Last week we revealed the eight most common personality types found in the Hogan suite of assessments. Starting this week, and in the following weeks, we will take a deeper look at these eight profiles. This week we take a deep look at the personality profile of Rebels.

Rebels makeup approximately 8% of the working population. Their Hogan profile is highlighted by high scores on Recognition, Power, Hedonism, and Commerce on the MVPI; low scores on Adjustment, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Prudence as well as high scores on Sociability and Inquisitive on the HPI; and high scores on most of the HDS scales except for Diligent and Dutiful, with especially high scores on Excitable and Skeptical. See Figure 1 below for the full profile.

Figure 1. Rebels Hogan Profile

The Reputation of Rebels

We had eight Hogan consultants with a combined 82 years of experience provide independent, written interpretations of the Rebels profile shown above. Some of the words our experts most frequently used to describe rebels were “emotional,” “strong,” “passionate,” “direct,” “volatile,” “reactive,” “energetic,” and “status.” Additionally, we examined the workplace reputation of Rebels by drawing on Hogan 360 data gathered with Hogan distributor Peter Berry Consultancy. Colleagues, supervisors, and even subordinates of Rebels described them as “very competitive and driven,” but also as having difficulty “managing emotions maturely and intelligently” and staying “calm and even tempered.” In other words, Rebels are seen by their co-workers as enthusiastic and energetic but struggling with emotional control. Lastly, our job performance archive also tells us that Rebels score low on “political savvy,” “modeling behavior for others,” and “overcoming obstacles.”

Common Careers for Rebels

Rebels will prefer careers where they can be creative and disruptive, where they can push the boundaries and limits of what most people consider possible. Rebels dislike the status quo and will struggle to fit with many traditional jobs. As a result, Rebels are substantially more likely to end up working for themselves as entrepreneurs.

In fact, we find that every sample of entrepreneurs that we work with is overrepresented by people with the Rebels personality profile. These samples have 18-28% entrepreneurs, which is 2-3 times more than the 8% we see in the global working population. On the darker side of things, we have also found Rebels to make up nearly half of our sample of organized crime members. Whether as entrepreneurs or as criminals, Rebels make a habit out of breaking the rules. The strictness of society’s rules then largely decides whether Rebels are considered sinners or saints. In popular media, characters such as Tony Stark (Ironman), Donna Meagle (Parks and Recreation), and Aladdin (Disney’s Aladdin) are prototypical Rebels – creative, disruptive, and pushing the limits.

Advice for Rebels

If you are a Rebel, you need to be aware of your tendency to try to skirt around the rules. On the one hand, disruption leads to innovation, change, and progress. On the other hand, many people resist change and will see your disruptive behavior as a threat to their stability. You are more comfortable with change than most people and need to realize that other people will not be as enthusiastic about your transformative ideas. Most critically, you need to be aware that some of your plans and ideas might be considered outside the bounds of fair play by society, which could lead to serious legal trouble.

Regardless, you should be prepared to cut your own path and to start your own business. You will likely be resistant to working for anyone else and working for yourself gives you the freedom and flexibility you desire. Keep in mind that, as your business grows, your employees will be looking for stability. Many of the changes and “improvements” you might like to implement will be silly and a waste of time in the minds of your employees. Frequent changes in direction will drive your best employees away. The key to success will be in your ability to temper your impulse to constantly reinvent.

How to Deal with Rebels

If your boss has the personality profile of a Rebel, be prepared to deal with frequent change. A Rebel boss might demand one thing on Monday and the complete opposite thing on Tuesday. You will need to be adaptable, flexible, and comfortable with instability. In the mind of a Rebel, nothing is ever quite good enough so the call for improvements will be constant. If any of your employees are Rebels, then be prepared to spend a fair amount of time doing performance management. They will likely listen to your coaching and feedback, but ultimately resist changing their behavior.

Your Rebel employees will often see your point of view as outdated and not future-oriented enough. To keep your Rebels productive, it is best to provide them with tasks and opportunities to create, change, or disrupt current processes. Provide ample opportunities for Rebels to share their innovative ideas. Ultimately, Rebels will probably leave your company to strike out on their own, so you should maximize their strengths while they’re there.

Want to learn more about personality tests? Check out The Ultimate Guide to Personality Tests

*This is a guest post authored by Lynne Cruickshank, senior consultant at Peter Berry Consultancy (PBC). 

A clear link has been established between how leadership drives engagement, which in turn drives performance. However, one of the challenges that leaders face is how to engage a multi-generational workforce that consists of people who differ in their perceptions and approach to work. Through developing an understanding of the unique motivators, drivers, and values of their workforce, leaders can identify the kind of approaches and work environments that are most likely to engage and motivate their employees from all generations.

So, what motivates different generations?

Research conducted by PBC revealed that people from younger generations in the Australian workforce (i.e. Generation Y [born 1978-1992] and Generation Z [born 1993-present]) tend to have distinctly different values and motivators compared to those from older generations (i.e. Generation X [born 1965-1977] and Baby Boomers [born 1946-1964]).

Specifically, younger generations (i.e. Generation Y and Generation Z) were more likely to value work where they can:

• Influence others, challenge themselves, and focus on achievement and success
• Stand out and be acknowledged for their achievements
• Find enjoyment, variety, and fun
• Socialize, network, and collaborate with others
• Have a sense of certainty and predictability

Those from Generation Z were also found to be more strongly motivated by opportunities to engage in meaningful work that contributes to society and helps others compared to older generations (i.e. Generation X and Baby Boomers).

On the other hand, those from older generations (i.e. Generation X and Baby Boomers) were more likely to:

• Have stronger values toward upholding traditional ways of working, respecting a sense of hierarchy, and being good organizational citizens
• Present with a preference for a professional approach to work
• Be less concerned about the need for teamwork and socializing
• Not as concerned with wanting status and praise or being in environments that are fun and provide variety

What does this mean for those in leadership roles?

When seeking to engage and motivate employees from Generations Y and Z, leaders should consider providing these individuals with opportunities to engage in work that they will find meaningful, that will challenge and stretch them, and also provide them with the opportunities to engage and collaborate with others. Leaders should identify opportunities to celebrate successes and ‘wins’ with these individuals and acknowledge and recognize their contributions and achievements as this is likely to help further engage and motivate employees from younger generations. Additionally, these employees are likely to appreciate having factors that enable work-life balance and flexibility. Finally, as younger generations were found to more strongly value having a sense of certainty and predictability, they are likely to appreciate clarity around their current role as well as open discussions about their future career within the organization.

It is important to note that what engages and motivates employees from younger generations is not necessarily going to be the same for those from Generation Y or Baby Boomers due to the differences in values found across different generations.

For employees from Generation Y and Baby Boomers, they are less likely to find public acknowledgement and recognition of their contributions and achievements motivating and are likely to prefer focusing on deliverables rather than spending time focusing on socializing and injecting fun into the workplace. They are more likely to value tradition and conventions within the organization and appreciate those who demonstrate a strong work ethic and help foster a professional and business-like environment. As people from these generations are more likely to be in leadership roles within an organization, it will also be important for these leaders to keep in mind that what they tend to find rewarding and their preferred working style may differ from people they are responsible for leading and managing who are from younger generations.

At the end of the day, it is important for leaders to think about the type of culture and work environment that they want to foster based on the organization’s values and strategic focus.

They can then ensure that key practices, processes, and systems are in place to help drive this desired culture and work environment that will help achieve the organization’s key goals and performance outcomes. To ensure employees are engaged and motivated and contributing to the successful performance of the organization, it is also important for leaders to understand the values, motivators, and drivers of their employees and how this is likely to impact how they will respond to the current culture and work environment within the organization. While the generational differences outlined above are useful to consider when managing multi-generational teams, it is important to remember and respect each team member as an individual and to seek to understand their personal motivators at work.

When discussing personality, it’s common to hear people refer to themselves or others as “Type A” or “Type B.” Or, for those who have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, acronyms like ISTJ or ENTP or INFP are so commonplace they frequently show up in online dating profiles.

At Hogan, we’ve historically steered away from labeling people as a certain “personality type” based on their assessment results. The primary reason for this is that personality trait scores lie on a continuum and dividing people into convenient buckets sacrifices precision. Further, even two people with highly similar personality profiles can be dramatically different from each other if they only differ on a single scale.

So, what’s the value of assigning personality types? First, types give people a natural way to think about those around them. Second, personality types refer to the whole person and not just various aspects of personality. Third, applying types to people makes personality easy to understand when it comes to coaching and development.

Although Hogan still avoids labeling people with types, we did a deep dive into our archive to see if there were some common types we could discover. Using the data of 332,935 individuals who completed the Hogan Personality Inventory, Hogan Development Survey, and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory, we identified eight different personality types – or common profiles – that can be applied to the vast majority of the working population.

Most Common Personality Types

Rebels – These individuals represent 8.0% of the sample group. Their scores suggest that they are interested in being famous, wealth, having power, and living a luxurious life. They are also seen by others as sociable and curious in daily behavior, but can also be emotional, distrustful of others, and rule-breaking. Entrepreneurs make up a large percentage of this group.

Marketers – Representing 18.2% of the sample group, Marketers are seen as highly motivated to compete, win, push for results, and make money. At their best they are bright, sociable, and ambitious at work. However, they also tend to take big chances and are overconfident in their abilities. This profile group is commonly seen amongst salespeople.

Proletarians – We identified that 13.7% of those observed are what we refer to as Proletarians. These individuals are interested in stability and simplistic lifestyle. Others consider them to be hardworking, reserved, and careful. They generally make solid employees and prefer to work without being bothered. These people are equally represented across most professions.

Congenials – At 17.2% of the sample group, Congenials are viewed by others as lacking motivational and career interests. They tend to be introverted, but also relaxed, friendly, polite, and rule-abiding at work. Owing to their friendly nature, these individuals regularly receive high performance ratings from their supervisors. Congenials are commonly found in administrative and clerical roles.

Over-Achievers – This group represents 16.6% of the individuals we studied. Unsurprisingly, Over-Achievers are interested in career success, but they do insist on playing fair. They are hardworking, bright, and resilient to stress. While our data suggest that these individuals are well-suited for leadership positions, they tend to be stuck in individual contributor roles, largely due to the fact that they refuse to play politics.

Networkers – Representing 12.8% of the group, Networkers tend to be interested in fame and being liked by others. They are sociable, cool-headed, and bright in daily behavior. That said, they are also known to break the rules, take risks, be overly dramatic, and often times impractical. Because of their ability to connect with others and their willingness to play politics, Networkers make up a large percentage of leadership roles.

Misfits – Misfits make up 6.9% of the group we studied. They are highly motivated by fear with a strong desire for stability and to enjoy life. They also tend to be emotionally volatile and have difficulties building close relationships due to excessive reclusiveness. Our data indicate that many individuals in this group are struggling to find the right career fit for them.

Preppers – At 6.5% of the group, Preppers are like Misfits in that they are motivated by fear with a strong desire for stability. What makes them different than Misfits is that they are dependable when they can keep their emotions in check. This group is introverted and always prepared for the worst. Individuals fitting this profile often work in the security sector.

Assigning personality types to people will never be an exact science, regardless of the amount of data collected or the tools used to measure personality. Still, it is often useful to look at the person as a whole instead of thinking of individuals as simply a mixture of the same chemicals. Our data indicate that there are in fact eight robust personality types – or personality profiles – that are meaningfully related to work and career outcomes.

Want to learn more about personality tests? Check out The Ultimate Guide to Personality Tests

*This is a guest post authored by Adrian Chew, principal consultant at Peter Berry Consultancy (PBC). 

Globalization and the expansion of organizations across international borders have created opportunities and challenges for current and future leaders. As a consultant, psychologist, and coach, I am excited to see more organizations around the world investing in psychometric and multirater feedback data for leadership development.

Having reputational data available can be tremendously helpful to leaders for understanding and narrowing down key areas to focus on for development. Many multirater assessments allow leaders to compare themselves to other leaders around the world using global benchmark scores (for example, the Hogan 360°, powered by PBC, does this). Having the ability to use benchmarks to understand how leaders differentiate themselves is great, considering how globally connected we are. But given how diverse we are from country to country and culture to culture, are we missing any critical nuances that need to be considered when supporting our leaders and managers in their development?

As part of our commitment to better understanding leadership and talent, PBC recently conducted a study looking at observed leadership behavior around the world. The study was based on data collected from 2012 to 2017 using the Hogan 360°. The data consisted of more than 5,600 ratings of 1,642 leaders in eight countries: Australia, Denmark, Greece, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Essentially, we wanted to see if leaders around the world tended to show up in similar ways.

The Similarities

Two key themes emerged from our findings. The first was that leaders around the world are still struggling to fully demonstrate the competencies often associated with transformational leadership: building and maintaining relationships with others; motivating and coaching others; and holding others accountable to work toward innovative and strategic business outcomes. In fact, it was in the Hogan 360°’s Working on the Business competency quadrant where we saw the least amount of variability among leaders.

Secondly, but unsurprisingly, we found most leaders — particularly those in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Japan, and Singapore — were rated highest in the Working in the Business competency quadrant, especially with regard to perceived work ethic, industry knowledge, and expertise. This seems to reflect a common phenomenon observed in so many organizations, where technical expertise and operational prowess are catalysts for progression into people management and leadership roles, while relationship management skills and the capability to motivate others are much less prevalent.

The Differences

We saw the most variation in leaders when it came to how resilient and emotionally intelligent they appeared. Leaders also differed significantly in how invested they were in building trust and rapport with others through strong relationships. For example, we found that leaders in Mexico are more likely than leaders in the other countries in the sample to be perceived as polite, respectful, and able to manage stress well. This may be a reflection of the expectation that leaders in Mexico need to be flexible, hardworking, and operate with integrity (Kowske & Anthony, 2007). In contrast, leaders from the U.K. appeared to have less of a focus on managing their emotions.

We also saw a lot of variability in leaders when it came to the Hogan 360°’s Relationship Management competency quadrant. Leaders from Mexico once again showed strengths in this domain, with leaders from Greece, Australia, and the U.S. also scoring relatively high. Leaders from Denmark, Japan, and Singapore scored particularly low for this domain. When we investigated this further, we learned that leaders from Japan had been rated particularly low for the People Skills competency, which included behaviors associated with being a positive role model, making others feel valued, and being warm and thoughtful in interactions with others. Considering the high in-group collectivist culture that likely exists in countries such as Japan and Singapore, where duties and obligations take precedence over personal needs, this seems to make sense. 

So, knowing that there are, indeed, differences in what can be expected of leaders around the world, what can we do?

• The use of standard global benchmarks can be used to provide a baseline for leaders who increasingly need to operate more globally.
• The use of country-specific benchmarks in 360° assessments can help organizations better understand how local leaders compare with each other (while accounting for country-specific nuances in expected leadership behavior).
• By recognizing nuances and better understanding the expectations that teams, colleagues, and managers have of their leaders, organizations can become more focused and prioritize relevant areas for their leaders to develop professionally.
• We can continue to help leaders of leaders understand differences in their teams’ behavior.

You can read more about our findings on how leaders from each country scored in our white paper.

Gaining the best and most suitable employees for your company is the key to success. Nowadays, companies are trying to hire the best of the best and are putting a lot of effort into new and exciting forms of recruiting. While a strong recruiting strategy provides only one major advantage for most companies, it is substantial for other companies.

Hiring the wrong employee for a job can inevitably lead to underperformance, which can cost millions and expose other employees to increased risk. Every year, companies within the EU lose billions of euros from accidents, injuries at work and other damages. In 2017, European companies lost more than € 476 billion, which was a staggering 3.3% of the European Union’s GDP.

It goes without saying that industries with higher levels of physical labor, such as construction, oil and gas, are at greatest risk from accidents at work and injuries. Companies working in security-conscious industries need to take additional measures to ensure that they hire the right people and create a safe environment for their employees.

The Right Safety Culture

When selecting employees for a job, it is simply not enough to interview candidates during the interview process on security-related topics. If the candidates apply for any position, they will probably match up for the job – and rightly so! During the recruitment phase, candidates tend to become “yes people” – eager to fill in as many boxes as possible in order to secure the job. Employers in the safety-conscious industries have a duty to ask themselves – “How can I really know if this person will act locally in a responsible manner?” Without the right occupational safety culture, a company poses a threat to its employees and revenue.

To ensure a safe work environment and attract the right people, more and more companies are choosing to conduct personality analysis in the hiring process. Personality testing can be incorporated into the recruitment strategy of any business without much effort. This is recommended, especially in security-conscious industries.

Personality Assessment and Personality Traits

Personality ratings can be used to rate applicants for certain personality traits that are most important to the industry in which they compete. Applicants who score high for certain characteristics can be identified and selected for the job. While those who achieve low scores can be filtered out and directed by employers in a different direction.

Interview with Zsolt Feher, Managing Director of Hogan Assessments

Zsolt Feher, Managing Director of Hogan Assessments, explains in an interview how a personality assessment in terms of safety-relevant behavior looks exactly, which personality traits are taken into account and how these ultimately improve safety in the workplace.

• What are the benefits of a safety assessment compared to other measures such as health and safety training etc.?

Security controlling requires other actions and measures. Let’s assume that security is based on four “pillars”: training, rules, equipment and what else we bring – our character. Often organizations have the first three pillars but forget that we are all individuals who have different views and different ways of dealing with security. We think it is essential to use personality measurements to determine who is safer and who does not. We do not change the first three pillars, but we have this fourth as a sort of add-on to personalize all four pillars in even greater detail. And everyone knows that four legs are more stable than three.

• What are the anticipated reactions of HR departments and works councils when a safety assessment is to be incorporated into the recruitment process? How are these assessments usually integrated?

Safety assessments are mostly used in the form of a pre-selection, as one of several competencies that are considered. Organizations, of course, will always give priority to experience and expertise, especially in technical areas, while security is seen as an additional area. We work a lot with energy and mining companies, where safety is much more important. We were one of the first consulting companies to provide this assessment online. But of course, we do understand that field workers do not automatically have global access to computers and iPads, so they simultaneously make the assessment available in the old-fashioned way, with paper and pencil. We do not consider it advisable to apply safety assessments to managers or executives, as it focuses on individuals with specific responsibilities. For others, additional reports are available, depending on which job our clients want to evaluate.

• Which security-conscious actions can be measured with the safety assessment and in what form?

We mainly focus on six different components/competences:

• The first concerns a person’s willingness to follow rules. Low-scoring employees (“low scorer”) may tend to ignore the rules, while high-scoring employees (“high scorer”) follow these rules without hesitation.
• The next component deals with dealing with stress. Low scorers are prone to stress; these employees are easily panicked under pressure and make mistakes. High scorers usually stay constant.
• The third area concerns aggression: Low scorers may lose control and make mistakes more easily. High scorers know how to control themselves.
• The next component is about the ability to concentrate. Low scorers are more distracted and may be more likely to make mistakes. High scorers, on the other hand, remain able to concentrate longer.
• Then we also consider the risk appetite. Low scorers tend to take unnecessary risks. High scorers, on the other hand, avoid risky actions.
• The sixth and last component concerns the training ability. Low scorers tend to ignore training and feedback. High scorers, however, fit well in training.

All of these areas are important separately, but of course also in combination. One might assume that a questionnaire is needed, which asks the person directly about his/her safety-related attitude. But, that’s not true – and that’s why it’s so hard to manipulate the outcome of the assessment. We use a questionnaire focused on competencies, strengths, and weaknesses, also called the HPI (Hogan Personality Inventory), which considers all important personality traits and considers only those people who are more inclined to safety from a person more averse to security differ. Items such as “Do you know why the stars sparkle – yes/no?” are difficult to answer if someone wants to influence the outcome. So, it’s better.

• Have companies that have taken up and carried out this safety assessment noticed a significant or at least noticeable trend in the safety-conscious behavior of their employees?

It is difficult to change personality. That’s why 80% of all New Year’s resolutions never work. Real change is very difficult and requires a lot of effort and concentration. We therefore suggest applying this assessment to preselection in order to avoid hiring people with demonstrably high security risks. When used as a development tool in the field, it can see exactly where more attention needs to be given on an individual basis. For example, “What are the weaknesses of a colleague?” In the beginning, the employees must learn to understand themselves, for which we must give honest feedback. Once they understand why they are in danger (some points are harder to understand than others), then the company can start with a development program or individual safety coaching. It also gives the company the opportunity to redesign certain groups: bringing together safety-conscious individuals and persons who are not secure. People with a high level of security usually help the other team members to raise their awareness, especially if they have proven to be self-learners.

The results are easily perceptible and easy to quantify: before we install our program, we observe injuries at work or worse. After screening our employees through our review process, we have achieved excellent results with lower injury rates and fewer fatalities. In total, European companies save about 64 million in operating costs and just under 1,700 production days due to fewer accidents.

• What are the most common reactions or feedback from workers who have gone through the safety assessment? (For example, do you tend to accept or reject it?)

This is my favorite part in this program. Usually, when we give feedback (especially after they do not even understand what the questions are for sure), we often hear first, “Who told you that about me?” A certain amount of anxiety or resistance to this “weird” situation exists every time before the feedback starts. But as soon as we share our insights, almost all participants open up relatively quickly. They find our observations fascinating and amazed how accurate our review can be. Once they understand that the result suit them, we can evaluate what should change in this respect, which usually works very well.

• Are there any disadvantages to safety assessments?

I would say, “No, no way.” The process will require some internal “marketing,” especially if the company has to negotiate with unions in this context. In development situations, it’s not about getting rid of the low scorers, but about building their security awareness, with the bonus of having fewer injuries, which should be in everyone’s interest.

• Which culture-specific differences should be considered when implementing and carrying out a safety assessment?

We use the same skills all over the world. In addition, our standards in this case are geared towards a world population. Most of our reports can be normalized in a number of ways: for example, if a company wishes to complete the questionnaire in Polish and receive the report in French Canadian, then we can easily do so as nearly 60 languages ​​are offered in our system.

• Will more and more companies use this safety assessment in the coming years?

Twenty years ago, when we started to realize bigger projects, safety was one of the most common areas for this assessment. Our company has grown organically since then, as has the use of these reports.

*This was originally published as a two-part series via Zukunft Personal Blog on June 5 and June 11. It includes a guest article authored by Zsolt Feher, as well as a Q&A piece with the author.

Do us a favor. Go to Google and search for the term “mental toughness.” Then click on “news” to see the latest news on mental toughness. We can almost guarantee that you will find an article published within the past three days. Doing this exercise on August 6, 2019 yielded the results on the right.

The point is, people – particularly sports coaches and athletes – talk about mental toughness as a key ingredient for success virtually all the time. Clearly, the concept of mental toughness is of wide interest and importance. But what is mental toughness exactly and how is it related to personality? A few years ago, we set out to investigate this question. Last week, our findings were published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. In this post, we summarize the key results.

Locating Mental Toughness

Although scholars define mental toughness in slightly different ways, they all agree that mental toughness includes self-confidence, competitiveness, and emotional control. As such, our goal was not to try to determine which definition is correct, but rather to understand how the core of mental toughness was related to standard personality instruments.

To do so, we had nearly 500 participants – including 90 current or former collegiate athletes – complete an assessment of mental toughness and several normal personality assessments including the HEXACO-60, the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), and the Hogan Development Survey (HDS). The mental toughness questionnaire asked participants the degree to which they agreed with statements like “I have unshakeable confidence in my ability,” and “I am committed to completing the tasks I have to do.”

Next, we used machine learning techniques to determine the degree to which we could reproduce scores on the measure of mental toughness based only on scores on the personality assessments. We found that we could reproduce an individual’s mental toughness scores with a very high degree of accuracy (r = .70), indicating that mental toughness is a part of personality. Moreover, we found that mental toughness is made up of several dimensions of the HEXACO model of personality: parts of extraversion, conscientiousness, and emotionality. People high on mental toughness tended to endorse items related to pushing for results, having high energy levels, and having a high degree of self-confidence.

We found an even more direct link between mental toughness and the HPI. Specifically, the core components of the Ambition scale (Competitive, Self-Confident, Accomplishment, and Leadership) were strongly associated with mental toughness scores. In terms of the HDS, we found that a combination of subscales stemming from Excitable, Cautious, Bold, Imaginative, and even Dutiful were most related to mental toughness.

Summary

Mental toughness is found everywhere in the world of sports, and for good reason. Scores on mental toughness measures predict performance in Australian football, cricket, gymnastics, soccer, and tennis. Beyond this, mental toughness also predicts performance in non-athletic contexts. Our data show that mental toughness is not outside the scope of personality. In fact, using standard personality assessments, we can accurately reproduce one’s score on a mental toughness measure.

*This post was authored by Georgi P. Yankov of Development Dimensions International and Ryne Sherman.

*This post was authored by Ryne Sherman and Brandon Ferrell.

A recently published study suggests that some of the most common personality assessments (i.e., one’s based on the Big 5) don’t work in other countries. The study was published in a prestigious journal (Science Advances, impact factor > 12), and it has already gained prominent media attention. One outlet said that these personality tests don’t hold up around the world. NPR said that personality tests don’t reveal the real you. Reading these articles might make you conclude that personality assessments just can’t be used in other countries. Fortunately, despite what the economists who contributed to the article and the journalists who are covering it might have you believe, such a conclusion is just wrong. In what follows, we show you why.

Comparing Assessments Across Borders and Languages

If you had a rod that measures 1 meter in Australia, but 2 meters in Kenya, you have a big problem. Clearly, the term “1 meter” doesn’t mean the same thing in different locations or different languages. As a principle of measurement, you want to be sure that whatever you are measuring in one location (or one language) is the same thing that you are measuring in another. In terms of personality assessment, comparing countries (or languages) absolutely requires that the assessments are used in the same fashion across countries and languages. Psychologists use a metric called the congruence coefficient to determine the degree to which instruments are measuring the same thing. Scores on the metric can range from -1.00 to +1.00, with higher scores indicating greater similarity. The accepted standard for declaring the instruments as similar is a congruence coefficient > .84. The recently published study found average congruence coefficients of .73 and .71 in survey data gathered in so-called non-WEIRD countries (e.g., Kenya, Philippines, Colombia, etc.).

Hogan Data

At Hogan, we conduct more than 1 million personality assessments per year with data coming from more than 100 countries, in 47 languages, all around the world. Our assessments are completed by working adults who are either applying for jobs, or as part of their current job’s developmental curriculum. Our flagship measure of personality, the Hogan Personality Inventory, measures 7 personality characteristics that are closely related to the Big 5. In examining our archive, we identified 52 countries with sufficient HPI data to conduct the exact same analysis conducted by the economists. Here is what we find across the 52 countries:

Table 1. Average Congruence Coefficient for 52 Countries on the HPI.

Every single country exceeds the .84 threshold for similarity. The lowest congruence coefficient we found was for Peru (.90). As a direct comparison with the recently published work, we find much higher congruence coefficients for Kenya (.96 vs. .71), Colombia (.91 vs. .72), Philippines (.96 vs. .72), and Serbia (.97 vs. .79). These results are in stark contrast to the conclusions drawn by popular media: high quality personality assessments work – and measures exactly what we think it is measuring – in other countries and languages all around the globe. 

We Aren’t the Only Ones

In 2002, a book chapter by Rolland reported average congruence coefficients of .92 with French and .93 with U.S. English across 15 different countries (including non-WEIRD countries: Malaysia, Korean, Philippines, & China). The most comprehensive published research of this question to date found an average congruence coefficient of .93 across 50 different countries (including Turkey, Serbia, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Kuwait, Philippines, Russia, China, India, Malaysia, Botswana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Uganda, & Morocco; which collectively averaged .91). Another paper by De Fruyt and colleagues extended this analysis to adolescents, reporting an average congruence coefficient of .92 across 24 different countries (including Malaysia, Serbia, South Korea, Japan Iran, Thailand, Hong Kong, Turkey, China, and Uganda; which collectively averaged .90).

The point here is this: the largest, most comprehensive studies and databases speaking to the universality of personality factor structures have all come to the conclusions that these personality dimensions are universal. So why did this recent study come to the opposite conclusion?

So…What’s Wrong with that Study?

Research published in academic journals typically must go through a rigorous (and at times, somewhat arbitrary) review process. This involves subjecting the research to review by external experts in the field who scrutinize the work for potential errors and mistakes. Despite this process, it is sometimes the case that flawed work, or flawed conclusions, slip through the cracks. Such is the case with the article in question here. There are two critical problems.

First, the analyses and conclusions of this paper rest on data gathered using a 15-item measure of personality. The 15 items are a subset of items from a medium-length (but well-validated) 44-item measure of personality, known as the Big Five Inventory. It is not clear how these 15 items were chosen (as part of a larger survey), or their psychometric properties. However, it is clear that short measures of personality frequently show poor results. By comparison, studies demonstrating the universality of personality structures (including our own data) used longer, and undeniably far superior, measures of personality. Thus, the results of this study could be adequately summarized as garbage in, garbage out.

Second, the study in question regularly notes that many of the people surveyed had trouble understanding the questions they were being asked, in some cases it was not clear that the participants were even literate. It should come as no surprise that if people cannot read, or understand, the items on a personality assessment that their responses to the questions are necessarily nonsense. If responses to a personality assessment are effectively random, it is certain that there will be no congruence. Further, if even only a sizable proportion of the respondents cannot read the questionnaire but respond anyway, this will necessarily drive congruence coefficients down, perhaps even below the threshold for similarity. By comparison purposes, the participants in all of the studies demonstrating the universality of personality structures were educated well-enough to read and understand the questionnaires. Put another way, the results of this study demonstrate that if people cannot read your test, they will not respond in logically coherent ways.

Summary

In summary, the sky is not falling for personality assessment. The evidence, to date, overwhelmingly demonstrates that the Big 5 personality structure is universal. When high-quality measures of personality are used, and the respondents can read and understand the questions, the structure of personality looks incredibly similar across culture and language. It is far more likely that this study’s failure to replicate this structural similarity is due to poor data quality rather than the outlandish notion that personality structures are different in non-WEIRD cultures.

People are the deadliest invasive species in the history of the earth. People have the potential to kill every living thing and, in certain instances have already done so (e.g., passenger pigeon, western black rhinoceros, great auk) or are on their way to doing so (e.g., sea turtle, elephant, tiger, polar bear). Given their frightful potential and worldwide presence, it would be useful to know something about people. Personality psychology is the “go-to” discipline for understanding people; personality psychology is the only discipline whose primary focus is the nature of human nature. What does personality psychology tell us about human nature? The answer depends on whom you ask, or more precisely, to which personality theory you subscribe.

Keep reading to learn more about the history of personality theory, different theoretical approaches, and the role of personality in organizational and leadership performance.

History of Personality Theory

Modern personality psychology began in Vienna at the end of the 19th century, where an amazing flowering of human creativity brought revolutions in a wide variety of fields including architecture, music, physics, medicine, music, painting, literature, economics, and especially philosophy. Personality theory started as a psychodynamic version of psychiatry—mental illness was hypothesized to be a function of intrapsychic dynamics and the physical symptoms were secondary. The pioneers of this new way to conceptualize psychic troubles included Pierre Janet (who was French), Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Otto Rank, Erik Erikson, and others. Personality theory was a vibrant intellectual activity for 70 years but by the early 1970s, some prominent personality psychologists began to argue that personality theory was pointless, that only data mattered. In retrospect, Walter Mischel’s (1968) critique of personality psychology was more a symptom of the decline of personality theory than a cause—it reflected a changing culture rather than creating one.

The collapse of interest in personality theory created a hole in our ability to understand human affairs. This is because personality theory is unavoidable: everything we do depends on our assumptions about human nature. Even social psychology depends on (often untenable and unspecified) assumptions about human nature. We need to make these assumptions explicit for two reasons: (1) ideas have consequences—they drive everything we do; and (2) knowledge proceeds more efficiently from error than from confusion—bad ideas can be corrected, but unspecified assumptions lead to futility.

Types of Personality Theory

There are three major theories of personality, with subtypes within each. The first is the many versions of psychodynamic theory associated with clinical psychology. The second personality theory is trait theory, which concerns cataloguing dimension of individual differences. The third is interpersonal theory which largely concerns career coaching and development—i.e., applications to everyday life. In the following paragraphs, we briefly describe the history of each personality theory, identify its core assumptions, and evaluate the consequences of these assumptions.

Psychodynamic Theory

Psychodynamic theory dominated personality psychology for 70 years and contains many valid insights. For example, early experience shapes later personality, much social behavior is unconsciously motivated, people are inherently irrational, and psychology can be used for human betterment. The three major assumptions of psychodynamic theory are: (1) everyone is somewhat neurotic; (2) the goal of life is to overcome one’s neurosis; and (3) the goal of personality assessment is to identify the sources of one’s neurosis. The problem with psychodynamic theory is the first assumption; everyone is not neurotic. Although most people have issues that bother them from time to time, to be neurotic is to be dysfunctional on a continuing basis and that is obviously not true for most people. In addition, as positive psychology points out, the absence of neurosis does not guarantee happiness or success. Lastly, diagnosing psychopathology is not the primary goal of personality assessment. Despite its compelling subject matter, psychodynamic theory pointed personality psychology in the wrong direction for 70 years. Positive psychology (Seligman, 2002) is a superficial, but natural, reaction to the excesses of psychodynamic theory.

Trait Theory

Trait theory began in the 1930s as an academic exercise in classification and is largely defined by the writings of Gordon Allport (1937), Raymond Cattell (1943), Hans Eysenck (1947), and their students. The goal of trait theory is to classify the structure of personality; the units of analysis are “traits,” defined as (a) recurring behavioral tendencies; and (b) neuropsychic structures. The behavioral tendencies can be observed; the neuropsychic structures are inferred and believed to correspond to the behavioral tendencies. Trait theory makes three major assumptions: (1) everyone has traits; (2) the goal of life is to discover one’s traits; and (3) the goal of personality assessment is to measure traits. Despite the immense popularity of trait theory in modern psychology, it has limited utility as a personality theory for several reasons; here we will mention three. First, trait theory describes behavior in terms of traits, and then explains behavior in terms of traits (e.g., Mike Tyson is aggressive because he has a trait for aggressiveness); this is a tautology—as Walter Mischel (1968) pointed out long ago. Second, the search for the neuropsychic structures that explain the consistencies in behavior is a worthy project, but it is a project for neuro-scientists, not personality psychologists (it is also a project that has, thus far, yielded less than spectacular results). And third, the accepted taxonomy of traits, the Five-factor model (Wiggins, 1996), is based on ratings of school children in Hawaii (Digman, 1963) and Air Force enlisted men in Texas (Tupes & Crystal, 1961). Trait theory has in fact produced an common language for describing the reputation of others and identified a replicable structure underlying the trait terms. Nonetheless, it is not clear that the Five-Factor Model is (a) the most useful model for describing or predicting human behavior. In fact, there is compelling evidence showing that lower-order trait variables predict important outcomes better than the higher-order variables of the Five Factor Model (Brown & Sherman, 2014; Luminent, Bagby, Wagner, Taylor, & Parker, 1999; Paunonen & Ashton, 2001; Watson, 2001).

Interpersonal Theory

Interpersonal theory is based on the writings of William McDougall (1908), George Herbert Mead (1934), Henry Stack Sullivan (1953), George Kelly (1955), Timothy Leary (1957), and Jerry Wiggins (1996). The goal of interpersonal theory is to understand how people interact with others and how those interactions influence subsequent interactions. Interpersonal theory makes three major assumptions: (1) almost everything consequential in life occurs during social interaction, or as part of preparation for future social interaction, (2) the goal of life is to find and retain a productive place in one’s social network, and (3) the goal of personality assessment is to describe and predict how people will behave in social interactions. Interpersonal theory differs from trait and psychodynamic theory in three important ways. First, trait and psychodynamic theory assume that the way we think about ourselves drives our social interaction whereas interpersonal theory assumes that our social interaction drives how we think about ourselves (others teach us how to think about ourselves). Second, trait and psychodynamic theory define maturity as self-understanding whereas interpersonal theory defines maturity as the ability to interact productively with others (i.e., as social skill). Third, trait and psychodynamic theory ignore reputation, whereas interpersonal theory assumes that establishing and maintaining one’s reputation is crucial for a productive life.

Socioanalytic Theory

Our perspective on personality theory, socioanalytic theory, integrates interpersonal theory with evolutionary psychology. Socioanalytic theory makes three major assumptions: (1) People always live in groups, and every group has a status hierarchy and a religion; (2) the goals of life concern getting along, getting ahead, and finding meaning; and (3) the goal of assessment is to predict individual differences in the ability to get along, get ahead, and find meaning. There are huge individual differences in peoples’ ability to get along, get ahead, and find meaning and there are huge payoffs in terms of fitness for being able to do so.

Evolutionary Theory

Evolutionary theory tells us that life is about competition. There is competition at the individual level (within groups) for status, power, and social acceptance; this competition is driven by sexual selection (Ridley, 1991). Then there is competition between groups for territory, market share, political dominance, and ultimately survival. Warfare drives human evolution at the group level (Turchin, 2006).

There are major individual differences in the ability of individuals to compete for status, and there are major differences in the abilities of groups to compete for survival (e.g., the Rohingya). Although psychologists focus almost exclusively on within-group competition, between group competition is more consequential. What is good for the individual may or may not be good for the group. Free riders—rent seekers who enjoy the benefits of group living without contributing to its maintenance and functioning—represent one such example (Cornes, 1986). On the other hand, what is good for the group is usually good for the members. Success at within-group competition is a function of social skill, which includes the ability to get along with others (to avoid expulsion from the group) and to get ahead (to maximize one’s resources). Success in between-group competition is a function of leadership.

Socioanalytic theory concerns predicting and explaining effectiveness of both individuals and groups.

Individual Effectiveness

Within-group competition takes place during social interaction—interaction is where the action is. In order to interact, people need an agenda for the interaction and they need roles to play. Overt agendas vary across interactions, but the covert agenda for most interactions concern negotiations for belonging and status. Three components of personality shape interactions: identity, reputation, and social skill. Our identities are the generic roles we take with us to each interaction; they determine the roles we play and how we play them. After every interaction there is an accounting process and people gain or lose a little bit of status; our reputations reflect the outcome of this accounting process. Reputations are inherently evaluative and indicate how well we are doing in the process of within-group competition. Social skill is what translates identity into reputation. Dysfunctional people choose maladaptive identities, create bad reputations for themselves, and lack the social skill needed to change the cycle. Competent people use their social skill to create reputations that match their identities and maximize their social and economic wellbeing.

Personality research has traditionally focused on studying the self and identity, but that search has not been productive. After 100 years, we still have no taxonomy of identities, no agreed upon methodology for measuring identity, and no useful generalizations about identity to report. Identity concerns the “you” that you know, and Freud would say (correctly) that the “you” that you know is hardly worth knowing—because you made it up. Your identity is the story you tell yourself about yourself, it is largely imagined and only loosely tied to reality.

In contrast, socioanalytic theory focuses on reputation—reputation is the “you” that others know. Reputation is easy to study by means of observer ratings. The Five-Factor Model of personality (Wiggins, 1976) is a robust taxonomy of reputation and, over the past 20 years, we have accumulated an abundance of findings regarding personality and many important life outcomes: marital satisfaction, health status, academic performance, substance abuse, driving records, income, social class, etc. (Roberts, et al., 2007; Ozer & Benet-Martinez, 2006). The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, reputation is the summary of peoples’ past behavior, therefore reputation is the best data source we have regarding peoples’ future behavior. In our view, assessment should focus on reputation and not identity.

Let us clarify a key point here: although reputation (i.e., how others evaluate you) is the best predictor of future behavior, this does not mean that self-report assessments are useless. In our view, self-reports contain both identity claims (i.e., views of yourself that might not be true) and reputational information (certain identity claims are reliably associated with reputational outcomes). The reputational information is important, and the identity claims often muddy the water. Moreover, self-reports that are empirically tied to reputation (i.e., people with high scores on scale X are described by others as Y) are enormously useful. For example, the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI: Hogan & Hogan, 2007) includes a scale called “Learning Approach.” People with high scores on this scale are described by others as smart, up-to-date and well-informed. Our emphasis on reputation does not imply that self-report tools are useless.

Nonetheless, we understand that identity research will not go away because people enjoy navel gazing and find discussions of identity fascinating. Although the academic study of identity has not been productive, there are three points about identity that are worth noting. First, Erikson (1963) argued that maturity depends on achieving a stable sense of identity. He defined identity in interpersonal terms—when behaving in ways that are most comfortable to yourself, you are most valuable to those people whom you most value—and we agree with him. Second, the Identity scale on Holland’s (1973) Self-Directed Search is the most valid scale on the inventory, based on external correlates. Third, the Identity HIC on the Hogan Personality Inventory is a highly valid component of the HPI based on external correlates. When identity is defined as having a sense of where your life is headed and what that means to others—not who you are but what you are trying to do—it is a meaningful and consequential concept.

Before ending this discussion of competition at the individual level, we should note how psychodynamic theory and trait theory define self-awareness and how we define self-awareness. Freud and Allport thought introspection and self-analysis leads to self-awareness, whereas we think performance analysis leads to self-awareness. The distinction is the same as that between Freud’s and Socrates’ definitions of self-awareness. The ancient Greeks valued self-knowledge: the inscription over the tomb of the Cumaean Sybill was “Know Thyself.” But for the Greeks, self-knowledge concerns understanding one’s performance capabilities and limitations. This is how we define self-awareness. We use personality assessment to create “strategic self- awareness” and enhance peoples’ ability to get along and get ahead.

Group Effectiveness

Chimpanzee troops engage in genocide, ancient humans engaged in genocide, Native Americans practiced genocide—human history is a record of constant warfare. The Old Testament of the Bible is full of suggestions of the following variety: “When you capture a city, put to the sword all the men in it…utterly destroy them…save alive nothing that breatheth…As for the women and children, you may take them as plunder for yourselves” (Deuteronomy 2:10- 20). In the history of our species, if your tribe was overrun by another tribe, your opportunities for reproductive success ended abruptly. This is the reason we believe between-group competition trumps within-group competition. Success at within-group competition means nothing if you lose the between-group competition.

It seems clear that the success of armies, athletic teams, business enterprises, universities, religious organizations—any collective activity—depends on the leadership of that collectivity. But from WWII until the early 1980s, academic psychology thought individual differences in the talent for leadership was a myth, that leadership was situational, and if you were successful in a leadership role, you were just lucky. As of today, there is still no consensus regarding the characteristics of competent leaders. In our view, the academic study of leadership suffers from five major problems: (1) the wrong definition of leadership; (2) no attention to the consequences of leadership; (3) no attention to the subordinates’ view of leadership; (4) no attention to derailment; and (5) no attention to personality. Progress is being made, but these issues remain salient. We now take them up in turn.

Defining Leadership

Most research defines leadership in terms of the people at the top of organizations. But who gets to the top of large, hierarchical, bureaucratic, male-dominated organizations? People with good political skills who win the within-group competition for status. A meta-analysis of leader personality (i.e., the personality of people in leadership roles) indicates that leaders tend to score low on Neuroticism and high on Extraversion, Openness, and Conscientiousness (Judge, Bono, Ilies, & Gerhardt, 2002). Clearly these individuals have talent for acquiring status. But, do they have any talent for leading their groups to success?

An alternative view of leadership, and one that we prefer, is to define leadership from the perspective of group effectiveness. For the most part, people are biologically wired to behave selfishly (Dawkins, 1976). However, people are also capable of altruism when altruism (a) serves their long-term self-interest or (b) promotes the interests of those sharing their genetic material (Fletcher & Doebeli, 2008; Hamilton, 1964a, b; Nowak, Tarnita, & Wilson, 2010; Trivers, 1971). Further, the history of human warfare and modern team sports indicates that cohesive and coordinated groups outperform disorganized groups. Thus, in our view, the primary goal of leadership is to persuade people to temporarily set aside their selfish desires for the good of the group. In this view, leadership should be evaluated on the basis of the group’s performance, not on the basis of one’s ability to gain leadership positions. Politicians are skilled at gaining leadership positions; effective leaders are skilled at building and maintaining high-performing teams.

When it comes to competition between groups, leadership plays a critical role (Hanson, 2001; Hogan & Kaiser, 2005; Kaiser, Hogan, & Craig, 2008). Obvious examples include:

• The recent and sustained success of the New England Patriots football team compared to the recent and sustained failure of the Cleveland Browns football team
• The success of the Union Army over the Army of Northern Virginia in the US civil war
• The sustained success of Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum company compared to the colossal failure of Enron

There are many such lists of competing organizations outperforming one another. Researchers are finally beginning to understand that the leadership of an organization has consequences for the members of the organizations. For example, economists (who are interested in the financial consequences of personality) estimate that CEOs account for between 17% to 30% of the variance in firm financial performance (Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Hambrick & Quigley, 2014; Mackey, 2008; Quigley & Graffin, 2016; Quigley & Hambrick, 2014). CEO personality is more important for firm performance than any other factor except the industry sector in which the firm competes.

If leadership is about building teams, then it is important to know how the teams react to the leadership to which they are exposed. The team members are the consumers of leadership and will react accordingly. Employee engagement can be easily assessed using survey methodology. Over the past 20 years, overwhelming evidence shows that employee engagement predicts every significant organizational outcome, positive or negative, including absenteeism, turnover, productivity, quality, and customer service ratings. The lower the engagement levels, the worse the outcomes, the higher the engagement levels the better the outcomes (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002). But most importantly for this discussion, the personalities of the managers create the engagement levels of their staff. And, on average, what do those personalities look like? The news is not encouraging.

Incompetent Leadership

Consider the following from various lines of survey research. A recent survey of the UK public indicated that 22% of people hate their boss, 52% of people name their boss as their main cause of dissatisfaction, 20% would forgo a pay raise if someone would fire their boss, and an astonishing 12% of respondents admit to having imagined killing their boss (Whitfield, 2018). In a similar US survey, 65% of Americans say they would prefer getting rid of their boss to receiving a pay raise (Casserly, 2012). On this basis, we estimate that 65% to 75% of managers in the U. S. economy, public and private sector, are incompetent and alienate their subordinates.

In an important piece of unpublished research, V. Jon Bentz, Vice President for Human Resources at Sears during the 1970s, hired hundreds of new managers using an assessment center (Bentz, 1985). All newly hired managers were bright and personally attractive. Bentz was a meticulous record keeper; he found that 65% of these new managers failed (the number is important). He found that the reasons for their failure nicely fit into 11 categories which, upon closer examination, nicely paralleled the DSM III, axis 2 personality disorders. Thus, managerial failure seems unrelated to intellectual competence (e.g., IQ), and directly related to interpersonal competence. Personality is the core of interpersonal incompetence and thus the core of managerial failure.

Effective Leadership

There is little agreement in the academic research regarding effective leadership (i.e., the characteristics of people who can build and maintain high performing teams), though three lines of research converge to define effective leadership: (1) Implicit leadership theory (Kouzes and Posner, 2008); (2) Research on emergent vs. effective managers (Luthans, Hodgetts, & Rosenkrantz, 1988); and (3) Research on organizational effectiveness (Collins, 2001).

Implicit leadership theory. Implicit leadership theory is based on the assumption that, because leadership has been such an important factor in human history, people have a rough intuitive sense of the characteristics of good leaders. Kouzes and Posner devised a simple but effective way to summarize those intuitions: ask people to describe the best and the worst bosses they ever knew. The results, aggregated over millions of responses, suggest that people believe good leaders share four characteristics. First, effective leaders have integrity—they keep their word, they do not play favorites, they do not self-deal, and they live up to their obligations. Because lying, along with money, is the mother’s milk of politics, many politicians quickly lose their credibility as leaders. Second, team captains are usually the best players on the teams, professional sports coaches are usually former athletes, etc. Consequently, effective leaders need to have real expertise in whatever business a team’s major focus might be. Newly minted officers in the military have credibility issues because they lack deep knowledge of operations at the daily level, and experienced enlisted personnel tend not to take them seriously as a result.

Subordinates are more likely to have faith in leaders who know something about the business that they are leading. Third, the fate of any organization depends on the outcomes of all the decisions that are made on a daily basis. Good leaders need to be able to make sound, defensible decisions quickly and on the basis of limited information. Making good decisions also involves changing bad decisions when it becomes apparent that they are wrong—good leaders can admit their mistakes. Finally, good leaders project a vision and create persuasive stories about why what the team or group is doing is important. In summary, implicit leadership theory offers a great deal of evidence to indicate that effective leaders are perceived as having integrity, competence, good judgment, and vision.

Emergent versus Effective Leaders. Luthans and his colleagues (1988) gathered comprehensive data on 457 managers from several organizations over a four-year period. At the end of the study, they collected performance data on the managers. They found two groups of high performers: (1) those who advanced rapidly in the organization; and (2) those whose teams performed well. There was a 10% overlap in the groups (r = .30). The important finding concerned how the two groups spent their time. The people who advanced rapidly spent their time networking. The people whose teams performed well spent their time working with their teams. These two types of managers map directly on to the concepts of leadership emergence and effectiveness previously discussed. Emergent managers are regularly identified as high potential employees, while effective managers are overlooked because they do not stand out and play organizational politics. It is the is process of promoting emergent managers, and overlooking effective managers, that creates the high rate of managerial failure in corporate affairs.

Organizational Effectiveness. Collins and his colleagues (2001) studied the Fortune 1000 companies to identify companies with 15 years of mediocre financial performance and then 15 years of superior performance. He found 11 companies that fit this profile. For comparison purposes, he also identified 11 companies, in the same industry, who showed only mediocre performance across the same time period. Analyses revealed that the cause of the turnarounds was the arrival of new CEOs. But the crucial finding is not that CEOs matter, but rather what kind of CEO matters. And the answer is the CEO personality is what mattered. In particular, the 11 successful CEOs were: (1) fiercely competitive and hard-working; and (2) humble, modest, and understated. That is, this group of high-performing CEOs were, in Luthan’s (1988) terms, effective not emergent. Thus, the available evidence indicates that effective leaders are (a) trustworthy, (b) competent, (c) have good judgment, (d) project an appealing vision, and (e) blend fierce ambition with personal humility. Thus, leadership effectiveness is a function of personality.

Last Thoughts on Personality Psychology

Personality psychology began as an applied activity (Stagner, 1937) and at its best it remains an applied activity directed at solving real problems for real people. The key problems for personality research concern predicting and explaining the outcomes of within and between group competition. Career success (the result of within-group competition) and organizational effectiveness (the result of between-group competition) are the most crucial issues in life. How can personality psychology help people have more successful careers? Mostly by creating strategic self-awareness and eliminating self-defeating behavior. How can personality psychology help organizations become more effective? Mostly by helping them hire effective leaders.

Want to learn more about personality tests? Check out The Ultimate Guide to Personality Tests

*This article was written by Dr. Robert Hogan and Dr. Ryne Sherman for a special issue of Personality and Individual Differences.

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Each year, accidents and work-related illnesses cost billions of euros in needless business expenses. In 2017, Europe lost more than €476 billion – an amazing 3.3 % of the European Union GDP. That figure can be reduced with better occupational safety and health strategies, policies, and practices.  

The easiest way for companies to reduce these costs is to assess and predict potential candidates’ likely workplace safety behavior during the recruitment process. In traditional job interviews, candidates present the best versions of themselves, and this may not accurately portray their day-to-day behavior. In safety conscious industries—e.g., oil and gas, construction and medicine—being able to evaluate and predict a candidate’s safety behavior is crucial.

At Hogan we have been developing selection solutions for companies worldwide since the early 1970s. We provide different assessments for different business needs; organizations wanting to recruit safety-minded staff will benefit hugely from the company’s Safety Assessment. The associated Safety Report evaluates candidates’ suitability for employment in safety-critical work environments.

The Hogan Safety Assessment aims to improve workers’ safety awareness and behavior by scoring applicants on six components of safety-related behavior. Safety conscious individuals are compliant, resilient, cheerful, vigilant, cautious, and trainable. Individuals who are safety risks are defiant, panicky, irritable, distractible, reckless, and arrogant. The Safety score predicts the likelihood that an applicant will engage in certain behaviors that tend to make accidents more likely.

Hogan has assessed more than 40,000 people across Europe specifically with a focus on safety-related behaviors, leading to the following outcomes:

• € 64,260,000.52 – Approximate workplace injury and accident costs to employers saved
• € 1,605.50 – Approximate amount per report saved by employers
• 5,255% – Approximate ROI for European employers
• 1,728 – Approximate number of production days saved

These results show that the Safety Assessment prevents unnecessary accidents when companies recruit safety-minded employees. It also improves training and creates awareness around safety issues when employees understand how their behavior impacts workplace safety and how they are accountable. This builds a safer, more engaged culture which prevents accidents, saves time, and improves overall employee satisfaction on the job.

Dr Robert Hogan said: “Without the proper workplace safety culture, a company puts its employees and revenues in danger. The Hogan reports allow organizations to identify safety-minded candidates and recognize and repair safety-related gaps in the company culture. As a result, the assessment saves clients time and unnecessary costs while making the workplace a safer environment for everyone.”

On February 13^th, the Nevada assembly heard a proposal for a new bill, Nevada AB132. The bill itself is only 2.5 pages long and is pretty easy to read, but effectively has two parts:

1. Making it unlawful to deny employment on the basis of a marijuana screening test
2. Making it unlawful to condition employment on the completion, or results, of a personality test

The first part of the bill concerning pre-hiring marijuana testing has received a fair amount of local news coverage, and is outside of my areas of expertise. However, I will say it does seem odd that one can be excluded from a job for testing positive for a drug that is recreationally legal in the state. If an alcohol test could determine if you drank alcohol at any time over the past, say 30 days, should people of legal age to consume alcohol be excluded from jobs on the basis of that test result?

The second part has received far less attention, but is nonetheless disturbing. The key part of the bill reads:

In other words, this is a ban on using personality assessments for the purposes of employee selection.

What does this have to do with marijuana screenings you may ask? At face value, very little. However, one of the bill’s sponsors, Assemblyperson Dina Neal, provided some insight in a recent interview:

Neal said she had a constituent who applied for a retail association position to stock shelves and was subjected to a 50-question character assessment, which prompted her to add the provision to the bill.

Neal said she is willing to work to address concerns. “I’m open to finding a solution,” she added. “The solution needs to lead to people finding a way to get a job, not the opposite.”

Clearly, the intention of this bill is to remove barriers for employment. I fully support the intention of the bill. However, if this bill is passed Nevada will suffer a number of unintended consequences. To understand why, consider the following two points:

1. All employers must make employment decisions. These decisions can be based on many things: a coin flip, a dream, a lie detector test, an interview, a behavioral test, resumes, references, a personality assessment, etc. Obviously, some of these methods are more valid at predicting job performance than others (e.g., a coin flip is random, a lie detector has no validity). The validity evidence for personality assessments is overwhelming and undeniable. A meta-analysis by Barrick and Mount (1991) showed this definitively nearly 30 years ago. Since then, the validity evidence for personality has only grown more massive and more convincing (e.g., personality and workplace safety; an update of Barrick and Mount). Our own data show that when personality assessments are properly aligned with job performance criteria, personality predicts job performance as well as any cognitive ability assessment (curiously, cognitive ability assessments were not mentioned in the bill at all) and better than interviews. The evidence is quite clear: if one is making an employment decision, well-validated personality assessments based on scientific principles provide useful predictive insights into the candidates potential job performance.
2. Personality assessment for the purposes of employment selection largely came as a response to the Civil Rights Act and the creation of the EEOC. Virtually all personality assessments do not discriminate on the basis of sex, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or age. The same is not true of interviews, resumes, or reference requirements. Additionally, while scholars debate about whether or not cognitive ability tests are discriminatory or not, it is factually true that scores on cognitive ability test do tend to show adverse impact. In this regard, well-validated personality assessments offer both a high degree of predictive validity and virtually zero discrimination. Simply put, if all hiring decisions were based on personality assessments alone, employment discrimination on the basis of gender, race, etc. would cease to exist.

In summary, personality assessments provide employers with an unbiased evaluation of a candidates work potential and job fit. When used properly, such assessments give historically discriminated against groups (e.g., women, minorities, elderly, etc.) a fair playing field in the application process. This bill would eliminate that and, presumably, leave employers with only interviews and cognitive ability tests as their main resources. The former is well-known to be biased (especially against such groups) and the latter shows marked group differences.

The Nevada Assembly person sponsoring this bill clearly have the best of intentions in mind. However, they do not fully understand the consequences this bill – if passed – will cause for groups who have historically been the targets of discriminatory hiring practices. In this regard, AB132 reflects a failure to educate our lawmakers about the value of personality tests in terms of validity and fairness.

Want to learn more about personality tests? Check out The Ultimate Guide to Personality Tests