1. The Bright Side and Dark Side of Personality:
How does this affect job performance and how can we manage this?
Richard Brady, C Psychol
Chief Executive Officer
Mentis, UK & Middle East

2. What’s Life About? Freud: Overcoming your neurosis.
Jung: Overcoming your neurosis.
Maslow: Overcoming your neurosis.
Hogan's: Getting along and getting ahead.
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3. Socioanalytic Theory Group Living Animals Needs Get Along Get Ahead
Find Meaning
Hogan & Hogan, 2001; Hogan, 2007

4. Socioanalytic Theory These needs are met through interactions at work
Social contact (get along)
Status and power (get ahead)
Gain purpose for their lives (find meaning)

5. What is Personality? Two Perspectives
Perspective 1: From the Inside
Personality from the inside, or actor’s view, is defined in terms of a person’s identity.
How a person sees him/herself
Defined by hope, dreams and aspirations
Difficult to measure
Difficult to study
Not always reflected in behaviors

6. What is Personality? Two Perspectives
Perspective 2: From the Outside
Personality from the outside, or observer’s view, is a person’s reputation.
Defined in terms of traits (e.g., calm, ambitious, careful, etc.)
Reflects how a person’s behavior has been evaluated after repeated interactions with others
Used to predict a person’s performance
Easy to study -- most of what we know about personality and job performance is based on observer’s perspectives

7. Why Personality Matters
World-wide research of employment issues
General Reasons People Fail
Poor fit with job
Poor fit with organisation
General Reasons Managers Fail
Inability to build and motivate a team
Inability to develop or adapt
Poor working relations
Lack of vision or “big picture”
No strategic execution
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8. HPI
HBRI
HDS
MVPI

9. Hogan inventories concern dimensions that are crucial for getting along and getting ahead:
Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)
concerns strengths that enhance an individual’s career
characterises the person at his/her best
Hogan Development Survey (HDS)
concerns dysfunctional dispositions that can derail a
person’s career
these tendencies appear when people let down their
guard—fatigue, illness, frustration
Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI)
concerns personal drivers and fit with organisational culture

10. Cost of a New Hire Year 1 Costs of a $50,000 Employee Salary $ 50,000
Bonus at 30% $ 15,000
Benefits at 40% $ 20,000
Recruitment / Placement at 25% $ 12,500
Selection Process at 10% $ 5,000
Relocation at 15% $ 7,500
Development / Training at 50% $ 25,000
Total Cost of New Hire $ 135,000
Year 1 Costs run between 1.8 and 2.5 Times Base Salary
It is expensive to make a mistake

11. Personality & leadership

12. Two Views of Leadership
Leadership is either a function of circumstances (Enron)
Or leadership is a function of personality (GE)
We believe leadership is related to personality

13. How to Define and Evaluate Leadership
Leadership should be defined in terms of the ability to build and maintain a high performing team
Leadership should be evaluated in terms of the performance of the team relative to the other teams with which it competes
This is rarely done

14. Implicit Leadership Themes
People want to see four things in their leaders:
Integrity: keep their word, don’t play favorites
Decisiveness: make good decisions quickly
Competence: be good at the business
Vision: explain why it matters

15. Good to Great Themes
Characteristics of CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies with 15 years sustained superior performance:
Amazingly persistent
Humble

16. Competency Models: I
Every well-run organization has a competency model.
Every competency model contains the same four themes:
Intrapersonal skills:
Integrity, emotional stability, self-control
Interpersonal skills:
Able to build and maintain relationships, compassion, empathy, humility
Business skills:
Analyzing data, allocating resources, forecasting budgets
Leadership skills:
Vision, empowering staff, being a good role model

17. Competency Models: II
Any competency model can be translated into an assessment model:
Competency Theme Assessment Dimension
Intrapersonal skills Adjustment, Prudence
Interpersonal skills Interpersonal sensitivity
Business skills Cognitive ability
Leadership skills Ambition, Inquisitive

18. Personality and Leadership
Research shows overwhelmingly that personality (reputation) can be defined in terms of five broad dimensions:
Adjustment – core self-esteem
Ambition – social potency
Interpersonal Sensitivity – social charm
Prudence – conscientiousness and rule-following
Inquisitive – curiosity and vision

19. Dimensions of Managerial Incompetence (HDS)
MOVE AWAY FROM
Excitable: Erratic emotional outbursts
Cautious: Risk averse, won’t make decisions
Skeptical: Mistrustful and vindictive
Reserved: Poor communicator, insensitive to morale issues
Leisurely: Passive-Aggressive meanness
MOVE AGAINST
Arrogant: Narcissistic feelings of entitlement
Mischievous: Careless about commitments
Colorful: Manages by crisis to be center of attention
Imaginative: Bad ideas and decisions
MOVE TOWARDS
Diligent: Over-controlling micro-manager
Dutiful: Too concerned about pleasing superiors

20. Leadership and Business Unit Performance
A recent and definitive meta-analysis (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002) shows five important things:
The personalities of managers directly influence employee satisfaction.
When employee satisfaction is high, positive business outcomes
result.
3. When employee satisfaction is low, negative business outcomes
The link between leadership and unit performance is mediated by staff morale.
People don’t quit organizations, they quit their boss.

21. Executive profiling & job performance

23. Personality & individual contributors

24. Results - 1 HIRE BETTER EMPLOYEES
Fortune 25 Telecommunications Company
8 weeks: Attrition rate decreased from 25.7% to 5.9%
Stable or increased performance trends
14 weeks: Attrition rate decreased from 27% to 14% (nearly 50% lower), with savings over $750,000
Employees selected with assessment earned company $50,000 more per pay period than those not selected by assessments
HIRE BETTER EMPLOYEES

25. Results - 2
HIRE BETTER EMPLOYEES

26. Results - 3
SAFETY CONCERNS
PIPELINE DEVELOPMENT

27. Personality & Teams

30. Thank you
Questions please?