Relationships between emotional and congruent self‐awareness and performance in the British Royal Navy

Purpose – This paper aims to present some findings from a wider study into effective command, leadership and management in the British Royal Navy (RN). Its aim is to increase understanding of two types of self‐awareness, emotional and congruent, and their relationship to job performance and personality. Design/methodology/approach – The sample consisted of 261 Officers and Ratings in the Royal Navy. Performance was established through the organisation's own rigorous appraisal process, while personality and competency data were gathered through the use of the Occupational Personality Questionnaire (OPQ) and the Leadership Dimensions Questionnaire (LDQ). Two difference measures were computed to assess the congruence of self‐other assessment (d1) and degree of under‐ or over‐rating (d2). Findings – The results demonstrate that self‐evaluation of own performance (from LDQ) was significantly correlated with appraised (actual) performance. Hierarchical regression showed that both d scales explain significant variance in appraised performance, especially the d2 measure which accounted for 47 per cent. The findings establish the first empirical relationship between congruent/public (self‐evaluation) and emotional/private (self‐consciousness) self‐awareness and performance. Research limitations/implications – Measures of self‐awareness were derived from the three data sets described, not from a separate measure. The findings relate to a single organisation and need to be replicated more widely. Practical implications/implications – The results of this study suggest that emotional/private and congruent/public self‐awareness are related to each other and that the latter is significantly related to effective performance. The findings have implications for manager and officer assessment, selection and development. Originality/value – Given the broad employment contexts of previous studies into external/congruent and internal/emotional self‐awareness and performance, the findings and improvement applications discussed in this paper could have practical implications for many other organisations.