| When leaders work under conditions of scarce resources, the additional resources consumed by self-awareness may interfere with other important activities. This is consistent with a resource allocation model of self-awareness and self-regulation (e.g., Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989). An experiment was conducted with triads working on a series of tasks to test the hypothesis that self-awareness manipulations would enhance (a) perceived effectiveness of leadership behaviors, (b) group performance, and (c) self-assessment accuracy, but only under conditions of abundant cognitive resources, not when resources were scarce.;Results generally confirmed hypotheses b and c. When resources were abundant, self-aware participants provided more accurate self-assessments and performed better on group tasks than did control (low self-awareness) participants. However, when resources were scarce, high self-awareness participants provided slightly but not significantly less accurate self-assessments and performed slightly but not significantly worse on group tasks when compared to low self-awareness participants.;In addition, performance incentives were found to motivate participants to work harder on the tasks, but also tended to reduce perceived effectiveness on some leadership behaviors.;Implications for leaders and managers in organizations are considered and directions for future research are proposed. |
