Investigating the validity of the conditional reasoning test for leadership

Abstract

Several decades of leadership research have failed to yield a personality measure that accurately predicts successful leaders (Bernus&Manis, 1985; Stogdill, 1974; Vroom&Yago, 2007; Yukl, 1989). A new implicit measure of personality, the Conditional Reasoning Test for Leadership (CRT-L), shows promise in this endeavor. This project investigated the construct and criterion-related validities of this measure. Previous research on implicit personality measures, and specifically conditional reasoning measures, has demonstrated that their relationship to their explicit measure counterparts tends to be modest or nonexistent. This was the case for the CRT-L, which had no relationship to the NEO Hostility Scale or the Motivation to Lead (MTL) Scale. As expected, the two explicit measures did have a significant and positive relationship (r = .42). The CRT-L was also effective at predicting leadership and power criteria. It had positive and significant relationships with Leadership Peer Nominations (r = .25) and Power Peer Nominations (r = .21) and was more successful in these predictions than either of the explicit measures. The results of this research provide evidence for the effectiveness of the CRT-L as a leadership measure and further validation work is encouraged.