AN EXAMINATION OF THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG SELF-PERCEPTION ACCURACY, SELF-AWARENESS, GENDER, AND LEADER EFFECTIVENESS

This article focuses on how membership in a self/rater agreement group (underraters, accurate raters, overraters) is related to self-ratings and others' ratings of self-awareness and leadership effectiveness. I t also examines gender differences in the likelihood of self/rater agr eement and in perceived self-awareness. Finally, the article examines agree ment group and gender differences in terms of two components of self-awareness: knowledge of self and willingness to improve. Contrary to common belief, our research shows that women are not more likely t o underrate their own skills on measures of leadership competency, and that gender differences do exist, both in rated self-awareness and in one of its subcomponents, knowledge of self. In addition, this resear ch found underraters were rated highest in self-awareness by direct re ports and highest in terms of overall leadership effectiveness. Manage rs who tend to overrate themselves compared to others' ratings were pe rceived as lowest of the three groups in both self-awareness and effec tiveness. (C) 1993 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.