices. He was open to the idea, with his characteristic commitment to learning and innovation, and not concerned that the kind of paper I was suggesting did not fall easily into the standard types usually published in the journal. In fact, he rather liked the idea of breaking set. I looked forward to working with Bob on the development of his paper and figuring out the larger concept.

(1992). Inter-Rater Reliability of a Holistically Scored Essay Test Used for Student Placement in Remedial/Developmental Writing Classes. Journal of College Reading and Learning: Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 17-26.

For the past fifteen years we have practiced a positive psychology for leaders—without calling it that. We have learned that the work of positive psychology is not just to affirm leaders for their strengths but to call out which of those strengths they overplay; that therefore a leaders' strengths cannot easily be separated from their weaknesses; that frequently leaders overuse their strengths because they worry that they aren't strong enough; that a good way to allay that anxiety is to administer a potent dose of positive feedback; and, finally, that the work of positive psychology is to deal with their resistance to that feedback.

An evaluation is made of Goldberg's (1992) 100 Unipolar Markers of the five-factor model of personality. The factor structure of these items in samples of older men from the Normative Aging Study and undergraduate students are examined, and both item transformation and consistency testing approaches are used to evaluate replications of the five-factor structure. Results show that the five-factor structure is difficult to replicate in the sample of older men. While item transformations and sample trimming based on a consistency test did improve the quality of the replication in this older, nonstudent sample, both methods have serious drawbacks. The five-factor solution appeared in the student sample without sample trimming or data transformation. Additionally, in both student and nonstudent samples, oblique rotation resulted in inter-factor correlations relevant to more general issues in the study of trait structure. We conclude that the 100 Unipolar Markers may be unsuitable for use in older populations or with nonstudent samples.