Who Overrates, Who Underrates? Personality and Its Link to Self–Other Agreement of Leadership Effectiveness

Abstract

The study investigated if personality can explain why certain managers are prone to overrate or underrate their own effectiveness. Thus, the relationship between self–other agreement of effectiveness and personality was studied. In total, 214 managers completed a multisource feedback and provided personality data on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. Results show that more extraverted leaders overrated their effectiveness in relation to their supervisors but had more accurate perceptions when self–peer and self–subordinate ratings were compared. Leaders with an intuition preference had more accurate perceptions when comparing self and supervisor or subordinate ratings while leaders with judging preferences received lower subordinate than self-ratings. Findings show that personality partly explains why leaders overrate or underrate their effectiveness and thus can be used for understanding leaders’ careers.