Managerial self-awareness in high-performing individuals in organizations

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Management Science
• Behavioral Research

Background:

• Managerial self-awareness (MSA) is crucial for effective leadership.
• Existing research lacks a clear understanding of factors differentiating self-awareness levels in managers.
• Operationalizing MSA as congruence between self and direct report ratings offers a quantifiable measure.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate individual differences in managerial self-awareness (MSA).
• To compare MSA levels between high-performing (HP) and average-performing (AV) managers.
• To explore the relationship between MSA and other self-perception constructs.

Main Methods:

• Examined congruence between self and direct reports' behavioral ratings across 4 independent datasets.
• Included 134 high-performing and 470 average-performing managers.
• Utilized various approaches to measure ratings agreement and compared MSA with self-monitoring and self-consciousness.

Main Results:

• High-performing managers exhibited significantly higher managerial self-awareness (MSA) compared to average-performing managers.
• This performance-based difference in MSA was consistent across different data sources and performance assessment methods.
• No significant relationships were found between MSA congruence and factors like gender, age, tenure, or management level.

Conclusions:

• Managerial self-awareness is a key differentiator between high-performing and average-performing managers.
• Self-monitoring converges with MSA, suggesting its relevance in understanding self-awareness.
• Self-consciousness appears to be related to rating leniency rather than true self-awareness.