RESUMEN
Although the double-edged nature of perfectionism is widely acknowledged, little is known about how it shapes employee career development. By combining two field studies, we provide a multiperspective insight into the relevance of both employee and supervisor perfectionism for employee career development. While we expected self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) to have an ambivalent role for career development, we proposed that socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) in particular, but also other-oriented perfectionism (OOP), would show maladaptive relationships with career-related indicators. In Study 1 (N = 116), we focused on the employee perspective and how multidimensional perfectionism relates to career aspirations (operationalized via work motivation) and subjective career success. Employees high in SOP reported higher, whereas those high in SPP reported lower perceived career success. OOP was negatively related to intrinsic motivation, but positively explained extrinsic (social) motivation and amotivation. In Study 2 (N = 146), we examined the role of supervisor perfectionism in supporting or hindering employees' career development by providing or draining resources. Our results show that supervisors high in SOP - and partly in OOP are reluctant to delegate highly responsible tasks; SPP even increased the likelihood of assigning illegitimate tasks to subordinates. Our findings suggest that both employee and supervisor perfectionism may boost or thwart employee career development and success. We discuss that supervisor perfectionism may limit employees' opportunities for experiential learning.
RESUMEN
Despite the growing interest in perfectionism and its many facets, there is a lack of research on this phenomenon in the context of leadership. Attending to this deficit, the present study is the first to investigate the relationship between the three facets of perfectionism (self-oriented, socially prescribed, and other-oriented perfectionism) and three types of self-rated leadership behavior. In Study 1 (N = 182), leaders' perfectionism and its association to their organizational, goal-oriented leadership behavior-self-rated as transactional (management by exception) and transformational leadership-is explored. In Study 2 (N = 185), the relationship of leaders' perfectionism to their servant leadership as a people-centered leadership behavior is investigated. In line with the perfectionism social disconnection model (PSDM), we assume other-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism to be positively related to management by exception (i.e., monitoring behavior) and negatively related to transformational and servant leadership, whereas the opposite pattern is primarily predicted for self-oriented perfectionism. Our findings in Study 1 reveal a negative relationship between leaders' self-oriented perfectionism as well as positive relationships to their other-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism in management by exception, while no substantial correlations with transformational leadership have emerged. In Study 2, a negative association between other-oriented perfectionism and the forgiveness dimension of servant leadership is revealed, indicating a possible barrier to building interpersonal relationships of acceptance and trust. Additionally, self-oriented perfectionism has been proven to be a rather favorable trait in servant leadership.