Self-Other Evaluation in Leadership Contexts

Self-other evaluation refers to the process by which leaders assess their own behaviour, performance or influence and compare these self-assessments with evaluations provided by followers, peers or superiors. Central to this field is the concept of agreement—or congruence—between self-ratings and other-ratings, which has been linked to leadership effectiveness, team trust and work engagement. Discrepancies can reveal blind spots, misaligned expectations or cultural biases, signalling opportunities for development. Empirical work has employed multi-rater feedback systems, polynomial regression, response-surface analyses and extensive cross-cultural surveys to tease apart how contextual factors—such as reward structures, hierarchical position, emotional intelligence and cultural distance—influence evaluation patterns. The practical applications of this research are global in scope: they inform the design of appraisal systems, enhance leadership development programmes and foster organisational climates that encourage accurate self-awareness and constructive feedback loops.

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Self-Other Evaluation in Leadership Contexts publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in self-other evaluation in leadership contexts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Self-other agreement: The degree of concordance between an individual’s self-assessment and evaluations provided by others in the organisation.

Multisource feedback: A systematic process in which leaders receive performance evaluations from multiple stakeholders, including subordinates, peers and superiors.

Transformational leadership: A leadership style characterised by inspiring and motivating followers to exceed expectations through vision, support and individualised consideration.

Perceptual congruence/incongruence: The alignment or misalignment of perceptions between two individuals regarding behaviours or outcomes.

Interpersonal emotion regulation: The process by which one individual influences another’s emotional experience or expression through social interaction.

References

1. Monetary rewards and hierarchy level as drivers of employees’ self-evaluations. Review of Managerial Science (2024).
2. Principal-Teachers Agreement on Teachers’ Interpersonal Emotion Regulation: Relations with Principals’ Transformational Leadership, Teaching Staff Positive Collective Emotions, and Teaching Staff Organizational Commitment. The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher (2024).
3. Relating Cultural Distance to Self-Other Agreement of Leader–Observer Dyads: The Role of Hierarchical Position. Frontiers in Psychology (2021).