Perception of managerial performance: A comparison of the perspectives of managers and their subordinates in the insurance sector

The main topic of this master's thesis is the comparison of objective and subjective evaluation of the performance of sales team managers within an international insurance company. The aim was to determine how the objective evaluation, obtained through key performance indicators, corresponds with the subjective evaluation of managers by their subordinates, namely with the quality of the LMX relationship, the transformational leadership style, and the perceived effectiveness of the manager's leadership. The theoretical part describes the development of leadership, the issue of performance measurement, perceived leadership effectiveness, and the LMX theory. In the practical part, quantitative research was conducted, involving 32 salespeople and 8 managers. The Spearman correlation coefficient was used to analyse the relationships at the manager level. Positive relationships were found between objective performance and all three areas of subjective evaluation; however, these cannot be considered statistically significant, mainly due to the small sample size. Through a supplementary analysis, a significant relationship was identified between the quality of the relationship and the business indicators forming the aggregated, self-constructed KPI index. Based on these findings, potential recommendations are defined for the evaluation system and the development of sales teams in the examined company.