City Managers' Leadership Credibility: Explaining the Variations of Self-Other Assessments

Abstract

ABSTRACTLeadership skills are clearly important for city managers. Credible leaders have the potential to have a positive impact on employee attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, as well as organizational outcomes. Despite the importance of and the credibility of leaders, we have little understanding of how city managers assess their own credibility. In order to improve our understanding, this research explores factors that influence managers' awareness of their credibility as leaders. Using data from Michigan municipalities, we find that both individual and organizational characteristics are correlated with a city manager's ability to accurately assess their skills when compared to their subordinates' assessments.INTRODUCTIONThe concept of is arguably one of the most studied topics in organizational behavior (Fernandez, 2005; Kaiser, Hogan, & Craig, 2008; Van Wart, 2003). For decades, scholars have attempted to understand effective at the individual level and the relationship between quality and success at the organizational level (for some classic examples, see Boyatzis, 1982; Burns, 1978; Kouzes & Posner, 1987; Stogdill, 1948, 1974; Terry, 2003). Even though the public administration literature has generated a substantial volume of scholarship, our understanding of both conceptually and as it relates to organizational outputs remains elusive (Van Wart, 2003). As James MacGregor Burns states, leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth (1978, p. 3). Therefore, our efforts to understand must continue (Van Wart, 2003).The public-sector literature has notably failed to create one unifying or dominant theory of (Terry, 2003; Van Wart, 2003). However, it has produced a vast literature on a variety of different aspects of (Van Wart, 2013). One particular path of scholarship examines the role of the transformational leader in organizations (Bass, 1985, 1990, 1996; Burns 1978). We build on this research by examining one of the defining traits of transformational leaders: credibility. Namely, we argue credibility exists when leaders are highly self-aware (Sosik & Megerian, 1999).In this article, we develop a measure of a leader's selfawareness by asking them to rate their own performance and comparing these ratings to evaluations by their subordinates. We then attempt to identify characteristics that influence the accuracy of manager's self-evaluations in order to improve our understanding of credibility. Our findings are important, as research from the field of organizational psychology has shown individuals who are aware of their performance behave quite differently than those who are not self-aware (Atwater, Ostroff, Yammarino, & Fleenor, 1998; Atwater & Yammarino, 1992; Sosik & Megerian, 1999; Tekleab, Sims, Yun, Tesluk, & Cox, 2008). Before turning to our model, it is important to review the relevant literature on organizational leadership.LITERATURE REVIEWThe topic of has been an interest to public administration scholars for decades, yet are still many gaps in our understanding of what makes a leader great and the impact that has on organizations (Van Wart, 2003). The gap in our knowledge may be related to the fact that as a concept can be quite amorphous. As Stodgill (1974, p. 259) concludes, there are almost as many definitions of as are persons who have attempted to define the concept. This definitional problem has yet to be resolved in any coherent fashion, but are reasons to be encouraged.Scholars have long noted the general distrust toward government and hostility toward bureaucratic growth (Meier & Bohte, 2006; Terry, 2003; West, 1995). However, the fact remains that over time we have come to expect more and more from our government, making the behavior of individuals within the bureaucracy at all levels critical to the daily lives of so many (Terry, 2003). …

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