High self-monitoring individuals respond to cues from others and adapt their
self-presentations to suit their audience. Since one of the goals of this behavior
is to create a favorable impression in the audience, self-monitoring has been
identified as a factor that might be related to an individual's being perceived as
a leader. Although several studies have revealed a significant relationship
between self-monitoring and leader emergence, relatively few have examined the
relationship outside the laboratory setting. The purpose of the two studies
reported in this article was to examine whether self-reported scores on a mea
sure of self-monitoring would be related to leader emergence in student groups
working on realistic, sustained projects. Study One revealed a low, but signifi
cant, correlation between self-monitoring and leader emergence. Study Two
found a negligible relationship in the overall sample, but a significant moderate
correlation in a group of preferred leaders who were examined separately. The
variation in magnitude of correlations in the overall sample seemed to be
explained by fluctuations in correlations for females. The relationship between
self-monitoring and males remained at a low but stable level over the two
studies.
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