From star player to star coach? The longitudinal validity of performance-based promotion in the National Basketball Association

Most organizations make promotion decisions based on employees’ prior performance. Despite the prevalence of this performance-based promotion strategy, its validity remains unclear. With this constructive replication, we extend past research by testing competing hypotheses on the relationship between employee performance and future leader performance as derived from three theoretical perspectives (i.e., performance requirements perspective, follower-centric perspective, and Theory of Expert Leadership). We examined our hypotheses in the context of the National Basketball Association (NBA) and gathered data on the entire career of all NBA coaches until 2020 (N = 329), including their prior performance as basketball players. We tested our hypotheses using Bayesian structural equation modelling with latent variables. Overall, our analyses indicated a weak relationship between employee (i.e., player) and leader (i.e., coach) performance that remained stable over time. Overall, our results are in line with the performance requirements perspective. Hence, we recommend to reconsider the use of the performance-based promotion strategy.