An investigation of the relationship between self-monitoring and leader effectiveness

The present study was conducted to investigate the relationship between self-monitoring and leader effectiveness. Several surrogate measures of leader effectiveness were used including: subordinate organizational commitment, overall job satisfaction, satisfaction with supervision, intention to turnover, organizational citizenship behavior, and leader performance ratings. The study was conducted in a retail setting. The sample consisted of fifteen store managers, 116 department supervisors, and 597 sales associates. The results of the study did not support a relationship between self-monitoring and leader effectiveness. This study also examined task structure as a potential moderator of the relationship between sel-fmonitoring and effectiveness. It was predicted that situations low in structure would present more opportunities for high self-monitors to engage in impression management and subsequently influence outcome measures. However, this prediction was not supported. Impression management, leadership categorization processes, and leader behavior were investigated as potential mediators of the relationship between self-monitoring and outcome variables. However, self-monitoring was not associated with the mediators or the outcome measures. Therefore, Hypothesis 3 was not supported. The results of this study suggest that it may be difficult to assess self-monitoring in applied settings using self-report measures. A primary difficulty associated with the use of this scale in applied settings is social desirability. In an organizational setting where the results may have future implications, respondents may be more likely to respond in socially desirable ways than are subjects in a laboratory setting. It may be difficult for individuals to accurately self-assess their own self-monitoring abilities. In addition, there has been considerable controversy surrounding the meaning of the self-monitoring construct. Critics argue that the construct is vague, making it impossible to evaluate whether any scale is valid. Before additional research in this area is conducted, a re-analysis of the self-monitoring construct is needed. The core propositions of the construct must be clearly identified in order to develop more useful measures. Future measures that assess behavior directly may be more useful for assessing self-monitoring as they would avoid the problem of social desirability in ratings.