Simply the best? A systematic literature review on the predictive validity of employee performance for leader performance

Meritocratic promotion—promoting the best performing employees—is a pervasive strategy to fill leader positions. However, the predictive validity of this strategy is unclear due to diverging theoretical predictions from different research disciplines and due to inconsistent empirical results. Further, the different disciplines rarely acknowledge and refer to each other, thereby impeding a cumulative understanding of meritocratic promotion. With our systematic review, we intend to initiate an interdisciplinary dialogue by (i) providing an overview of pertinent theoretical approaches including their deviating predictions, (ii) proposing mediators and moderators of the relationship of employee performance and leader performance to improve future research on meritocratic promotion, (iii) assessing the study quality, and (iv) summarizing and discussing empirical findings to advance the understanding of the predictive validity of meritocratic promotion. We conclude by presenting theoretical conclusions, point towards future research directions, and provide guidance for future research, including a checklist. We also discuss practical implications for human resource management. •We conducted a systematic review on the validity of meritocratic promotions.•An integrative theoretical approach is developed to explain inconsistent findings.•A systematic assessment of the included studies shows various shortcomings.•The current evidence does not allow a clear conclusion on meritocratic promotions.•Investigating moderators should help to improve the validity of meritocratic promotions.