Self-confidence and leadership

Abstract

The object of this study was to examine the relationship between lack of confidence in one's leadership ability and reliance upon passive leadership techniques to cope with supervisory problems. 77 Navy petty officers were given a questionnaire containing 20 supervisory problems and were asked to evaluate the desirability of each of 5 ways of solving each problem. Ss also evaluated how satisfied they were with their leadership abilities. Principal findings were: (a) Ss were highly consistent in the extent to which they endorsed each of 5 approaches to correcting performance, (b) there was a correlation of .52 between endorsing the use of administrative procedures to solve the problem and informally asking a superior to solve the problem, and (c) Ss who lacked confidence in their leadership abilities were significantly less willing to hold face-to-face discussions with subordinates and significantly more often endorsed both referring the subordinate to a superior and relying upon the use of administrative rules to solve the supervisory problems. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)