“Are we going to lose our jobs because of this coronavirus?” asked Kelly, an account executive with a tenure of 11 years.

“I — I don’t quite know,” replied Marla, Kelly’s practice manager. “The senior leadership team has said that there won’t be immediate layoffs, but we don’t know how long these shutdowns will last. Just keep working from home.”

There is no doubt that thousands of similar interactions have occurred in the past three weeks. These times are scary, and much is unknown. One thing you might not know is that the directors or senior leaders in your organization are not necessarily the glue that is keeping everyone together. It’s the middle managers.

The middle managers are who most employees approach for leadership and answers during times of crisis at work. It is commonly understood that C-suite executives decide on the company strategy, and the middle managers implement the strategy. While the upper-level leaders are busy figuring out what the right things to do are, the middle managers are figuring out how to do these things right. Middle managers are typically the most accessible leaders to employees, so it is imperative to place the right people in these roles.

The reality is that your company’s middle managers wear many hats, all of which are important during a crisis. These roles include that of an employee counselor, as middle managers often have intimate knowledge of the lives and emotions of their direct reports. Since change is distressing for many and too much change too soon can result in employee burnout or attrition, middle managers need skills to help employees cope. Emotional stability and calmness under pressure are crucial and help signal to employees that the company (and the employees) can make it through a crisis. However, keep in mind that too much emotional stability sometimes looks robotic to others and could make a manager seem as if he or she is ignoring the negative emotions in the group.

As mentioned previously, middle managers are usually spearheading the strategies that leadership decides on. This often requires middle managers to act as translators who must interpret the strategic language of the higher-ups and convey it in tactical language for direct reports so that they can implement plans. To be effective at this, they need to know how to manage “up” to superiors and “down” to direct reports. This requires knowing when to defer to the right leaders and how to push back on strategies that can’t be implemented quickly with limited resources. Middle managers also need to know how to inspire their teams, plan their actions strategically, and produce results.

Middle managers are usually experts who have been promoted from within. In most cases, they have been with their organizations for many years. This tenure and subject-matter expertise afford these leaders valuable knowledge that can help stabilize the business when times are rocky, providing insights into previous action plans, whether those plans yielded positive results, and why. Specific solutions are often difficult to formulate, and many people in middle management roles are hiring business and leadership coaches to help devise solutions.

Specific behavioral patterns can predict positive performance among managers. As the world’s leading expert on leadership and managerial success data, Hogan can assess employees for managerial potential, identifying where the skill gaps might exist. Hogan has a network of thousands of expert coaches and consultants who are certified to use our tools and are ready to help you and your business. Reach out to us if you need solutions for employee development or help finding and assessing qualified talent. We can help you make decisions on who to place in managerial roles so your business is prepared to weather any storm.

In any company, few things are more important than having a strong pipeline of high-performing leaders. In this new COVID-19 era, leadership teams everywhere are now faced with making critical decisions in an environment that changes hourly. Leaders from every size of organization are required to exercise judgment in unprecedented scenarios.

At Hogan, we have long researched the personality characteristics of effective leaders in the midst of high-pressure situations. We have also closely studied the identification of high-potential talent, or talent that has the ability to build and lead teams that can consistently outperform. This is a unique moment in time to identify high potentials (HIPOs) and next-generation leaders. Such moments of crisis often provide incredible opportunities for HIPOs to be identified, as the demands for high-risk and high-visibility decisions increase.

There is a saying that “pressure will turn you into either dust or a diamond.” Thankfully, unlike the carbon under the earth’s surface that can form either crumbly coal or solid diamonds, depending on its environment, people have the ability to be strategically self-aware and make intentional choices about how to react to intense or unexpected pressure. We aren’t bound by the conditions of the environment we find ourselves in. We have choices.

So, how do organizations make the most of this opportunity to identify these HIPO “diamonds”? It is essential to start any talent identification process with a valid and reliable framework. After decades of research and working with clients around the world, we at Hogan have found that there are three different dimensions to consider when looking for the HIPO “diamond in the rough.”

The first thing to look for is competence in what we call Leadership Foundations, or the degree to which people are able to manage their careers well, are rewarding and enjoyable to deal with, and are good organizational citizens overall. Look for individuals who calmly and steadily reach out to assist others in solving difficult problems. You have likely already noticed them patiently working through the new challenges your organization is facing. You likely won’t find them doing this alone; you will see them pulling others together to work through details, ensuring that their efforts are closely aligned with the needs of the team and department.

The second dimension that we have identified as important for identifying HIPO talent is Leadership Emergence, or the likelihood that people will stand out from the crowd and lead from the front. These individuals look and feel like leaders. They instill confidence. You will likely see them as bright, quick, influential, and even charismatic in how they approach challenges. They are the people actively building connections and quickly taking action toward key challenges.

Many of today’s HIPO identification and succession planning processes significantly overindex identifying talent with emergent leadership behaviors, and it is easy to understand why. Emergent leadership behaviors ensure that individuals are noticed, not passed over. After all, is a diamond valuable if you can’t find it?

However, without the final dimension that we have identified for HIPO identification, many emerging leaders simply will not stand the test of time. HIPOs must also be skilled in critical competencies around Leadership Effectiveness. Our research at Hogan shows that true HIPOs must be able to work through others — achieving critical business outcomes, managing organizational resources and assets, planning proactively, and motivating others to work toward common goals. Effective leaders are patient and engaging, known for inspiring commitment and accountability.

The difference between emerging and effective leaders is often found in how each group spends their time. You might spot emerging leaders networking with key stakeholders and decision makers, but effective leaders more often go “heads down,” spending their time driving team performance. Interestingly, our research shows that these two groups overlap by only 10%. This small overlap between the two groups reinforces the importance of purposeful HIPO development.

As we face new challenges in the coming months, talent development for HIPOs, in particular, will be needed to help them become truly successful as they reach higher levels of organizational responsibility. Whenever you see up-and-coming talent with a ton of visible action and fast-moving energy, encourage them to keep their energy steadily focused on team results and better ways of working. To identify less visible leaders, look for trends in business results and team performance, and then work with those people to practice visible leadership “from the front.”

Organizations that take advantage of the numerous development opportunities that will arise during this time of crisis will find a strong and healthy pipeline of leaders for the future. We at Hogan are here to help you identify, develop, and retain these HIPOs in your organization. We know people.

At Hogan, we view the assessment results as the “what” (what are your strengths and areas for development?), the interpretation of your results by your Hogan coach as the “so what” (so what do these mean to me, and how do they impact my reputation and performance?), and the coaching discussion and action planning with your coach as the “now what” (now what can you do to be more effective?).

Further, we emphasize the importance of considering context in interpreting and acting on your assessment results. Consider factors such as your job requirements, the demands of your situation, the challenges you face, the business goals you need to achieve, the team you manage, and the culture of your organization. Behaviors that are strengths in one context could be derailers in another and vice versa, so context truly matters in interpreting and acting on your Hogan scores.

COVID-19 has created a context unlike any we’ve ever faced before, so we encourage you to review your Hogan results through a COVID-19 lens to determine what will make you more effective during this crisis. Is your “now what” (the actions you need to take based on your Hogan results) different than it was before? Here are a few points to consider.

1. What competencies and behaviors are critical for you to exhibit during the COVID-19 pandemic? Several examples are communication, innovation, and resilience. Perhaps you’re now managing a team of remote employees, so communicating frequently and clearly will be paramount. Perhaps you need to be more innovative than ever and encourage your team to create solutions to unique challenges presented by COVID-19. Perhaps you need to demonstrate resilience and be a calming influence for your team during this crisis.
2. Per your Hogan profile, do the competencies and behaviors you identified in no. 1 come naturally to you (key strengths), or will you need to consciously work on them (development areas)?

Using the competencies we identified above as examples (communicating clearly and frequently, innovating, and demonstrating resilience), let’s take a look at how Hogan scales can guide you. Make sure you consider not only the scales you typically associate with the identified competencies but also other scales that could contribute to your behavior. Look across the three reports: Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI).

Communication: If you’re high on Sociability and Affiliation, you’re probably adept at communicating, and it will be both a priority for you and rewarding for you. However, if you’re lower on these scales, you’ll need to remind yourself to reach out to others and share information. Ask for feedback from your audience to ensure that your frequency and clarity are meeting their needs. If your Reserved score is high, make sure you’re not disappearing when times are tough. The team needs their leader even more, and you need to be more visible, even if it is in virtual terms.

Innovation: If you’re higher on Inquisitive and Learning Approach, you probably are open to ideas, have broad interests, and are skilled at innovating. You’ll need to make sure you encourage it in your team, as well. If you’re higher on Prudence, you might tend to micromanage or curtail discussions prematurely, so be sure to watch that. Also, if you’re higher on Imaginative, you’ll need to make sure you don’t overwhelm your team with too many ideas. If you’re lower on Inquisitive and Learning Approach, innovation might not come naturally to you, but you can certainly encourage it in your team members by being more open to their ideas, not cutting off discussions, and recognizing and rewarding their efforts. Acknowledging and celebrating contributions should come easy to you if you have a higher Recognition score, and if your score is lower, you can consciously emphasize this more.

Resilience: If you’re higher on the Adjustment scale and typically calm in the face of crises, you’ll need to leverage this fully given the turbulent times associated with COVID-19. Be aware, though, that you might not pick up on or relate to the stress that your team members are feeling, especially if they’re lower on Adjustment. If you have a lower Security score, you probably don’t need much role clarity or task clarity, and that will serve you well in the new environment. Recognize that your team members with higher Security will need more direction for a sense of stability during this time. If you’re higher on the Security scale yourself, realize that the world has shifted and you won’t have the same order you had in the past. Also, check your Interpersonal Sensitivity score to see what your natural tolerance level of others is, and be more patient and understanding with their reactions to COVID-19, especially if they’re higher on the Excitable scale.

3. Are your derailers appearing more often or are your behaviors more exaggerated?

Derailers typically come out when you’re under stress or dealing with ambiguity, but the stress and ambiguity you’re experiencing with COVID-19 is unlike anything we’ve seen before. So, recognize that your derailers might appear more often or more acutely. Self-awareness and self-monitoring are more crucial than ever now, so make sure you’re paying attention to how you’re acting and, more importantly, how others are perceiving you. If you’re upset or annoyed, it’s much easier to dash off a quick email from a remote location than it is to confront someone when you’re working together in person. Give yourself a chance to calm down and put the issue in perspective before emailing. Also, in the virtual world, others can’t see your facial expressions or hear your tone (unless you’re using a video platform), so make sure you choose your words wisely.

Reviewing your Hogan profile and determining which scales are most applicable and which behaviors you need to dial up or down will serve you well during the COVID-19 crisis. The experienced coaches of the Hogan Coaching Network are ready to assist you if you’d like professional guidance and a discussion to review your profile. They’re adept at virtual discussions and were conducting virtual feedback sessions long before the COVID-19 pandemic. If you’d like to schedule a one-hour session, please contact your Hogan consultant.

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On April 17, 2017, Southwest flight 1380 from New York to Dallas was in serious danger. A failed fan blade had struck the plane, creating a window-sized hole on the left side of the plane. Oxygen masks were deployed and, unsurprisingly, the passengers began to panic. Captain Tammie Jo Shults remained calm, took command of the situation, adapted to the circumstances, and safely landed the plane in Philadelphia, saving hundreds of lives. Her audio call is worth a listen.

More recently, the Diamond Princess cruise ship was quarantined with more than 700 passengers testing positive for COVID-19. Captain Gennaro Arma was credited for preventing panic with his calm and reassuring leadership style. There are many examples of extraordinary leaders rising to the occasion in crisis situations. Because many organizations are currently facing the crisis caused by COVID-19, we thought it would be a good time to review what we know about organizational crisis and what makes a leader most effective during such times.

Crisis Is Common

Every organization will face a crisis at some point. While the COVID-19 crisis is unprecedented, operating in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) world has long meant that crisis is inevitable. Whether an organization succeeds through a crisis is dependent upon its leader’s actions. In fact, a leader’s legacy is often determined by how he or she handles a major crisis. Effective leaders must make good decisions quickly, often based on limited information. Effective leaders must serve as a rallying force that keeps employees on track. Organizations with the best leaders are the ones that come out on top when the crisis subsides. The question then is this: What personality characteristics are most critical for leading through a crisis?

Leading Through a Crisis

Of course, you can ask anyone on the street what it takes to lead through a crisis, and they will give you an answer. So why should you listen to us? The difference between us and everyone else is that we have been systematically studying personality and leadership effectiveness for more than 30 years. What does that research tell us?

First, our research shows that an effective leader in a crisis acts like Tammie Jo Shults: She remains calm, takes charge, and confidently makes critical decisions. The two personality traits associated with acting this way are adjustment and ambition. In a crisis, people look to their leader for guidance on how to respond. If the leader is calm and sets a path forward, people will remain calm and order will be maintained. If the leader is panicked and lacks confidence about the actions to take, people will start to panic and chaos will ensue. Well-adjusted and ambitious leaders quickly adapt to unexpected changes caused by the crisis, such as the sudden shift to remote work many are experiencing, and they communicate with people about how to proceed.

Second, every crisis comes with increased stress. Even if the leader doesn’t display it externally, he or she is feeling the pressure. Our research shows that when people are under stress, they can lose their normal mode of operating and begin to derail. When faced with a crisis, people derail in three major ways: (1) moving away — by running from the problem, (2) moving against — by combating those thought to cause the problem, and (3) moving toward — by getting as close to the problem as possible and trying to micromanage it away. None of these are very effective, but our research shows that the worst thing to do when leading through a crisis is to move away and avoid the problem. Common tactics in this category include denying that there is a problem, pretending that the problem is overblown, or giving up on the problem entirely. We find that leaders who are effective during crises face stressful challenges head on. They are honest with themselves and others about the size of the problem and put mitigating actions into place as soon as possible. Leaders with a low proclivity for moving away are less likely to become volatile and are more persistent when things go wrong. They remain open to new ideas, maintain trust in their teams, stay engaged and connected, communicate openly and transparently, and are true to their word.

Third, our research also shows that the most effective crisis leaders show compassion and work to stay connected with the needs of their employees, customers, communities, and partners. While an ambitious and steady leader reduces panic and sets out a future plan, employees must also continue to feel valued by the organization and that their concerns are being addressed. Our research indicates effective crisis leaders score high on the personality trait interpersonal sensitivity and the value altruism. They genuinely care for their colleagues, their communities, and their constituencies, and they act as a unifying force through the crisis.

Summary

Crisis is inevitable, and organizations are well advised to be prepared. The single best way to be prepared for a crisis is to have a leader who is effective at handling crises when they occur. Our decades of research on personality and leadership tell us that the most effective leaders during a crisis are well adjusted, ambitious, realistic about the scope of the problem, steadfast about tackling the problem head on, and deeply compassionate about how the crisis is affecting others. Although it can be difficult to see in the midst of a crisis, organizations with these sorts of leaders have bright futures ahead.

*This post was authored by Hogan’s Chase Borden, Kimberly Nei, and Ryne Sherman.

Even during the best of times, research shows that absentee leadership is quite common and destructive to teams and organizations. What’s an absentee leader? One who displays neither actively positive leadership nor actively negative leadership; an absentee leader seems uninvolved and uncommunicative. For leaders whose teams are all working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, the possibility of showing up as an absentee leader increases, even for leaders who typically are engaged with their teams in the office.

Employees whose leaders are absentee report less direction, delayed decisions, and a lack of feedback and involvement. Role ambiguity results, along with decreased job satisfaction, higher intentions to leave, and added conflicts with co-workers. Add to that the increased stress of the pandemic, and negative outcomes for organizations and employees could be exponentially increased.

Communication is key. There are many readily available tips for managers regarding the common pitfalls resulting from virtual distance between workers and leaders. There are also many useful aids for communicating more effectively with remote teams. A focus on communication undoubtedly is critical for managers at all times, especially now.

However, absentee leadership is about the impact of a manager’s engagement (or lack thereof) with his/her work and team. Hogan’s research reveals five key indicators of absentee leadership. Each of these provides clues on what managers can do to avoid falling into the trap of developing a reputation as an absentee leader, even as they are forced to work and lead remotely.

1. Motivation for leadership.

If you are a manager who is feeling relieved that you don’t have to interact face-to-face for a while, that might be a danger sign. To avoid letting contact diminish, schedule quick check-in calls with team members more frequently than you normally would. Having scheduled check-ins will help provide the discipline needed to ensure that your sense of relief doesn’t mean that you are providing less leadership. Ensure you are focused on providing guidance, coaching, and performance feedback. Have a clear agenda for your calls with individual team members.

2. Lack of engagement with the team.

This one may seem obvious, but overcommunicate your availability and communication preferences to the team. Let them know you are still here to help. Consider blocking a set time each day as “open door time,” during which your team knows you are available for a quick question, a needed decision, or to address a concern. Providing more structure in this way will help set expectations and reassure your team that they can get the timely answers they need.

3. Lack of general career engagement.

Some leaders may be experiencing an existential struggle about whether their current job or even career is the right one for them. During this unusual time, however, try to focus on the greater good. Your team is counting on you, so try to set aside personal concerns and focus on supporting your team. Focusing your energy on them right now may help you find an increased sense of purpose.

4. Lacking effort to motivate and inspire.

In normal, in-office times, you may have regular staff meetings. If so, research shows that they probably aren’t very effective or efficient. That can be especially true for virtual team meetings, so it is critical to have a crisp agenda that is shared in advance, timebound topics, and clear decisions and owners as the meeting closes. These things will help instill a sense of productivity and purpose for the team, even as the world around them seems to be changing by the moment. In addition, it may be useful to schedule a team meeting here and there just as a time for team members to decompress. Everyone is under increased stress and perhaps isolation. It may help your team for you to be deliberately vulnerable in some ways, to share your thoughts and questions and to encourage theirs. While you may not get to answers, this may deepen relationships on the team in ways that are beneficial now and in the future. You may think this is just “soft stuff,” but actually it is about a key ingredient to effective leadership – building trust.

5. Lacking persistence for driving better outcomes.

Undoubtedly, some workers will see this remote-working time as an opportunity to slack off. Most, however, are likely to be looking for ways to be highly productive and to help their companies come out of this crisis in a strong position. This is where listening becomes especially important for leaders. Think about ways to engage your team in discussions about actions that may be different from their typical work, but that might be even more productive now. Look for ways to engage your team in making process improvements, increasing efficiencies, cutting costs, or doing business in new ways. You don’t have to have the answers; it likely is more important to ask questions, listen, and to engage the team in shared ownership of driving better outcomes despite abnormal circumstances.

The current situation is a test for the effectiveness of leaders and their teams. As always, evaluate the strength of your leadership by the effectiveness of your team. The above five points will help ensure that you develop and sustain a reputation for being an engaged, effective leader, even during this unprecedented period in which we are suddenly required to work differently. Remember to communicate frequently, create additional structure, actively support more frequently than usual, and listen to and leverage the power of your team.

Being awarded a leadership role within an organization may feel like an amazing accomplishment, but that is only half the battle. The second, and arguably most important half, lies in building and maintaining a highly effective team.

However, according to a study conducted on UK workers, managers are failing miserably at this task, and are instead fostering feelings of hate and resentment among their workers. The survey states that while 22% of the UK public say they hate their boss, a more staggering 52% claim that their boss is their main cause of job dissatisfaction. So, where is it that managers are going wrong, and what can they do improve their employees’ perception of them?

Compelling research by V. Jon Bentz – Vice President for Human Resources at Sears during the 1970s – found that managerial failure had little to do with IQ or personal attractiveness. Rather, it was linked directly to interpersonal competence. And, since personality is at the core of interpersonal competence, we can use personality assessments – such as those we have developed at Hogan – to identify the 11 personality scales that cause leaders to fail time and time again.

The Hogan Development Survey, introduced in 1997 by Drs. Robert Hogan and Joyce Hogan, is the only personality assessment that identifies critical blind spots that lead to career derailment. It helps leaders by providing insights about their counterproductive tendencies – or “risk factors” – that inevitably cause managerial failure. These characteristics become heightened during times of stress, and result in poor relationships with employees and other key stakeholders.

To lead a team more successfully, leaders need to be aware of these 11 personality scales or “derailers”:

• Excitable – People scoring high on this scale have lots of energy and enthusiasm for new projects. However, they quickly become disinterested when projects don’t go according to original plans. They tend to express their frustrations with people and projects publicly in emotional outbursts, creating an unsettling workplace atmosphere, where employees walk on eggshells for fear of upsetting or disappointing their manager.

• Skeptical – Leaders scoring highly on this scale are distrustful of others, believing that others will stab them in the back as soon as they let their guard down. While this approach keeps the leader attuned to the sometimes-ugly underbelly of organizational politics, this person is ultimately unable to gain anyone else’s trust either. This ultimately results in a completely dysfunctional work environment where decisions are made via secret meetings and without open discourse.

• Cautious – Cautious leaders operate in constant fear of making a mistake. They believe that you can never be certain of anything and operate with the worst-case-scenario in mind. As a result, they are reluctant to try new approaches or to make-decisions of any real consequences. Their subordinates learn to work around them if they want to get anything accomplished.

• Reserved – Reserved leaders believe that work is done best when people can focus in complete solitude. They keep face-to-face time to a minimum and lock themselves away when things get stressful. Reserved leaders are also less sympathetic to other people’s problems which results in their subordinates viewing them as cold, hard-nosed, and unhelpful.

• Leisurely – Leisurely individuals show up as polite and socially skilled when leading a team, which is why they are often liked and respected within their organization. However, after working closely with these people for some time, employees will see through the smokescreen and notice many fatal flaws. When faced with real challenges, these leaders are not very productive, and will react by finding ways to avoid and deflect responsibility.

• Bold – Bold leaders are inspiring, courageous, and confident. While employees may learn a lot from these individuals about how to rise to the top of organizations, they can also be challenging to work for. They refuse to acknowledge or take accountability for their mistakes and failures – for fear of losing face – and so the blame will always fall on employees. Likewise, these individuals take credit for major wins, and are bad at recognizing and rewarding hard work from their team.

• Mischievous – Mischievous people love thrill and excitement and thrive in high-octane situations. Leaders scoring highly here are willing to take risks and will spring into action during times of stress. In a leadership role, this is certainly necessary, but challenges arise for workers when leaders score too highly here. These leaders sometimes lack consideration for their workers, who put in the groundwork that set them up for success, and who are most impacted when taking on large, ambitious projects.

• Colorful – Colorful leaders enjoy being the center of attention, and thrive during stressful situations too, but in different ways. Whereas mischievous leaders live for the rush of high-risk projects, colorful leaders enjoy the fame and attention these projects bring, which can work against their favor. Employees often find these leaders chaotic and erratic to work with and will have to deal with poor organization and indecisiveness.

• Imaginative – Imaginative people are highly creative and love to engage in brainstorming sessions. They view even simple problems as immensely complex and in need of highly innovative solutions. As leaders, they become easily bored by daily tasks and activities and are easily distracted by their own thoughts. As a result, their subordinates view them as unfocused and impractical.

• Diligent – Diligent individuals are perfectionists and have a hard time delegating work efficiently among their staff. As a result, they tend to complete most tasks themselves – taking on more than they can manage – which hinders quality and turnaround. These leaders are challenging to work with, in that they slow down productivity and micromanage their staff.

• Dutiful – Dutiful leaders lack initiative and resourcefulness. In stark contrast to the diligent leader, these individuals rely too heavily on their team-members, hoping that they will carry the project through to completion without having to take any real responsibility or make any risky decisions.

As job dissatisfaction continues to rise, the employee-employer relationship is becoming more important. In order to successfully manage a team and lead it towards great results, leaders from all organizations need to form meaningful connections with their employees. Developing and maintaining awareness of these 11 derailers can help top-level management and team leaders to foster stronger working relationships with their employees. Only then can a manager successfully lead a team towards greatness and achieve strong results.

There are numerous perspectives and fundamental disagreement about the true definition of leadership. The good news is, most definitions of leadership fit into two broad categories. On one hand, we can think of a person who has a supervisory or management title as being a leader. On the other hand, we can think of a person who supports and guides a group to work toward common goals as being a leader. The first definition is based on a person’s formal role within an organization. The second definition is based on the function the leader serves and the group’s outcome.

Most books about leadership either explicitly or implicitly define leadership in terms of who is in charge, as does much of the academic study of leadership. The assumption is that leadership is about the position rather than the person. How do you know someone is a leader? You see if they have a title that implies they are in a leadership role. How do you study leadership to understand what it is about? You find people who are in leadership positions and study what they are doing. Who writes books about leadership? People who have been in leadership positions. Whose leadership books get published? Those who have had leadership titles in companies with recognizable brands. How does one get better at leadership? They read those books. The authors must know something about leadership, because they have been in leadership positions, right?

Maybe not. A large global survey of employee attitudes toward management found that less than half of respondents trust their boss. Another study suggests that about 50% of employees who quit their jobs do so because of their managers. Moreover, research indicates that somewhere between 30%-60% of those in leadership roles are actively destructive to their organizations. Based on these abysmal statistics it is likely that many authors of popular leadership books are part of the problem, not the answer. We can’t assume that people who are or have been in leadership roles can tell us much about how to be effective leaders. 

If you really want to understand what leadership is about, it is useful to start with three fundamentals about humans. First, we are biologically wired to live in groups. Second, because we are group-living, we are motivated to get along with other people because there is safety in numbers. Third, we are also hard-wired to compete for resources because better food and access to other resources maximizes our individual chance for survival.

People are inherently driven by two competing motives that can destroy group success. We all need to get along, but we also need to get ahead. Those needs are at odds, and when unmanaged in groups, the groups fail. The most successful groups are able to get along and get ahead. 

People rarely are balanced across these two motives. Some may be overly careful about going along with the group to avoid conflict. If the group is overly focused on harmony, it likely will lack direction. They may be happy and kind to each other, but they may not accomplish much. Others may be overly competitive in a way that destroys group harmony. If group members are focused on competing with each other, the group likely will be directionless because of competing perspectives. Only when both motives are managed and balanced within the group can it achieve safety in numbers and access to the resources necessary for survival. That was true thousands of years ago for groups living in caves, and it remains true today in the modern corporate world.

Leveraging Personality to Define Leadership

A more productive way to define leadership is about group outcomes. The purpose of leadership is to help group members balance needs for getting along and getting ahead in a way that maximizes the group’s success. If we define leadership as helping the group to succeed, suddenly a title or position becomes irrelevant. 

There is a great deal of high-quality research on the personality characteristics of effective leaders. Essentially, there are three aspects of personality that impact leadership ability:

1. The Bright Side – This describes day-to-day work reputation, and characteristics like drive, emotional resilience, and one’s ability to work well with a variety of people. This is particularly important for leadership success. 
2. The Dark Side – These are characteristics that can be overused, especially when a leader is reacting in the moment, not self-managing, or stressed. These characteristics are known to interfere with communication and relationship-building, gaining buy-in and clarity on direction, and the ability to balance conformity with being flexible and independent-minded. 
3. The Inside (Values) – Although related to personality, values are different. They are more about one’s intentions or preferences and are key to the fit between a leader and his/her organization’s values.  For example, an individual who values and creates a culture of creativity and experimentation will not fit very well in a nuclear facility where processes and protocols must be followed precisely to ensure safety.

Personality predicts leadership ability. By using personality measures, you can gain insight into one’s ability to lead effectively, even if they’ve never been in a position of leadership. Understanding a person’s natural strengths and development needs concerning integrity, judgment, competence, and vision can help organizations strategically invest in development activities that will improve performance in leadership roles.

So, based on the points in this article, here are five essential things we know about leadership:

1. Leadership is about the ability to guide and help a group to achieve its goals. It’s not about a title or position.
2. Leading is about providing a group with direction and making sure the group works together to pursue that direction.
3. The ultimate test of whether one is a leader is whether one’s group is successful.
4. It is largely unimportant whether one thinks they are a leader, but it is critically important whether others think they are.
5. Leadership effectiveness is not a mystery. Understanding the similarities and gaps between one’s personality characteristics and those related to leadership success can provide one with the strategic insight to lead effectively.

The idea of transformational leadership sounds good when taken at face value. A transformational leader is someone who instills pride, respect and trust in its followers. They inspire and motivate people beyond expectations, sparking innovation and change. And, if you look up “transformation” in the dictionary, you will see it defined as “a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance.” So, what organization wouldn’t want to introduce some form of transformational leadership to respond to the disruption caused by the current digital revolution?

Although transformational leadership seems like a good idea in theory, it is nothing more than charismatic leadership with a different and more appealing name. A recent study published by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology shows that there is plenty to dislike about charismatic leadership. In fact, there is little evidence to show that there is a strong correlation between charisma and effective leadership. So, because charismatic leadership and transformational leadership are essentially the same thing, it’s important to understand how this style of leadership has been so widely adopted across the globe.

According to another study published by the Academy of Management, “there is a widely shared consensus that charismatic–transformational leadership is a particularly effective form of leadership.” However, there are some major issues with this assumption, given that this leadership style is fundamentally flawed. There should instead be a shift towards a new and more empirically defined form of leadership, where leaders are appointed based on capability and skill as opposed to charisma.  

First, it is widely assumed that leadership is defined as “a person who has a leadership or managerial title.” The problem with that definition is that it doesn’t address how that person assumed the leadership position in the first place. Organizations across the world are notorious for promoting charismatic and politically savvy employees into leadership roles because they seem leaderlike. Some people can charm their superiors into thinking they would be effective leaders. They tend to be confident, creative, charming, and flashy, which helps them stand out in comparison with their peers. However, although their personality makes them seem “transformative,” in reality they are often ineffective leaders.

Second, there are several inconsistencies when it comes to measuring leader effectiveness. In a 2008 study conducted by Robert B. Kaiser, Robert Hogan, and S. Bartholomew Craig, the authors outlined these inconsistencies. For example, some organizations measure leadership effectiveness through manager evaluations. Others measure it through subordinate evaluations. Some are based solely on financial results. This diversity in methodology has delivered mixed results, essentially making any conclusions on leader effectiveness inconclusive. Therefore, there is often no real evidence connecting hiring or promoting charismatic-transformational leaders with improved organizational results.

Third, because charismatic-transformational leadership has been deemed by so many to be an effective form of leadership, there is a presumed “fear” among researchers to debunk this myth, which is ironic. If there is evidence to suggest that this leadership style is ineffective, yet nobody wants to go against popular consensus, wouldn’t calling out these “experts” be transformative in and of itself?

The bottom line is that charismatic-transformational leadership is prevalent in organizations on a global scale, but there is little evidence to suggest it is effective. This leads us to one crucial question that organizations everywhere should be asking: How successful could we be if we did not assume that charismatic-transformational leadership leads to leadership effectiveness?

This is a complex problem with a simple solution: Define leadership correctly and then identify effective leaders through the use of valid personality assessments.

You cannot define leadership as someone who is in a managerial role or someone who has been promoted simply because he or she is inspiring and socially confident. You have to define leadership as a person who builds and maintains a high-performing team. When organizations do that, they have a completely different view of what makes for an effective leader.

Then, through the use of valid and reliable assessment measures, they can better identify those who will be successful. One of the characteristics that organizations need to look for in leaders is humility. Effective leaders are more modest; they focus on team performance and are willing to admit mistakes, share credit and learn from others. These are the type of leaders that can inspire true positive change and innovation.

In the final analysis, business is about money and people. By definition, successful private equity firms understand finance, but on average they tend to be less sophisticated about people issues. This makes sense: deal partners and analysts are trained in finance and are good at spotting undervalued assets. But savvy private equity players also understand that reviving an underperforming business depends to a large degree on people issues—in particular, it depends on the leadership of the portfolio company and its working relationship with new ownership.

Considerable evidence suggests that PE firms could do a better job evaluating the ability of the leadership team in their acquired companies. A recent survey by Alix Partners found that nearly three-quarters of portfolio company CEOs are removed during the investment life cycle. Over half are replaced in the first two years; but only 15% are replaced at the outset. These data suggest that, for 4 out of the 5 replaced CEOs, the decision takes too long, thereby delaying strategic milestones and prolonging the hold time.

PE firms can more quickly realize returns on their investments if they analyze the leadership of the companies they acquire with the same rigor that they analyze the business fundamentals during the diligence phase. The good news is that there is a science to analyzing people and the same discipline that is used to identify untapped business value can be used to evaluate the leadership potential of CEO candidates.

Barking up the Wrong Tree

In our experience working with PE firms, the conventional wisdom regarding what to look for in portfolio company CEOs can be misleading. People assume that brains and experience are crucial. But it turns out that IQ and prior industry and CEO experience do not predict the ability to lead through a profitable exit. For instance, a recent survey of managing partners at 32 PE firms (including Blackstone, KKR, and Carlyle) revealed that experience as  a CEO in a publicly traded firm does not prepare people for success in the intense PE environment. The data also showed prior industry experience predicts the tendency to run the same playbook rather than driving radical change typically required.

The experience factors associated with successful leadership of a portfolio company include having worked in a PE environment and having previously performed a similar transformation. This doesn’t necessarily mean having been a portfolio company CEO before; having held a big job in a PE environment is enough to appreciate the pace, the sense of urgency, and the need to be in close communication with ownership about everything from strategic direction to performance details. And a track record of having performed the same task successfully—whether that be cutting costs, growing revenues, managing debt, raising capital, going digital, expanding channels, or what have you—bodes well for doing it again and quickly. 

Soft Skills Make the Difference

Beyond PE experience and task experience, the factors that best predict the ability of CEOs to lead to a successful exit are found more on the soft side than the hard side. And this is where it can be challenging for financial experts: understanding people is different from understanding balance sheets. However, people differ in certain regular and quantifiable ways and research has shown which differences make a difference when leading a portfolio company. They fall into two general categories.

The first category contains the personal factors common to most successful PE CEOs. They include:

• The ability to build and lead a high-performing team with complementary strengths
• A tough-minded temperament with a sense of urgency
• Resilience—the ability to recover from the inevitable setbacks
• The willingness to admit problems and face difficult realities without spinning or sugarcoating them

PE environments usually have limited resources, which points to the need for versatile chiefs with a broad range of expertise and skills. But versatility is a rare commodity. Less than 10% of senior leaders are able to consult with their staff in decision making while still being able to act acting decisively, or pay attention to the big picture while also attending to the day-to-day details. Successful portfolio CEOs need to be able to recognize their limitations and staff accordingly; they also need humility in order to turn their staff loose. It’s a complex set of capabilities, which accounts for the staggering number of CEOs who are replaced.

The second category of differences concern the chemistry between the CEO and PE ownership. The big issue concerns compatibility: can the CEO and primary deal partner agree on performance expectations, communication cadence and content, and other, often unspoken, rules of engagement? This is about far more than “liking” each other; it more about mutual respect and trust. Establishing a short-hand vocabulary, sharing values, and minimizing surprises is very important in a fast-paced, pressure-cooker environment.

The Science of Personality

Many people tend to think that personality tests are on-line questionnaires or magazine quizzes designed to tell them about their “type,” “color,” or the house at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry into which they would best fit. However, there is a science of personality assessment based on research going back over 100 years. It isn’t rocket science, it’s behavioral science—and it leads to solid, dependable results. The evidence is clear that personality assessment powerfully predicts real life behavior; hundreds of studies with hundreds of thousands of working adults show that competently constructed personality measures predict performance with surprising accuracy. Properly validated personality measures predict job performance, career success, and leadership better than any known alternative, including IQ.  Personality is stronger than Viagra: the correlation between personality and leadership is stronger than the correlation between Viagra use and improved sexual functioning.

Moreover, well-designed personality assessments can forecast an individual’s ability to build a team, make tough calls, handle pressure, and be candid, flexible, and humble. Being able to penetrate the veil of self-presentation is important because sitting CEOs are likely to be on their best behavior during the courtship phase of an acquisition. There is a big difference between people at their best—what we call “the bright side” of personality —and people under sustained pressure when you see their “dark side”—the behavioral tendencies that derail teams and careers.  For example, over time confidence can turn into arrogance, collaboration morphs into appeasement, and passion and a sense of urgency turn into erratic tantrums. Personality testing is especially useful when evaluating possible replacement candidates, because you will often have little direct exposure to the person yourself and smart people can conceal their dark sides for short periods of time.

Personality testing is also effective at determining the compatibility between people. It’s the basic theory and measurement system behind successful online dating platforms, and it can also be applied effectively to working relationships. In addition to predicting how well two peoples’ interpersonal, thinking, and communication styles will mesh, personality assessment can also predict how people are likely to rub each other the wrong way and push each other’s hot buttons. Perhaps most importantly, a comprehensive personality assessment that includes core values can identify whether people are aligned in what they really want—versus likely to be working at cross purposes. In a PE context, for example, it is vital that the CEO and the primary deal partner agree about core values—i.e., about the relative importance of money, status, fame, relationships, and pleasure.

Managing Risk on the People Side

Assessing the personalities of CEOs and their leadership teams should be a routine part of doing diligence on a potential acquisition company. On the one hand, evaluations of the leaders’ work histories can indicate whether they understand the pressures of PE environments and if they know how to execute the sorts of changes needed to realize value. This tells you whether people can do the job on paper. Similarly, personality assessment will provide a sense of what it would be like to work with them—how they will do the job once in office, what it will be like to have them in your life. It is interesting to note that most failures of leadership are less about a deficiency in what they know and more about how they prioritize time, focus attention, and interact with key people. And the most important interaction of all is between the CEO and the primary deal partner; with so much at stake, it’s best to understand how this relationship will work at the start, including how it could go wrong and how to manage it when things get tense.

*This post was co-authored by Robert Hogan and Rob Kaiser, and was originally published by Hunt Scanlon Media.

In January of 2017, Les Snead, the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, had a tough choice to make. Hired in 2013, his team had not had a winning record since 2003 and had moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles just a year earlier. Expectations in LA were high, and it was time for Snead to find a new head coach. The safe and easy choice would be a seasoned, veteran head coach who was no stranger to the biggest stage in American sports. Jon Gruden, who won a Super Bowl in 2003 (2002 season), seemed to be an obvious candidate. Or, you take a look at successful college coaches, such as Nick Saban, who has won six NCAA championships as head coach at the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University. Both of these coaches had proven records as head coaches and were realistic candidates to fill the Rams’ coaching vacancy.

Instead, Snead hired Washington Redskins Offensive Coordinator Sean McVay, who also was a former assistant wide receivers coach under Gruden in 2008. At 30 years old, McVay was the youngest coach in NFL history. The results have been tremendous. In two seasons McVay has lead the Rams to a 26-9 record (including playoff games). On February 3, just nine days after his 33^rd birthday, McVay will coach his team against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.

As the spread offense, which is popular in college football, began to slowly infiltrate the NFL, disruption was imminent. All of a sudden, offensive innovation became a priority, but not all teams saw it coming. The Rams, preferring to disrupt rather than be disrupted, took a chance and hired McVay. They hired him because he knew how to get the ball into the hands of those who could score touchdowns, which he did for three seasons as offensive coordinator of the Washington Redskins. It was obvious he had the necessary competencies to orchestrate a successful offense, and that was the top priority.

We don’t know if the Rams used personality assessments to hire McVay, but we do know that you can learn a lot about McVay’s personality by what he does (i.e., his behavior) and what others say about him (i.e., his reputation). Following a game in 2017 when he was criticized for how the Rams poorly managed their timeouts, McVay said the following:

“With some of the previous ones (timeouts) it might have been a miscommunication – guys were confused or things like that – but all things being equal, it starts with me. I’ve got to do a better job with that.”

When talking to media in 2018 just a few days before playing the New Orleans Saints, McVay was asked about what he’s learned from Wade Phillips, his 71-year-old defensive coordinator and former NFL head coach. Here’s his response:

“A guy like him, I feel great to work and learn from him every day.”

Both of these quotes tell us a lot about McVay’s humble character, and his willingness to both admit mistakes and put good people around him, even if one of them (Phillips) was defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles the year he was born.

Following their 26-23 win over the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship to reach Super Bowl LIII, Rams left tackle, Andrew Whitworth, said this about his coach:

“He’s a coach that knows his team. He knew we needed to do something to get things going our way, and he believed his team could get it done. That sounds simple, but it’s actually huge.”

And, perhaps the most important quote following the NFC Championship came from Snead:

“The idea was for him to come in and help us create a winning environment.”

At Hogan, we believe effective leaders are those who can develop and maintain high-performing teams. This involves possessing the required competencies for the job, being humble, getting the most out of the individuals on your team, and creating an environment where they can succeed. Gruden might have been a safe choice back in 2017, but he went 4-12 as head coach of the Oakland Raiders this year. On February 3, he won’t be coaching his team in the Super Bowl. He will be watching his former assistant wide receivers coach lead the Rams in the Super Bowl instead.