Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/317826 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal of Business and Psychology [ISSN:] 1573-353X [Volume:] 39 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] Springer US [Place:] New York, NY [Year:] 2023 [Pages:] 471-495
Publisher: 
Springer US, New York, NY
Abstract: 
Promoting high-performing employees to leadership positions is a pervasive practice and has high face validity. However, little is known about the actual link between employee and subsequent leader performance as prior results are inconsistent. Given the prevalence of this performance-based promotion strategy, we conducted a study to address this inconsistency. To account for prior diverging results, we (a) competitively tested predictions from different theoretical perspectives (i.e., the performance requirements perspective, the follower-centric perspective, and the Theory of Expert Leadership), (b) considered possible changes in the predictive validity of this strategy over time, and (c) included job complexity as potential moderator of the link between employee and subsequent leader performance. In a high stakes context (i.e., the first German soccer league), we tested the predictive validity of employee performance for leader performance. Our results suggest a low validity of performance-based promotion, as we could not find evidence for a link between employee performance and leader performance—neither initially following the promotion nor over time, which is most in line with the performance requirements perspective. We, thus, caution against the (sole) application of performance-based promotion principles.
Subjects: 
Leader selection
Peter Principle
Performance-based promotion
Employee promotion
Expert leadership
Soccer
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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