Political Skill Inventory: What It Measures and How to Take It

The Political Skill Inventory is the most widely used research measure of political skill at work. Leaders, coaches, and HR professionals often encounter it in academic papers or course material and want to know what it measures, how it works, and how to take it. This article answers those questions and explains how the inventory relates to a full assessment designed for development.

The Political Skill Inventory, or PSI, is an 18 item self report questionnaire developed by Gerald Ferris and colleagues and published in 2005. It measures four facets of political skill: social astuteness, interpersonal influence, networking ability, and apparent sincerity. Respondents rate each statement on a seven point agreement scale, and scores are averaged by facet.

What Is the Political Skill Inventory?

The PSI was created to give researchers a reliable way to measure political skill, defined as the ability to understand others at work and to use that understanding to influence them in ways that advance personal or organizational objectives. An earlier version was presented in 1999. The 2005 article in the Journal of Management reported a refined 18 item version tested across several samples, and that version is the one cited in most research since.

The inventory sits within a larger research program. Ferris and colleagues set out a theory of political skill in organizations in 2007, describing how the four facets shape the way a person perceives situations, chooses behaviours, and is perceived by others. The PSI is the measurement side of that theory.

What Does the Political Skill Inventory Measure?

Each of the four facets captures a different part of how people operate in the social side of work.

Social astuteness

Social astuteness is the capacity to observe others accurately and to understand social interactions. People high on this facet notice the dynamics in a meeting, interpret behaviour in context, and have an accurate sense of how they themselves come across. The PSI measures this facet with five items.

Interpersonal influence

Interpersonal influence is a subtle, adaptable style of persuasion. People high on this facet adjust their approach to the person and situation in front of them and tend to bring others around without heavy pressure. It is measured with four items.

Networking ability

Networking ability is skill at building and using diverse relationships and coalitions. People high on this facet develop connections across functions and levels and draw on them to secure resources and support. It is the largest facet in the inventory, with six items.

Apparent sincerity

Apparent sincerity is the extent to which a person is seen as honest, open, and free of hidden motives. It matters because influence attempts that appear self serving tend to fail. It is measured with three items.

Together, the four facets describe one higher order capability. Research has found support both for the four facet structure and for an overall political skill score.

How Reliable Is the Political Skill Inventory?

The PSI has been studied extensively since 2005. Three findings are especially relevant to anyone deciding whether to use it.

• Structure. A two study investigation by Ferris and colleagues in 2008, combining self reports and colleague reports from 467 employees, supported both the four factor structure and a single higher order factor. That study also linked the PSI to job performance ratings made by others.
• Cross cultural use. Lvina and colleagues tested whether the PSI measures the same construct in five countries. Their 2012 study found substantial measurement invariance, which supports comparing scores across cultural settings with care.
• Relationship to personality. Political skill is related to personality traits such as extraversion and conscientiousness, though only moderately. Blickle and colleagues found in 2008 that political skill predicted job performance beyond what the Big Five personality traits explained.

A quantitative review by Munyon and colleagues in 2015 brought together results from many studies and linked political skill, most often measured with the PSI, to task performance, career success, reputation, and lower strain.

What Do Political Skill Inventory Scores Mean in Practice?

A PSI profile is most useful when read as a pattern across the four facets. Two people with the same total can work very differently. A person high on social astuteness and low on networking ability often reads situations accurately but lacks the relationships to act on that read, so their insight stays private. A person high on networking ability and low on apparent sincerity may know many people yet find that colleagues hesitate to back their proposals. A person high on interpersonal influence and low on social astuteness may persuade well in a single conversation while misjudging how a decision is actually being made.

Profiles like these point to specific development work. They also show why a single number is a weak basis for a development plan, and why interpretation by a trained coach adds value to any political skill measure.

How Do You Take the Political Skill Inventory?

The PSI was published as a research instrument, and the items appear in the 2005 article. Researchers typically administer it as a questionnaire, ask respondents to rate each statement from strongly disagree to strongly agree on a seven point scale, and compute an average for each facet and for the total.

For an individual seeking insight into their own development, the research version has three practical limitations.

• It is self report only. People are often inaccurate judges of their own social impact, especially on apparent sincerity, which by definition depends on how others see you. Research use often adds ratings from colleagues for this reason.
• It has no interpretation layer. A raw average tells you where you stand relative to the scale midpoint. It does not tell you what a given score means in practice, which situations it predicts, or what to work on.
• It has no development path. The inventory was designed to measure, and it includes no feedback report, no debrief, and no guidance for growth.

Coaches and HR professionals using the PSI in development programs usually add these layers themselves, through a structured debrief and colleague feedback. Using the research version in a commercial product also raises questions of permission and copyright that should be checked with the authors and publisher.

How Is Pine's Assessment Related to the Political Skill Inventory?

Pine Perspective builds on the political skill research tradition, including the PSI, and is designed for development. It measures a construct called Influence Agility across three dimensions that map onto the PSI facets.

• Landscape Reading corresponds to social astuteness and covers how accurately a leader perceives power structures, informal networks, and unwritten rules.
• Relationship Navigation corresponds to networking ability and interpersonal influence, and covers how effectively a leader builds the relationships that turn intent into action.
• Projected Authenticity corresponds to apparent sincerity and covers whether a leader comes across as genuine while acting strategically.

Pine adds the Decision Compass, which maps how a leader reasons through ethically weighted decisions, along with a personalised report, optional 360 degree feedback from colleagues, and a debrief with a certified coach. Behavioural style, the kind a tool like DISC describes, is used as one input and never as the output. Pine's internal consistency figures and the outcome studies still in progress are described on the Science page.

Who Should Use Which Instrument?

The choice depends on the purpose.

• Researchers studying political skill as a variable should generally use the PSI, since it is the reference measure and allows comparison with two decades of published results.
• Coaches preparing a development conversation need a scored report, an interpretation of what the scores mean, and a way to bring in colleague perspectives. A development instrument fits that need better. The guide to coaching debrief questions covers how to use results in a session.
• HR and talent teams assessing leadership pipelines need consistent reporting across cohorts and a clear explanation of what is and is not measured. The page on organizational savvy discusses how this capability fits into competency frameworks.

Where to Start

If you want a measure of your own political skill with interpretation and a development path, start with Pine's political skill assessment. For background, read what political skill is and the guide to office politics. Common questions about methodology, languages, and privacy are answered in the FAQ.

References

• Blickle, G., Meurs, J. A., Zettler, I., Solga, J., Noethen, D., Kramer, J., & Ferris, G. R. (2008). Personality, political skill, and job performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72(3), 377 to 387.
• Ferris, G. R., Blickle, G., Schneider, P. B., Kramer, J., Zettler, I., Solga, J., Noethen, D., & Meurs, J. A. (2008). Political skill construct and criterion-related validation: A two-study investigation. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 23(7), 744 to 771.
• Ferris, G. R., Treadway, D. C., Kolodinsky, R. W., Hochwarter, W. A., Kacmar, C. J., Douglas, C., & Frink, D. D. (2005). Development and validation of the Political Skill Inventory. Journal of Management, 31(1), 126 to 152.
• Ferris, G. R., Treadway, D. C., Perrewé, P. L., Brouer, R. L., Douglas, C., & Lux, S. (2007). Political skill in organizations. Journal of Management, 33(3), 290 to 320.
• Lvina, E., Johns, G., Treadway, D. C., Blickle, G., Liu, Y., Liu, J., Atay, S., Zettler, I., Solga, J., Noethen, D., & Ferris, G. R. (2012). Measure invariance of the Political Skill Inventory (PSI) across five cultures. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 12(2), 171 to 191.
• Munyon, T. P., Summers, J. K., Thompson, K. M., & Ferris, G. R. (2015). Political skill and work outcomes: A theoretical extension, meta-analytic investigation, and agenda for the future. Personnel Psychology, 68(1), 143 to 184.