Overqualification and Selection in Leadership Training

Abstract

This study examines perceived overqualification in a leadership training scenario. The results show that overqualification is associated with negative attitudes but not with poor performance. General mental ability and the Big Five personality scale of openness to experience are able to predict perceived overqualification ( r = .53) such that individuals in the top 30% of these scores (aggregated) were more than twice as likely to feel overqualified than the rest of the sample. Possible implications for the selection and design of leadership training programs are discussed.