Situational Judgment Tests for Leadership: How They Work
How situational judgment tests (SJTs) measure leadership: scenario design, scoring, validity evidence, and why they beat self-report on prediction.
What is a situational judgment test?
A situational judgment test for leadership presents realistic workplace scenarios — a stalled project, an underperforming direct report, a conflicting executive request — and asks the leader to rank or rate response options.
Why SJTs predict performance
Meta-analyses (McDaniel et al., 2007) show SJTs have substantially higher predictive validity than self-report personality measures for job performance, and rival structured interviews — at a fraction of the cost.
