The Effects of Stress, Experience, and Intelligence on Dyadic Leadership Performance.

An examination was made of leadrship dyads--the situation in which two individuals share the leadership responsibilities for a work group. It was hypothesized that performance and morale would be negatively related to intra-dyad stress, and that only under conditions of low intra-dyad stress would the experience and intelligence of the subordinate in the dyad be positively related to performance. Two samples from a military organization were used--one of 50 platoon leaders and platoon sergeants, and one of 45 company commanders and first sergeants. Performance ratings on each leader and the leaders as a pair, and performance and morale ratings on the work group were obtained for each dyad. Measures of intra-dyad stress, experience, and intelligence were also obtained from each leader. Partial support was obtained for the hypothesis that performance was negatively related to intra-dyad stress. In the platoon sample, all correlations were in the expected direction, but only two were significant. In the company sample, the subordinate's stress with superior was significantly correlated with performance as expected.