When opposites hurt: Similarity in getting ahead in leader-follower dyads as a predictor of job performance evaluations
Abstract
Status-seeking behaviors are linked to executive career progression, but do leaders appreciate being surrounded by followers eager to move up in the organizational hierarchy? Building on the self-enhancement theory, we propose that leaders with high self-assessed getting-ahead behaviors give better performance evaluations to subordinates who also have willingness to get ahead behaviors. In contrast, leaders with low self-assessed getting-ahead behaviors are quite reserved about the performance of subordinates high in the getting-ahead dimension. We also propose that overall, ambitious leaders evaluate more positively their followers’ performance than leaders with more modest desire to get ahead. We suggest that this effect is magnified when the status differential between the leader and the follower is reduced due to differences in age or hierarchical level (i.e., a younger leader or too few hierarchical levels between the leader and the subordinate). The results obtained by using polynomial regression and response surface techniques to analyze a sample of 138 leader-follower dyads supported our hypotheses showing a supervisor’s contextual performance ratings skew rooted in leaders’ desire to get ahead. We conclude by deriving the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Paper provided by ESMT European School of Management and Technology in its series ESMT Research Working Papers with number ESMT-11-12 (R1).Length: 35 pages
Date of creation: 14 Dec 2011
Date of revision: 30 Aug 2012
Handle: RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-11-12
Contact details of provider:
Postal: Schlossplatz 1, 10178 Berlin
Phone: +49 (0)30 21231 0
Fax: +49 (0)30 21231 9
Email:
Web page: http://www.esmt.org
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: getting-ahead similarity; leader-follower dyads; job performance evaluation; self-enhancement; 360-degree instruments;This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2012-01-03 (All new papers)
- NEP-HRM-2012-01-03 (Human Capital & Human Resource Management)
References
No references listed on IDEASYou can help add them by filling out this form.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-11-12For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (ESMT Faculty Publications).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.