We now know that personality predicts leadership style, and that leadership style predicts ratings of leader effectiveness. There are also some data showing that leadership style predicts business unit performance. So there is a kind of causal arrow going from personality through leadership style to the performance of the business unit of which a manager is in charge. Thus, we can use personality to predict business unit performance.That is an important finding in itself, but it also raises a question about the links. That is, how do leaders affect organizational outcomes? Our Leadership Value Chain suggests an answer.
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Personality: Theories and Applications Now Available for Purchase
HoganPress is pleased to announce the second-edition release of Personality: Theories and Applications, by Robert Hogan and Robert Smither. From the back cover:
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John Holland
What is the Most Significant Change Coming for the HR Profession?
The following is a column by Dr. Robert Hogan, that recently appeared in the "2009 Forecast" edition of Human Resources Executive. Dr. Hogan was asked to comment on what he sees as the most significant change affecting the HR community in the future.
By now, everyone is aware of the coming demographic tsunami which will be defined by the retirement of the baby boomer generation. On the one hand, this means that a lot of talent and institutional memory will walk out the doors. On the other hand, the replacement pool—composed of the young, the inexperienced, and the untried—will grow steadily smaller. The generic answer to dealing with this looming problem is called talent retention, and a number of talent retention models are available for commercial consumption.
Talent retention can be broken down into two generic strategies. The first concerns how to retain older workers past their normal retirement date. The second strategy concerns how to attract and retain talented replacements for the retirees. Standard talent retention solutions involve special training, on boarding, compensation, and career pathing packages, all of which are sensible structural solutions. However, what is missing from most talent retention packages is a careful consideration of the human factor. The critical insight comes from the Gallup research, which shows quite clearly that people don’t quit organizations, they quit their immediate bosses. Unless and until talent retention programs take this crucial generalization into account, they will not be effective tools in the coming war for talent.
Research data gathered over the past three decades clearly indicate three conclusions.
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George Bernard Shaw and the Concept of Faking It
Dr. Hogan Interviewed on The Doug Noll Show
Doug Noll interviewed Robert Hogan about the dark side of leadership on Thursday, October 16. Links to the audio segments appear below.
Excerpted from the Doug Noll Show's website:
Defective and dark leadership is the single most pressing problem facing humanity. In Corporate America, over 65 percent of the managers and leaders are incompetent, defective, or badly flawed. A higher percentage exists in government. The costs are staggering and one only has to look at the financial market melt down of the past months to understand the enormity of the problem.
Doug and Robert begin by understanding leadership through the lens of evolutionary psychology. Leadership evolved in humans as a way to come together for a short time to accomplish a common goal. Thus, humans became hard wired genetically to form social, hierarchal groups with leaders in charge. The most effective leaders were humble, supported the group and its goals, and was not self-aggrandizing. With the development of agriculture about 12,000 years ago, Robert describes the rise of the kleptocracy, which persists today. This is a class of leaders that rose to high status through power grabs, political maneuvering, technical competence, and raw luck. Once high leadership status was achieved, this class ahd no difficulty stealing from the groups it was leading. Leadership, as Robert sees it, is the ability to build and maintain a high performing team. Over time, this team will compete well against other like-minded teams.
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Personality and Financial Management
The Shoe Fits
In this cover story from Canadian publication Advisor's Edge, Dr. Robert Hogan discusses the validity of personality assessment in the selection process, as well as his pioneering role in the history of personality testing.
Dr. Robert Hogan, an international authority on personality assessment, recalls facing stiff resistance from academics and lawyers when he and his wife pioneered personality testing in the United States in the early ’70s. “The furor was like Galileo saying the earth revolves around the sun. It was a big career risk.”
Read the full text of the article by downloading the PDF here.