Fearless dominance and performance in field sales: a predictive study

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordIn a prospective study of 150 junior salespeople in the same company, we examined the relation between fearless dominance, which is a dimension of trait psychopathy, and objective performance in field sales. After controlling for demographic variables, length of job tenure, initial sales training quality, and disciplined achievement motivation, the results supported an inverted U‐shaped relation, which showed that, after a certain turning point, increases in fearless dominance resulted in decreases in performance. Thus, the most successful salespeople in our sample possessed moderate levels of fearless dominance. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are provided in light of a number of notable strengths and limitations

Political will, work values, and objective career success: A novel approach – The Trait-Reputation-Identity Model

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordIndividual-level political will in organizations and careers is recognized by many scholars as an important yet under-investigated construct. Only recently has a scale directly assessing political will been developed, and its validation process has just begun (Kapoutsis, Papalexandris, Treadway, & Bentley, 2017). We used the Trait-Reputation-Identity Model (McAbee & Connelly, 2016) and a triadic multisource design to explore and elucidate the nomological network of political will, including its link to objective career success. We found supporting empirical evidence for the construct (power striving) and criterion validity (hierarchical position and income) of the self-serving political will scale. However, our findings did not support the multi-rater convergence and the interpretation of the benevolent political will scale as representing an altruistic political motive. Hence, we suggest the development and validation of new items that directly relate to benevolence toward others at work. We further encourage researchers to develop and validate an additional scale assessing altruistic political will above and beyond self-serving and benevolent political will. We discuss additional implications, limitations, and directions for future research

Conscientiousness, extraversion, and field sales performance: Combining narrow personality, social skill, emotional stability, and nonlinearity

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordAlthough prior research indicated that extraversion and conscientiousness are uniformly beneficial to sales performance, recent evidence suggests that scholars should consider nonlinearity, narrow personality, social skill, and the research context in the personality-performance relation. Further, scholars have found conscientiousness to have inverted U-shaped relationships with performance. Taking these into account, the present study examines the nonlinear relation that the combined conscientiousness facets of discipline and achievement motivation (i.e., disciplined achievement motivation) have with objective sales performance in a predictive study with a nine month time interval. We argue that stable social potency, composed of the activity facet of extraversion, social skill, and emotional stability, will moderate this nonlinear relation in the context of insurance field sales, such that the greatest sales performance will be from those high on both constructs. Our findings support our hypotheses, demonstrating that a relevant social-related trait (i.e., stable social potency) can offset the potential downsides of high disciplined achievement motivation (e.g., perfectionism, and workaholism), helping such individuals to achieve high objective sales. Implications for theory and future research directions are discussed

Extraversion and adaptive performance: Integrating trait activation and socioanalytic personality theories at work

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordBoth trait activation and socioanalytic personality theories clarify the personality – performance relationship at work. We argue that extraversion needs to be interactively combined with both social competency (socioanalytic theory) and an activating context (trait activation theory) to demonstrate effects on a relevant type of work performance. Specifically, the aim of the present study was to examine extraversion's association with adaptive performance when combined with social competency and context (i.e., climate for personal initiative). Our results demonstrate that the three-way interaction (i.e., extraversion × social competency × climate for initiative) has a significant relationship with adaptive performance, such that the extraversion–performance association is strengthened when both social competency and climate for initiative are heightened. Our findings suggest that personality scholars should consider both socioanalytic and trait activation perspectives when investigating performance prediction. We discuss implications, strengths, limitations, and directions for future research

Political skill and manager performance: exponential and asymptotic relationships due to differing levels of enterprising job demands

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordPolitical skill, a social competence that enables individuals to achieve goals due to their understanding of and influence upon others at work, can play an important role in manager performance. We argue that the political skill–manager performance relationship varies as a nonlinear function of differing levels of enterprising job demands (i.e., working with and through people). A large number of occupations have some enterprising features, but, across occupations, management roles typically contain even greater enterprising expectations. However, relatively few studies have examined the enterprising work context (e.g., enterprising demands) of managers. Specifically, under conditions of high enterprising job demands, we argue and find that, as political skill increases, there is an associated exponential increase in enterprising performance, with growth beyond the mean of political skill resulting in outsized performance gains. Whereas, under conditions of low (relative to other managers) enterprising job demands, political skill will have an asymptotic relationship with enterprising job performance, such that the positive relationship becomes weaker as political skill grows, with increases on political skill beyond the mean resulting in minimal performance improvements. Our hypotheses are generally supported, and these findings have important implications for managers, as the performance gains in managerial roles were shown to be a joint function of manager political skill and enterprising job demands

Personal Initiative and Job Performance Evaluations: Role of Political Skill in Opportunity Recognition and Capitalization

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from SAGE Publications via the DOI in this recordIn recent years, personal initiative has been found to predict job performance. However, implicit in this direct initiative–performance relationship are more complex process dynamics that can be better understood when contextual antecedents, moderators, and mediators are considered. Drawing from perspectives of proactive behavior as a goal-directed process, a research model of personal initiative was tested in a three-study investigation intended to build upon and advance prior work. Specifically, the model indicates that climate for initiative interacts with the social astuteness dimension of political skill (i.e., opportunity recognition) to influence the demonstration of personal initiative, and this first part of the model is tested and supported in Study 1. Then, personal initiative is hypothesized to interact with the interpersonal influence dimension of political skill (i.e., opportunity capitalization) to predict supervisor assessments of job performance, and this part of the model is tested and supported in Study 2. Study 3 provided a test of the entire model and demonstrated support for moderated mediation, thus adding increased confidence in the validity of the theory and findings through constructive replication

Political Skill Moderates the Success of Psychopaths at the Workplace

On one hand, psychopaths tend to be callous, emotionally deficient, aggressive, self promoting, impulsive, and pursuant of unmitigated agency regardless of the extent to which it comes at the expense of others. On the other hand, by all accounts, psychopaths tend to be charming, seductive, self-confident, composed, risk-seeking, and adept at impression management (Babiak & Hare, 2006; Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to reconcile these contrasting positions by examining whether (non-violent) psychopaths truly can be “successful” in the workplace. Drawing on socioanalytic theory (Hogan, 1983), we hypothesized that psychopaths in possession of political skill would be better able to package, conceal, and/or restrain their desires to get ahead in such a way as to be perceived as less counterproductive and more adaptive. Results provided support for these hypotheses. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are provided in light of a number of notable strengths and limitations

The interactive effects of conscientiousness, openness to experience, and political skill on job performance in complex jobs: The importance of context

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordCaveats concerning the ability of personality to predict job performance have been raised because of seemingly modest criterion-related validity. The goal of the present research was to test whether narrowing the context via the type of job (i.e., jobs with complex task demands) and adding a social skill-related moderator (i.e., political skill) would improve performance prediction. Further, along with political skill, a broad factor of personality (i.e., conscientiousness which had demonstrated in prior research to have the strongest criterion validity) was paired with a narrow construct (i.e., learning approach that is closely related to openness to experience) in a three-way interactive prediction of supervisor-rated task performance. With the employeesupervisor dyads among professionals, but not with the control group of non-professional employees, task performance was predicted by the three-way interaction, such that those high on all three received the highest performance ratings. Implications, strengths and limitations, and directions for future research are discussed

Further specification of the leader political skill–leadership effectiveness relationships: transformational and transactional leader behavior as mediators

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordThe present investigation was a three-source test of the intermediate linkages in the leader political skill–leader effectiveness and follower satisfaction relationships, which examined transformational and transactional (i.e., contingent reward behavior) leader behavior as mediators. Data from 408 leaders (headmasters) and 1429 followers (teachers) of state schools in the western part of Germany participated in this research. The results of mediation analyses, based on bias-corrected bootstrapping confidence intervals, provided support for the hypotheses that political skill predicts both transformational and transactional leader behavior, beyond other established predictors, and that transformational and transactional leader behavior mediate the relationships between leader political skill and leadership effectiveness. The contributions to theory and research, strengths and limitations, directions for future research, and practical implications are discussed

The role of interpersonal influence in counterbalancing psychopathic personality trait facets at work

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the publisher via the DOI in this recordThe purpose of this study was to examine the relations of two facets of psychopathic personality (i.e., self-centered impulsivity and fearless dominance) with interpersonally directed counterproductive work behavior (CWB-I) and contextual performance (CP). Consistent with research on psychopathy, our hypothesis suggested that self-centered impulsivity (i.e., behavioral impulsivity characterized by disregard for rules and responsibilities) would be positively related to CWB-I and negatively related to CP. Using socioanalytic theory, we further suggested that fearless dominance (i.e., an egotistical personal style characterized by self-promotion and prioritization of one’s own needs before those of others) would be negatively associated with interpersonal performance (i.e., high CWB-I and low CP) only when individuals indicated low levels of interpersonal influence (i.e., a dimension of political skill reflecting an ability to adapt one’s behavior in subtle, sophisticated, and situationally effective ways). Results provided strong support for the differential relations of the psychopathic personality dimensions with the criteria of interest. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are provided in light of a number of notable strengths and limitations