Assessing the Flexibility of Managers: A comparison of methods¹

Despite keen interest, questions remain about defining and measuring the behavioral flexibility of managers. This paper reports a conceptual and empirical comparison of three alternative methods of assessing this construct. Results suggest that the way managerial flexibility is typically assessed in practice – as a trait‐like characteristic with coworker ratings that describe a general tendency to vary behavior across situations – is deficient. However, more complex models that represent flexibility as a higher‐order construct reflecting mastery of specific and opposing behaviors in both the social/interpersonal domain and the functional/organizational domain show promise. They demonstrate construct validity evidence, predict as much as 42% of the variance in overall effectiveness, and provide more specific diagnostic information to guide behavior change.