2003 IMTA Proceedings - International Military Testing Association

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Research has shown that making a leader aware of these discrepancies can facilitate the
leader’s success (e.g., Becker, Ayman, & Korabik, 2002). Examining the agreement between
subordinate and self-ratings of leaders in an actual upward feedback session, London and
Wohlers (1991) found that leaders’ ability to accurately judge subordinates’ attitudes improved
over time; one year after the initial feedback session, which included results from subordinates,
agreement in ratings increased significantly, although not dramatically from Time 1 (r 2 = .28) to
Time 2 (r 2 = .32). This supports the premise that discrepancies identified with the LCS could
decrease over time if leaders were provided feedback on their accuracy. As the ultimate goal is
to facilitate leaders’ ability to accurately judge the attitudes of their soldiers, the following
hypotheses are offered:
Hypothesis 4a. Discrepancies between leaders’ ratings of subordinate’s attitudes of
climate dimensions and subordinates’ rating would reduce significantly across the four phases of
administration.
Hypothesis 4b. Confidence levels would vary significantly over the phases of
administration. At Time 2 and 3, the confidence levels would initially be lowered (i.e., Phase 2)
until leaders re-calibrate their assessments of climate, and then confidence levels would raise
(e.g., Phase 4).
RESULTS
The Human Dimensions Operations (HDO) survey was administered throughout the
course of an operational tour: a predeployment phase and three in-theatre phases. The HDO – W
version, including the LCS was administered to 552 leaders (warrant officers and above) and,
concurrently, the HDO – S version, including the UCP, was administered to 2,064 subordinates
(sergeants and below). Results of the UCP were averaged for each climate dimension
(i.e., appropriate items were summed and averaged for each construct). Participants’ resultant
scores for each climate dimensions were merged with the LCP results. Demographic information
such as company, platoon, rank, etc. was available for both data sets.
Hypothesis 1. Previous findings that leaders overrated soldiers’ perceptions of climate
(Brown & Johnston, 2002) were confirmed with eleven separate one-way ANOVAs (Tabachnick
& Fidell, 2001). Results revealed significant differences between leaders and subordinates on all
of the climate dimensions (refer to Figure 1), thereby supporting Hypothesis 1.
45 th Annual Conference of the International Military Testing Association
Pensacola, Florida, 3-6 November 2003