Thinking and Behavioral Styles: Consistency between Self-Descriptions and Descriptions by Others

Abstract

Managers participating in management development programs provided self-report data on their thinking and behavioral styles as measured by Level I: Life Styles Inventory. Five co-workers (superiors, subordinates, peers) also described each manager on a parailel form of the inventory, Level II: Description by Others. These data were used to assess the consensual validity (agreement between self and others) and inter-rater reliability (agreement among others) of the twelve thinking/behavioral style measures included in the inventory. The results indicated that there was a fair amount of agreement among the respondents describing each manager, with eta-squared statistics ranging from 0.33 to 0.47 for the twelve styles. Correlations between self-reports and descriptions by others along the twelve measures ranged from .16 to .32. While these results provide some support for the consensual validity of the measures, they also point out important differences between the way managers see themselves and how they are perceived by others. It is concluded that feedback from others can observable of the twelve styles measured.