PERSONALITY AND THE FATE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Author: Robert Hogan, Ph.D. 
Description: Personality and the Fate of Organizations by Robert Hogan links personality characteristics to people’s behavior, including their successes and failures in the workplace.
The 167-page book offers a systematic account of the nature of personality, showing how to use personality to understand organizations, to staff teams, and to evaluate, select, deselect and train people. It was published in June 2006 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

“Leadership and managerial performance are a direct function of a person’s personality, and, in turn, they directly influence the effectiveness of organizations,” says Hogan, whose firm uses his personality assessment tests to help companies select employees and develop leaders.

Hogan, who holds a doctorate in psychology from the University of California at Berkeley, notes that his book strives to be non-technical and should interest anyone who is curious about people, careers and organizational politics. But while his work could be seen as a self-help book, Hogan says his goal is not to enhance individual self-understanding. “My goal is to increase the reader’s ability to understand other people: how they are alike, how they are different, and why they do what they do,” he says. “The reader should then be able to pursue his or her personal social and organizational goals more efficiently.”

The personality tests Hogan has developed include the Hogan Personality Inventory, which predicts how individuals will perform in a job on a day-to-day basis, and the Hogan Development Survey, which assesses 11 patterns of behavior that can derail a manager’s career.

To read the three-page preface, click here, and to view the book’s front and back cover, click here

To order a book, click here to visit the publisher's web site.