Social psychological skill as a predictor of effective leadership
Master thesis
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Date
2024Metadata
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- Master of Science [1729]
Abstract
Given the importance of effective leadership in organizational outcomes, identifying the underlying variables, in particular individual skills, is a major research goal. Recent work from the field of social cognition has introduced a novel type of social skill, social psychological skill (SPS), which entails individuals’ ability to accurately predict how people generally feel, think, and behave across varying social contexts (Gollwitzer & Bargh, 2018). We propose that SPS may predict effective leadership as SPS captures a general understanding of human nature while also being linked to systemized thinking and unbiased decision-making. We examine this possibility in two studies (N = 785). In Study 1, in a sample of US managers, SPS did not consistently predict transformational leadership, an important aspect of effective leadership. Given these unexpected findings, Study 2 examined whether SPS diverges from previously established predictors of effective leadership, such as emotional intelligence. We find that while emotional intelligence predicts a greater likelihood of being perceived by subordinates as a transformational leader, SPS predicts effective leadership in terms of greater performance on a task-oriented leadership task (how to raise team morale and productivity). These results suggest that emotional intelligence and SPS are divergent social cognitive skills and that effective leadership is a multi-faceted construct informed by such divergent skills.
Keywords: social psychological skill, people perception, effective leadership, transformational leadership, emotional intelligence
Description
Masteroppgave(MSc) in Master of Science in Leadership and Organizational Psychology - Handelshøyskolen BI, 2024