Challenge: The quality of a patient ’s experience plays an important role in defining the competitive advantage of healthcare organizations, especially during times of change and reform. Because nurses have the most frequent and direct contact with patients, their performance and behaviors have a significant impact on patient evaluations.

Understanding the antecedents of successful performance is critical to the selection, development, and attrition of nurses who can deliver high-quality treatment. Working with ill and stressed people on a daily basis requires personal attributes such as caring and empathy that are beyond general cognitive ability. To identify these characteristics, we initiated a research study to investigate the personality-based success factors for Nurses and Nurse Managers.

Solution: Based on years of experience working with clients in the healthcare industry and existing research on healthcare professionals, we concluded that individual differences in emotional intelligence play a critical role in differentiating nursing job performance. Therefore, we used the Hogan EQ Report, a personality-based measure of interpersonal and intrapersonal emotional intelligence competencies, to study the personal attributes of 167
Nurses and 90 Nurse Managers sampled from various hospitals across the U.S.

Results: The graph below summarizes the average EQ scale scores (in percentiles) for Nurses and Nurse Managers.

In general, both Nurses and Nurse Managers score relatively high (above 60%) on all EQ scales compared to the general working population, which suggests that nursing jobs require higher emotional intelligence than other occupations.

In comparing the two groups:
• Nurses are significantly higher than Nurse Managers on emotional Awareness, Detection, and Regulation (p< .05)
• Nurses tend to be higher than Nurse Managers on Empathy and Overall EQ
• Nurses tend to be lower than Nurse Managers on Influence and Expressivity

These results are consistent with the nature of the two jobs. For Nurses, frequent interactions with patients require them to be aware of inner emotions (Awareness) and the emotional signals of others (Detection) so they can maintain a stable emotional state and effectively react to patients’ stress. Nurses also tend to be skilled at selecting effective coping strategies under stress (Regulation), which enables them to retain cognitive resources for problem-solving.

In contrast, Nurse Managers interact less with patients. Instead, they are responsible for supervising Nurses and coordinative nursing activities. This role requires different personal characteristics such as the ability to openly confront subordinate misbehaviors, which requires the ability to alter others’ emotions (Influence) and convey desirable emotional states to others (Expressivity).

Implication: Our findings show that while both Nurses and Nurse Managers are higher on EQ across the board when compared to the general public, the two groups possess somewhat different strengths. This phenomenon is not uncommon in other industries. We have also seen teams in Sales, Engineering, and Finance who have difficulty promoting managers from within because different or even opposing skills and personal attributes are required at higher levels.

Based on the current findings, we recommend that healthcare providers take
into consideration personal attributes critical to different roles to effectively select or develop high potential Nurses into managerial positions.

Here’s the rundown of useful articles from the second quarter of 2014.

Arthur et al. found that personality scores were unaffected when individuals completed instruments on tablets or phones. Cognitive ability scores, however, were typically lower when completed on mobile devices.

In contrast, Morelli et al. found that scores were similar for mobile versus PC users on both a cognitive ability test and two biodata instruments, but were lower for mobile users on a situational judgment test.

Bakker et al. argue that, although often considered opposite ends of the same dimension, burnout may have more impact on individual heath, while engagement has more impact on job performance.

Dragoni et al. show that global work experiences, especially those involving work in culturally diverse countries, may help develop a leader’s strategic thinking skills.

Hoch and Kozlowski found that shared team leadership predicts performance for all types of teams, but is especially important for virtual teams. In contrast, traditional hierarchical leadership can actually detract from virtual team performance.

Iliescu et al. demonstrate that a lack of vocational fit predicts counter productivework behaviors, even above and beyond more established personality-based predictors.

Ispas et al. found that impression management had incremental validity over cognitive ability when predicting earned revenue in sales jobs.

Within an LMX framework, Vidyarthi et al. presented evidence for the detrimental effects of reporting to two leaders who aren’t on the same page.

Winograd et al. found that drinking alcohol increases extraversion and openness, but decreases agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability. Emotional stability and conscientiousness are most strongly related to negative outcomes.

People universally look for the same characteristics in their leaders – integrity, judgment, business acumen, and vision. However, every culture has a set of social norms that color leader behavior. Global Alliances consultant Michael Sanger explores the differences in eastern and western leadership styles.

More than 80% of Americans are stressed about their jobs, and 75% of people said the most stressful aspect is their boss. Although a few bad bosses seem inevitable, the chronic stress they cause costs companies $300 billion annually. What can companies do about bad bosses and the stress they cause?

We’ve all dealt with them – the employee that makes questionable decisions around the office, whether that’s stealing some pens from the supply closet or, more seriously, pocketing company revenue on the sly.

It’s “time to admit that some people are more vulnerable to unethical temptations than others,” says Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Hogan Assessments’ vp of research and innovation, “and managers can play an important role in attenuating (or increasing) the rate of unethical incidents in their teams and organizations.” Here are some tips on how to manage these morally weak employees.

Engage them. Even less ethical individuals will be more likely to act morally if they are engaged at work. By the same token, alienating employees may enhance moral disengagement even in those with higher integrity.

Lead by example.  For managers, the implication is clear: if you want your employees to act morally, start by acting morally yourself.

Pair them with ethical peers. Teaming your less moral employees with colleagues who have strong integrity will motivate them to behave more ethically. Humans learn via observation and imitation, and much of this learning occurs without awareness.

Invest in moral training. Organizations can influence employees’ ethical choices via explicit educational programs. For example, the Ethics Resource Center reports that businesses that implement formal programs to support ethical choices, such as whistleblowing, decrease counterproductive behaviors and misconduct rates, as well as increasing employee satisfaction.

Reduce their temptation. Everybody has a dark side, but the antisocial aspects of our personalities are much more likely to surface in toxic environments or situations of weak moral pressure. It is hard to change someone’s personality, but managers can do a great deal to affect the environment employees inhabit.

Create an altruistic culture. Although organizational culture cannot be created overnight, meta-analytic reviews have demonstrated that a caring culture prevents unethical work behaviors, whereas a culture of self-interest promotes them.

Find out how to put these tips into action in our ebook 6 Ways to Keep Your Manager Honest.

In business, the adage holds true that one bad apple can spoil the bunch – even one dishonest manager can cost companies hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, in low morale and lost productivity. Unfortunately, history shows that there is more than one bad apple in the business world, and dishonest work behaviors, such as staff abuse, rule bending, and theft cost the economy billions each year.

How can organizations combat dishonesty in their management team? They can start by recognizing why dishonest individuals are such enticing hires. Unfortunately, the same attractive qualities we find in these candidates are the same qualities that will short change us in the long run.

1. Charisma – Psychologists recorded 73 first-year college students individually introducing themselves to a group. The study found students with narcissistic tendencies excelled at making initial impressions. They used more charming facial expressions, a more confident speaking tone, were funnier, wore more fashionable clothes and had trendier haircuts.

2. Self-absorption – The second characteristic is an unusual degree of self-absorption, or, more to the point, a relentless drive for self-advancement. These individuals possess a ruthless dedication to self-advancement to the extent that other people lose their value as humans and become objects to be manipulated.

3. Self-Deception – Ben Dattner, author of The Blame Game, notes that narcissists “lead with the main purpose of receiving personal credit or glory. When things go wrong or they make mistakes, they deny or distort information and rewrite history in order to avoid getting blamed.”

4. Hollow Core Syndrome – The underlying dynamic that unifies these themes is a pattern of personality characteristics called the hollow core syndrome. The hollow core refers to people who are overtly self-confident, but who are privately self-doubting and unhappy.

Learn more about combating dishonesty in the workplace and managing the dishonest employee.

Is HR getting better? More importantly, what is holding it back? In this installment of Drinks with Hogan, HR consultant William Tincup and Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic discuss the perils of putting talent management and payroll in the same hands.

The Psychometrics Forum invites you to their September event, Illuminating the Dark Side.

Thursday, September 25, 2014
The Caledonian Club
9A Halkin Street, Belgravia
London SW1X 7DR 

In the morning session, Dr. Robert Hogan will share his perspective on his widely used personality instrument, the Hogan Development Survey, looking at how humans can use their Dark Side for personal gains. Making the link between personality and decision making, the session will conclude with an examination of how his new assessment, Hogan Decisions Style Model can highlight an individual’s post decision biases and capacity to achieve good judgment.

In the afternoon session, Andrew Munro will give an expert user’s perspective on the Dark Side, focussing on strategic leadership and business decision-making. He will also contend why we must get over our obsession with personality assessment and address the dynamics of context, individual and situational factors.

For more information or to register, email admin@psychometricsforum.org.

In the seventh installment of our video series, Corporate Solutions Consultant Jennifer Lowe discusses whether work life balance is dead, the potential consequences of blurring the lines between work life and home life, and what companies can do to keep employees productive when they’re working 24/7.

After years lagging behind their marketing colleagues, HR finally embraced the power of data. The question is, what’s next? In this episode of our monthly web series Drinks with Hogan, Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic and HR iconoclast William Tincup discuss the future of personality and HR.