Why is everyone so damn busy? It seems that the response to "How are you?" on conference calls or conversations with friends results in my least favorite word - busy. Most of the insanely busy people I know aren't working multiple jobs or balancing family and work. The full calendar is a result of choice rather than sheer workload. Busyness isn't a badge of honor anymore… it just makes you look self-important (and self-loathing).

Stop the madness, people. Learn the power of no, find some work/life balance, and, for the love of all things holy, unplug from your email. If you're not too busy, read "The Busy Trap." It will make you think twice about using this dreadful word ever again.

Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a Conference Board event in New York City which focused heavily on talent management strategy, and many of the sessions were insightful. A presentation by Korn/Ferry covered a hot topic in the talent management circles these days – learning agility. As defined by Korn/Ferry, learning agility is a professional’s ability and willingness to learn from experience, and subsequently apply that learning to perform successfully under new or first-time conditions. Agile learners possess innate tendencies that position them for success in leadership role. Professionals with high learning agility are described as people who...

• Continuously seek new challenges
• Solicit direct feedback
• Self-reflect
• Think critically in first-time situations
• Work well with all kinds of people
• Thrive on change

Korn/Ferry measures learning agility through an assessment, and participants are scored on 5 dimensions: Self-awareness, Mental Agility, People Agility, Change Agility, and Results Agility. Although Hogan does not have a separate assessment to measure Learning Agility and its 5 dimensions, I do think a savvy Hogan interpreter can find intuitive connections between the 5 learning agility dimensions and Hogan’s HPI scales. I’ll save a full mapping Hogan to learning agility for another blog post.

In my opinion, Korn/Ferry’s philosophy is solid and makes intuitive sense, but is slightly flawed. Is there such a thing as the dark side of learning agility? Here at Hogan, we think too much of a good thing can derail one’s career. This can be especially true of agile learners, who constantly seek new knowledge in several areas. Although they take initiative, possess a broad-range of knowledge, and are generally curious people, they might also be described as arrogant or know-it-alls. Perhaps the agile learner is willing to apply only his knowledge or ideas, which can create a reputation of being difficult to work with and stubborn. I believe too much learning agility can derail an agile learner’s career. Have you ever met someone who seems to know everything about everything? Has anyone observed a derailing, agile learner?

In the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a focus around corporate culture in many of my typical news sources – Fast Company, Fortune, Talent Management Magazine, and Harvard Business Review’s Blog. I’m sure the recent changes in Yahoo’s and Best Buy’s corporate work-from-home policies sparked the heated debates around corporate culture. Many of the discussions center around the impact these culture changes may have on the employees’ engagement, satisfaction, and overall commitment to the company. As covered in the New York Times, Yahoo explained the workplace policy change was made in an effort to boost employee morale. I’m not here to discuss whether this type of culture change was right or wrong, as I believe an argument for both is easily found in the media already.

However, it does have me thinking about how corporate culture affects employee engagement in general. A Gallup poll showed that more than 71% of Americans aren’t engaged in their jobs. We at Hogan believe this is more often a result of failed leadership or a bad boss, which Ryan Ross explains in an article by Adrienne Hedger and Dr. Robert Hogan discusses in “Why Engagement Matters.” I would argue that employee engagement is connected to organizational culture as well.

Perhaps the high rate of employee disengagement is a result of shifting views of how work environments should be structured. Companies are attempting to mitigate low employee engagement by creating a unique environment. We’re seeing examples of how top performing companies, especially those on the Fortune's “Best Places To Work” list, create a culture where employees want to be at work. Casual dress codes, free food, on-site gyms, ping-pong tables, pet-friendly policies, and many other non-traditional benefits are found in these types of cultures. Not surprisingly, Google is ranked as the #1 Best Place to Work by Forbes.

Of course, not all companies can provide what Google does in terms of free benefits. Fortunately, people want to work at places like Google for reasons besides the free food and rooms full of Legos. Fast Company’s recent article highlights how Google deliberately designs workplace satisfaction, not just around incredible perks, but also by creating a corporate culture that provides freedom, mutual respect, and transparency for all employees. According to the article, Google empowers its employees to have a say in topics ranging from how the company is run to the new design of its company-provided bicycles. This underlying philosophy of empowerment and transparency is the most attractive aspect of corporate culture, and the easiest to emulate.

As more companies begin to make the shift to a flat organizational structure, I bet employee engagement rates will also increase. Only time will tell.

Within the past year or so, the topic of authentic leadership keeps surfacing around the Hogan office, with our clients, and at a few conferences. The repeated references to and different explanations of this buzzword in the leadership development world caused me to pause for a minute. What exactly is authentic leadership, and how can you achieve it? Or, better yet, what can stand your way?

To answer these questions, I started with the authentic leadership guru, Bill George. Mr. George has penned two books on the topic: Authentic Leadership and its successor True North. In his blog post “Authentic Leadership Revisited” he defines authentic leadership as “being genuine, real, and true to who you are.” Another blog post  states that, “to become authentic, each of us has to develop our own leadership style, consistent with our personality and character.”

I think the concept of achieving authentic leadership boils down to strategic self-awareness. Knowing your strengths and challenges, being willing to point out the chinks in your armor, and demonstrating a certain element of humility can all lead to becoming a more authentic leader. Of course, this is more easily said than done. However, Hogan’s personality assessments, development-focused reports, and feedback process can certainly help start the strategic self-awareness conversation.

Additionally, the bigger question here remains. Are there certain personality characteristics that can stand in your way of being seen as authentic? The moving against cluster (Bold, Colorful, Mischievous, and Imaginative) on the Hogan Development Survey can affect your perceived ability to be authentic. It’s important to keep in mind that HDS behaviors often arise under stress, pressure, boredom, or complacency. These are not every day behaviors, but can still impact your perceived authenticity or leadership brand. For example, high scores on this cluster suggest that leaders with these derailing behaviors may not express humility (Colorful) and be unwilling to admit mistakes (Bold). The graph below highlights the impact these derailers can have on authentic leadership.



So, how do you derail? Given these implications for authentic leadership, it’s worth looking into.