Consequences of autonomous and team-oriented forms of dispositional proactivity for demonstrating advancement potential

Under the paradigm of individualism, proactive personality has garnered much attention in connection with indicators of career success. We regard this construct as an autonomous form of dispositional proactivity and explored it along with team-oriented proactivity as a predictor of self-perceived influence and observed advancement potential in a team-based setting. We proposed that insofar as advancement potential entails demonstrating adeptness at furthering collective performance, autonomous proactivity would be detrimental whereas team-oriented proactivity would be beneficial. This proposition was the basis for a structural model with self-perceived influence as a mediator. Results from data on 672 personnel in 70 teams supported the model and the hypothesized consequences of autonomous (negative) and team-oriented (positive) forms of dispositional proactivity for observed advancement potential.