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Dissertation Abstract: Tony Vitek

Source: Dissertation Abstracts. Publisher contact: 300 N. Zeeb Rd., PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346

Written at Wayne State University, 2002
Advisor: Marcus W. Dickson
187 Pages

The purpose of this study was to compare three leadership theories as predictors of managerial success. Substitute measures of each of the theories were created from the same base multirater feedback instrument, and an empirically developed leadership measure derived from the same instrument was used for comparison. Managerial success was operationalized as number of promotions and two separate measures of promotability. Managerial success outcomes were compared to managerial effectiveness outcomes, operationalized as two measures of managerial performance. Data were collected from a large, global Fortune 500 manufacturing company headquartered in the Midwest, with promotion information collected five years after completion of the multirater feedback instrument. It was expected House's 1996 path-goal theory of leadership, as the most comprehensive model with the most extensive research history and background, would be the best predictor of leadership success among the three models and across a range of “success” outcome criteria. Not only was this found not to be the case, but all three leadership theories tested were poorer predictors of all outcomes than the empirically derived leadership model used for comparison. Further, demographic characteristics, and age in particular, turned out to be a much more important predictor of some managerial success outcomes than any leadership behaviors. The results have implications for leadership theory building as well as for the development of effective performance management systems and succession planning processes within organizations.