Through self-presentations, individuals claim a variety of public images that influence how others regard and treat them in social interactions. An examination of self-presentation in a leadership situation focused on three dimensions of leader behavior: competence, socioemotionality, and prominence. Subjects (N=128) were assigned leadership positions in task-oriented groups that did very well or very poorly. The leaders learned that either they or the group were responsible for the performance, and that the other group members either did or did not know the precise locus of responsibility. Males were found to humbly deemphasize their competence and prominence when the others knew of the leader's responsibility for success, but emphasized these attributes when the others did not. Males displayed some compensatory self-presentations following a leader-responsible failure. In contrast, females emphasized their socioemotionality over other attributes irrespective of the combination of treatments. (Author)