Organisations naturally want their top employees in a high-potential program, but identification processes based on performance aren’t working. You’d think that close to 100% of participants in high-potential programs would be above-average leaders, but no. More than 40% of the participants are actually below-average leaders, with about 12% in the bottom quartile of effectiveness.¹ Imagine what happens when one of these unsuitable leaders advances to the C-suite . . . and then flops. Consider that the CEO alone can influence as much as 55% of a firm’s overall value.² Any degree of executive derailment, or unmanaged behaviour under stress and pressure, can easily cost millions,³ not to mention indirect losses in productivity, engagement, and reputation.

Smart organisations recognise that they need a robust pipeline of talented high-potential employees ready to take leadership roles. But most are relying on performance for high-potential identification when they should be assessing potential. No wonder an estimated half of new leaders fail in a new role.³ The success of your future leadership relies on the critical difference between high potentials who seem leaderlike and those who lead effectively. By evaluating high potentials for the right criteria using the right tools, you can stop promoting the wrong people and start developing the right ones.

The Difference Between Potential and Performance

The core problem with performance as a method for identifying potential is that performance is subjective. Performance reviews are more opinion than fact, interviews merely showcase charisma, and organisational politics operate under the influence of unconscious bias. According to Trish Kellett, executive advisor of strategic initiatives at Hogan, “Too often in identification, affinity bias is given too much weight: ‘I want somebody just like me.’”

Performance and potential are not the same, and conflating them is where organisations go wrong:

• Performance refers to how effective someone seems in their current role and context.
• Potential refers to how ready someone is for an expanded role and broader context based on their objective, measurable personality characteristics and values.

“High-potential programs over focus on current performance for program selection,” said Jackie Sahm, vice president of integrated solutions at Hogan. Performing well in their current role simply doesn’t show how someone will likely behave under new circumstances with new demands. The definition of leadership potential isn’t identical for every level at every organisation. The first thing to determine is potential . . . for what, exactly?

Defining Leadership Potential

The definition of leadership potential depends entirely on the context of the organisation and the role. The potential to take on the next role shouldn’t be linked only to performance in the current role. High-potential employees should also demonstrate future leadership capability according to what the organisation will need. But taking a future focus doesn’t mean that leadership potential is subjective. It’s possible to determine which competencies are most likely to be important for a leader in a given context and assess for those qualities.

Whenever identification is subjective, organisations risk perpetuating unfair talent management systems. Sahm said that using performance reviews to judge who has potential can bias decisions with serious consequences. “The politics of potential is not just about money spent. Who do we give opportunities to lead, and who currently does not get those opportunities?” Sahm asked. “We might ignore someone who could make the world a much, much better place to live and work.”

Personality is the best way to measure potential across organisational levels because it provides fair, accurate, and precise information about how someone is likely to lead. No, personality data can’t forecast every single little decision a leader would make. But personality does predict whether a leader is likely to make decisions using spreadsheets or intuition.

While current performance can be a prerequisite for entry into a high-potential program, candidate identification should remain as objective as possible while keeping specific, contextual organisational needs in mind. “Personality assessment is one of the most bias-free methods we can use to gauge potential during the identification process and to help develop high-potential program participants,” said Sahm.

Emergence Versus Effectiveness

Knowing how to identify high-potential employees also relates to emergent leadership and effective leadership. Successful leaders accomplish their work indirectly, not by their own effort but through their team’s efforts. The Hogan view on leadership is that leaders succeed or fail according to the success or failure of their teams.⁴ The difference between emergence and effectiveness concerns leading teams.

Emergent Leadership

Emergent leadership concerns holding leadership titles, advancing in rank, and seeming leaderlike. Performance-based identification methods, such as supervisor nominations, tend to recognise emergent leaders. These people may appear confident and charismatic. They’re likely interpersonally savvy, great at forming alliances, and excellent self-promoters. However, emergent characteristics alone aren’t enough to succeed at the top.

Effective Leadership

Effective leadership is the ability to build and maintain a team that outperforms the competition. Effective leaders excel at leading people, motivating others to pursue shared goals. High-potential employees overwhelmingly say that their core challenge is leading teams.⁵

On average, managers spend only about 7% of their time managing people.⁶ (An above-average leader likely gives their team more than a mere 34 minutes out of their eight-hour workday.) But the best managers quickly discover that people-focused leadership makes a team successful, according to Erin Lazarus, senior director of business development at Hogan. “To work through others, you have to know what inspires and motivates your people,” Lazarus said. “You have to balance coaching and guidance with giving up control.”

Team orientation is an excellent natural inclination for a high-potential candidate. Scientifically valid personality assessments can measure not only someone’s social and communication styles but also their drive and energy, approach to learning and solving problems, and stress tolerance. Personality data can also help high potentials learn to adapt their behaviour to increase their effectiveness relative to the competition, which Hogan calls strategic self-awareness. This capacity for growth is precisely why potential requires different tools and criteria than performance. This is also why measuring both demands a more nuanced approach.

Measuring Leadership Potential

Measuring leadership potential should be based on context across managerial levels. “Potential will look different going into each role that you’re slating,” Lazarus said.

Organisations should use a competency model to measure leaders from the front line to the boardroom. Entry-level leaders need to demonstrate the basics of managing others. Mid-level and senior leadership should be measured by an organisational framework of success. In addition to having a high-performing team, they’ll need alignment with organisational values and future direction. Executives should be measured by criteria curated to their individual roles. These might also reflect how well a candidate’s strengths and challenges complement those of the other executive team members.

Succession planning throughout the talent management cycle depends on accurate, objective high-potential measurement. “Done right, personality assessment can help challenge organisational leadership’s thinking about who the leaders in their organisation are,” Sahm said.

The Hogan Leadership Framework

At Hogan, we predict potential using objective data about someone’s personality and core values, which reveal how likely they are to perform well in their next role. The Hogan Leadership Framework is the theoretical underpinning of how we view leadership potential. The framework has four domains: (1) Intrapersonal, or managing the self; (2) Interpersonal, or managing relationships; (3) Operational, or working in the business; and (4) Strategic, or working on the business. Every leader takes an individual approach to each of the domains, and context determines if the approach is effective.

Leadership potential is not whether someone leads but how effectively they lead in context. “The Hogan Leadership Framework accepts the fact that leadership takes a different approach in different scenarios,” Sahm observed.

An effective leader needs to be flexible, coachable, and responsive to feedback; there’s a reason that learning agility is a criterion for high-potential identification in more than half of talent companies.³ Sahm drew a connection between coachability and humility: “Leadership requires a willingness to learn and self-correct, a tendency to focus on other people’s needs instead of your own career.”

Arguably, the most important skill for high potentials to develop is managing others. Kellett suggests that high potentials hold a project manager role to experience multiple aspects of the business. Leading a team or project also helps differentiate top performers from those who can work through others.

Engagement and Effectiveness

“For high potentials, the ability to lead a team is going to be more important than ever,” Kellett said. Why? Managing others well has a direct effect on engagement, and engagement has a direct effect on practically every organisational outcome. Between business units in the top and bottom quartiles of engagement, there is a difference in customer loyalty (10%), sales productivity (18%), profitability (23%), quality (32%), safety (63%), well-being (70%), and absenteeism (78%).⁶

What managers most want employees to do is drive for results.¹ In other words, they want their teams to be productive. Well, productivity and engagement are connected by a straight line. Employees’ relationship with their manager has a 70% influence on how they feel at work.⁶

The leaders of high-performing teams tend to be highly engaged themselves. Such leaders are eager for development opportunities. More than three-fourths of job candidates said they highly valued skill development.⁷ “Leaders who feel personally committed are inspirational. They bring passion and fire to their work, and that motivates others,” Lazarus said.

Next Steps

The state of leadership is one of the biggest challenges in our world right now. Global CEO turnover remains high.⁸ Worse, more than half of early-career professionals are actively avoiding management roles.⁹ Current leaders are leaving the C-suite and their potential successors aren’t interested in those seats. Foresighted organisations are scrambling to address this impending leadership drought. The others don’t yet see it coming.

Developing a high-potential program that provides a steady pipeline of talented employees who are ready to lead is critical to your organisation’s survival. “We as a society, given all of the technological transformation, need to emphasise leaders as team builders rather than as individual personalities,” said Kellett.

Validated personality assessments help identify and develop high-potential leaders with the strategic self-awareness to engage teams successfully. But so many organisations don’t recognise the difference between potential and performance, facing a talent management crisis as a result. “It takes better leaders to create better leaders,” Lazarus said. “That’s why we have Hogan.”

Expert Contributors

• Trish Kellett, executive advisor, strategic initiatives at Hogan Assessments
• Erin Lazarus, MS, senior director, business development at Hogan Assessments
• Jackie Sahm, MA, vice president, integrated solutions at Hogan Assessments

The post Potential Is Not Performance appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

On episode 146 of The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp spoke with Jack El-Hai, world-renowned journalist and author of The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, about the personality of authoritarians.

During the first Nuremberg trials, US Army psychiatrist Douglas M. Kelley, MD, assessed and interviewed the German defendants, which he wrote about in 22 Cells in Nuremberg (1947). Jack’s 2013 biography of Kelley, which forms the basis of the 2025 film Nuremberg, highlights the relationship between Kelley and Hermann Göring, who was convicted of conspiracy to commit crimes, war crimes, crimes against peace, and crimes against humanity.

So, how dark is the dark side of personality? What is an evil personality? And how can we resist authoritarian leaders?

The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Göring and Douglas Kelley

Jack, whose research has often taken him down dark paths, discovered Kelley’s story while working on another book. Kelley worked among the high-ranking German defendants in the first Nuremberg trial, particularly with Hermann Göring, the most powerful man in the Nazi regime after Adolf Hitler. Yet Kelley did not call them monsters or write off their behaviour as the product of mental illness.

“Kelley came to the belief that men like that were not outside the range of ‘normal personality,’” Jack said.ⁱ “That’s what’s so frightening about them. There are people all around us in every era who are capable of evil acts.”

Drawing on thousands of pages of Kelley’s personal archive, Jack published The Nazi and the Psychiatrist to tell the story of real-life Nazi war criminals and those who sought to understand them. He pushed back on the idea that the defendants fit Hannah Arendt’s famous “banality of evil” framing. Where Arendt described Adolf Eichmann as a colourless bureaucrat who would not have stood out in a crowd, Jack noted that the Nuremberg defendants were a different case entirely. “Many of the Nuremberg defendants were colourful, unforgettable figures,” he said. “But people who make a choice to do an evil thing can be held responsible and accountable for their choices.”

What Personality Characteristics Do Authoritarian Leaders Share?

As Kelley evaluated the people who were tried and convicted of some of history’s most evil crimes, he hypothesised that he would find a so-called Nazi virus, a psychiatric disorder that would explain their behaviour.

But after Kelley administered numerous psychiatric assessments to the German defendants in the first Nuremberg trial, he concluded there was no Nazi virus. The defendants did not share a common disorder.

Kelley did notice some personality characteristics that they shared, including opportunistic behaviour. Many of the defendants were interested in acquiring and exercising power over others and looked for opportunities to give themselves that chance. For example, Göring told Kelley he was initially attracted to the Nazi party precisely because it was very small at the beginning of the 1920s. Someone with opportunistic inclinations could easily rise to the top.

Jack explained: “As Göring was talking with Kelley, he was within his own mind formulating his own defence. Göring professed not to care about some of the foundational articles of Nazism—for instance, anti-Semitism. That has to be taken with a great deal of salt because Göring himself was the architect of many of the worst anti-Semitic policies that Nazi Germany instituted. What Göring said about his reasons for becoming a Nazi accords with the principles of opportunism, thinking of oneself primarily and thinking of a political movement as an opportunity to climb a ladder.”

Moving Against

In addition to being opportunistic, the defendants also seemed to Kelley to be workaholic, narcissistic, and lacking in remorse. Kelley was most intrigued by Göring, who appeared intelligent, charming, and self-deprecating. “He told jokes about himself and about Hitler,” Jack said. Yet Göring seemed to lack a conscience and only cared about himself and his immediate family.

Based on this high-level description of Göring’s personality, Göring perhaps would have scored high on a certain cluster of scales on the Hogan Development Survey (HDS). The HDS describes behaviours that can be counterproductive when overused, such as when too much confidence becomes arrogance. One response to stress, pressure, or complacency is to overuse the Moving Against cluster of behaviours, characterized by a tendency to dominate and intimidate others.

The Moving Against cluster concerns showing overconfidence in oneself, charm and charisma, a willingness to take risks, and the ability to keep others’ attention. These behavioural strategies are typical for executive profiles. At their worst, as Göring likely demonstrated, Moving Against characteristics can include entitled, exploitative behaviour.

The Authoritarian Personality: Followers

Some ordinary people who yield to situational pressures may become evil actors. Kelley asked Göring why more people didn’t say no to Adolf Hitler. “Göring’s response was that the no-men, those who disagreed or voiced objections, ended up underground in graves,” Jack said. Those who wanted to stay alive agreed with Hitler.

The personality characteristics that Kelley identified in Göring and the other defendants were not newly developed but rather lifelong traits. The men’s upbringing, political environment, and life experiences contributed to their political savvy and drive for power. Jack observed that the structure of the Nazi party followed that of many authoritarian regimes: a chain of command that makes it difficult for followers to disobey orders.

The German defendants were not uniformly rebellious and defiant. Some both gave and took commands; some were both leaders and followers. This suggests aspects of the authoritarian personality may also be related to the HDS Dutiful scale, which concerns waiting for and wanting to follow orders. Whether from fear, the desire to gain favour, or other complex motives, the willingness to comply with authority is characteristic of a follower personality.

The Authoritarian Personality: Leaders

Göring took a leadership role among the other defendants—gathering them together, coaching them on defence strategy, and giving them pep talks. As Ryne observed during the episode, Göring seemed to view his codefendants as subordinates and nobodies, an impression Jack confirmed. “He had a very high opinion of himself, as did Douglas Kelley,” Jack said. Göring resented sharing the limelight of the trial with others whom he viewed as nobodies. Instead, he took a leadership role among the other figures at the trial, coaching them about their defence strategy and giving them pep talks.

Those with authoritarian tendencies tend to dismiss perspectives that don’t align with their own. Like Göring, they proceed with actions in their own interest regardless of the consequences. Göring’s flair for drama and his overconfidence meant that he did not try to deflect blame. “Instead of seeing them as expressions of racism or hatred or out-of-control animosity, he tried to cast all of the crimes that happened during the war as expressions of patriotism and loyalty,” Jack explained.

Most people who have opportunistic traits don’t become mass murderers or designers of genocidal systems. Those in positions of power typically have the strategic self-awareness to know they are likely to suffer consequences for committing crimes. In the case of the German defendants who were convicted at the trials, they took the chance anyway and exercised their power in criminal acts.

How to Resist Authoritarian Leadership Behaviour

Authoritarianism did not end with the Nuremberg trials. Kelley viewed authoritarian leadership as currently happening in America. He saw Southern politicians as Nazi-like in their emotionally manipulative propaganda and rights-restricting policies. “Kelley recommended that to preserve our democracy, we need to rebuild our educational system to reinforce critical thinking,” Jack said. “If you have a public that’s good at critical thinking, you have hobbled many of the strongest efforts of authoritarians because the propaganda won’t work.”

According to Jack, critical thinking is always important, but it’s even more difficult now because of the need to judge the credibility of a source. This challenge is compounded by widespread loss of faith in institutions. “The loss of faith creates a void. The authoritarian tries to fill it,” he added. He urged people to consider a variety of information from a variety of sources.

Jack concluded: “Kelley’s position was that not everyone is capable of horribly evil acts, but it’s a condition of the human race that people like that are always among us, a measurable percentage of our species. And that Nazism, fascism, authoritarianism—these are not German things [. . .]. They are just human things, and we have to learn how to deal with it.”

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 146 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts.

Note

1. “Normal” here does not imply that their actions were acceptable or ordinary. Kelley’s point was that the capacity for evil is not the exclusive province of a recognizable “type” of evil personality, which is precisely what made his findings so difficult for the public to accept.

The post The Personality of Evil: Authoritarian Leaders and the Dark Side of Personality appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

One of the most common questions even experienced HR leaders ask is, “How do we avoid overwhelming evaluators with lots of surveys?”

If you are planning to implement the Hogan 360 at scale, there are several practical considerations that can help keep the process manageable, fair, and meaningful for participants.

Quick Guide to Terms

• Subject: The leader who is participating in the 360 & asking colleagues to evaluate them
• Evaluators: The colleagues, typically manager, peers, and direct reports providing feedback
• Manager: The person(s) the Subject reports into
• Nomination Process: The steps followed to choose which evaluators are asked to provide feedback by completing the Hogan 360 Survey.

Clearly Communicate Evaluator Time Commitment

One of the most important starting points is to clearly communicate to evaluators  the time required to provide feedback.  Given the variety of 360s on the market, leaders may be accustomed to assessments that take an hour or more to provide feedback for each subject.

The Hogan 360 is designed to be both concise and meaningful, and typically takes around 15 to 20 minutes to complete per subject. Even for busy leaders, this translates into a manageable amount of time over a typical two week window.

For example, if a Manager is asked to provide feedback for eight people, this equates to approximately 60-90 minutes per week spread across 2 weeks.

PBC Best practice: Subjects should email their evaluators to explain why they are completing the process and ask them to provide feedback. Provide a template that also includes information on how long the survey will take, to help set expectations and increase likelihood of evaluators providing feedback.

Provide Clear Guidance on Evaluator Nomination

The process for selecting evaluators is one of the most important factors in the quality and credibility of 360 feedback data. You can ensure the success of your program by giving Subjects clear guidance on who should or should not be included in the process based on roles and organisational structure.

• Direct Reports: All immediate direct reports should generally be included. However, reporting structures are not always straightforward, and in some organisations participants may incorrectly include indirect reports. Defining what your organisation considers a “direct report” can help reduce the amount of overlap across leaders.
• Peers: Peers are typically defined as those who sit within the same team and report to the same manager. However, that definition may not always suit the context. In high-volume projects, it may be more practical to focus on peers with whom the participant interacts most regularly, rather than applying a rigid structural definition.
• Manager(s): For Subjects who are eager to know how they are perceived by senior leadership, there is often temptation to include their manager’s manager. While this input may be seen as valuable, it can become impractical in large-scale programs. Unless senior leaders are highly committed to the process and willing to dedicate substantial time, this category is often best excluded. When not excluded, HR should review the nominations to ensure that no senior leader is responsible for feedback for no more than 8 subjects.
• Additional Stakeholders: Where organisations choose to include additional stakeholders, it can be useful to set a recommended limit, such as no more than three. This group is often highly valuable for more senior or cross-functional roles, but without limits the category can quickly become too broad and difficult to manage.

PBC Best Practice: Subjects should nominate people they genuinely work closely with, even where (and especially when) those relationships may involve regular challenge or conflict. Staggering the process or managing volume should not create an incentive for people to cherry-pick only favourable raters.

Consider an HR Review Before Finalising Rater Lists

In larger programs, it can be very helpful for HR to review evaluator lists before they are finalised. This additional step can reduce unnecessary overlap, identify gaps, and ensure greater consistency across the process.

HR may also be well placed to suggest more relevant alternatives where nominations appear misaligned or overly repetitive. In complex organisations, this can improve both efficiency and the overall quality of the feedback pool.

PBC Best Practice: The 360 Evaluator Upload Form makes it easy to see all nominations in one place before submitting your order.

Consider Using Cohorts to Improve Time Management

From a project management perspective, HR leaders can choose between running one large 360 project or splitting the rollout into multiple smaller waves.

Running multiple smaller projects can make it easier to manage staggered participation. This approach is often more practical when trying to balance leader workload and reduce survey fatigue.

However, there are trade-offs. Tracking timelines and completion rates across multiple project logins can be more complex, and if the organisation later wants to aggregate reporting across projects, additional costs may apply depending on the pricing structure.

There is no universal right answer here, but the choice should be made with both operational ease and reporting requirements in mind.

PBC Best Practice: Don’t go at it alone. Work with your 360 Advisor or Consultant to determine the structure and support model that meets your organsation’s needs.

Communicate Clearly About Data Use and Access

In any 360 process, especially one with high visibility, trust is critical. Participants need to feel confident not only in the process itself, but also in how their data will be used and who will have access to it.

The project lead should communicate very clearly and explicitly about confidentiality, reporting, access permissions, and the intended use of results. Ambiguity in this area can quickly undermine confidence and reduce openness in responses.

If the organisation has experience running 360 processes, participants may already have some sense of what to expect. Even so, assumptions should never replace clear communication. Reconfirming expectations helps build confidence and psychological safety.

PBC Best Practice: Designate a leader to be accessible if Subjects or Evaluators have privacy concerns, and ensure that all involved in the process know who that is.

Use 360 Data in Offsites Carefully and Transparently

Incorporate 360 feedback into team or leadership offsites can be highly powerful and enjoyable when handled with care.

Used well, 360 data at the team or cohort level can support rich reflection, shared learning, and meaningful development conversations. It can add depth to offsite discussions and help leaders engage more honestly with their own impact and growth areas.

Data can be provided in a way that is deidentified, and focuses on the average trends across the group, rather than scores from any one individual. The Hogan 360 offers several group reporting options.

However, transparency is essential. Participants should know in advance if and how their data may be referenced in an offsite setting. Nobody should feel caught off guard, surprised, or misled. Giving people clear notice helps preserve trust and ensures the process remains psychologically safe.

PBC Best Practice: Ask offsite participants to come prepared to share their top 3 Strengths & Opportunities (just the item, not the score). Create breakout groups to support shared Development Areas or learn from complimentary strengths.

Final Thoughts

A large-scale 360 rollout is a highly visible leadership intervention that can strengthen self-awareness, improve leadership effectiveness, and support development in a meaningful way for an influential group of leaders. Although the logistics can be intimidating, thoughtful process design can make large group 360s run just as smoothly as small projects.

Keeping the workload manageable, clarifying nomination guidelines, reviewing rater lists, choosing the right project structure, and communicating transparently all contribute to a better experience and stronger outcomes. When organisations also think carefully about how results are shared and used, they create the conditions for 360 feedback to be both credible and developmentally valuable.

*This article is authored by Kate Modic, Associate Director at PBC.

The post Avoiding Manager Overwhelm: Large-scale 360 Program Management appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Self-confidence is a beneficial personality characteristic . . . right until it goes too far. In Hogan terms, confidence to the point of arrogance is described by the Bold derailer. So, how can we mitigate problems stemming from overconfident leadership? Let’s examine personality characteristics, potential consequences, and development strategies to help leaders discern the difference between confidence and arrogance.

Characteristics of Confident Leaders

The three core Hogan assessments describe a leader’s everyday strengths, counterproductive tendencies, and values. The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) measures 11 characteristics that can become counterproductive when overused. These are called derailers, or dark-side personality characteristics. It is common for one or more derailers to cause problems during times of stress, anxiety, complacency, or boredom.

The Bold derailer describes behaviours ranging from modest self-restraint to assertive self-promotion. Bold leaders are typically willing to champion themselves; they pursue their goals and ambitions with energy and drive. Bold leaders may seem unusually self-confident and entitled. They may also be reluctant to own their mistakes or accept advice or feedback.

Leaders who score high on the Bold scale often achieve success and power. Think of Mary Barra, MBA, chair and CEO of General Motors; Sheryl Sandberg, MBA, former COO of Meta Platforms and founder of LeanIn.org; and Dame Anna Wintour, media executive and former editor-in-chief of Vogue. But boldness can have a dark side. Confident and competitive on one hand but arrogant and demanding on the other, leaders with unchecked Bold behaviour can stand in the way of their own success.

Potential Consequences of Self-Confidence

The HDS measures behavioural patterns that can become unproductive and unsustainable, especially if taken to extremes. For Bold leaders, belief in one’s self-worth is a positive characteristic, but overconfidence can have negative effects if it creates problems with teamwork and collaboration.

Other expressions of Bold behaviour include seeming impulsive, self-promoting, and demanding. Bold leaders may overestimate their talents and accomplishments, ignore their shortcomings, and blame others for their mistakes. So, that leader who acts as though they’re never wrong? They likely believe that they deserve their leadership role, that they were born for greatness, and that they will always succeed.

As talented and successful as a Bold leader might seem, their arrogant behaviour can make them hard to work with. They tend to ignore feedback, test limits, and intimidate others. Without strategic self-awareness, leaders who lionise their own egos can double down on risk and leave ruined relationships in their wake.

Tips for Managing Overconfidence

Bold leaders may be content with their performance, an effect of their robust self-confidence. But, lest they follow in the example of Elizabeth Holmes, an entrepreneur convicted of defrauding investors, it can be helpful to consider some Bold actions to keep doing, start doing, and stop doing.

Bold leaders should maintain their push to achieve greatness. Their ability to view setbacks as opportunities brings an optimism that lifts teams. They should also keep directing their competitive drive outward while moderating their competition within their organisation. Bold leaders should start considering the extent to which their communication style affects their team’s performance. Leaders who seem belligerent or arrogant can unintentionally alienate their staff. Finally, Bold leaders should stop denying their mistakes, which can make them appear unable to learn from experience. The ability to acknowledge faults, apologise, and pivot is crucial in volatile, high-stakes leadership roles.

Expert Contributor

Erin Lazarus, MS, senior director of business development, leads corporate solutions consulting and commercial organisation at Hogan Assessments.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post How Overconfidence in Leadership Can Sabotage Success appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

On episode 144 of The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp spoke with Nigel Nicholson, PhD, emeritus professor of organisational behaviour at London Business School, about the theories behind his newest book, Unique You. Nigel said, “In psychology, individuals are mostly regarded as a nuisance, a disturbance, error variants. Whereas for me, everybody’s an exception. That’s the only approach that makes sense.”

Read on to learn more about the four laws of unique individuality, why it matters to be unique, and the threats and opportunities that AI poses to individuals and society.

The Four Laws of Unique Individuality

“Individuality is the stuff of life,” Nigel said. He sees individuality not as lonely but as full of exciting potential. According to Nigel, these four laws of unique individuality apply equally and inescapably to everyone:

1. No one like you has ever existed before or ever will again. Our DNA and brain are uniquely configured so that no person is exactly like another.
2. You are a stranger to yourself. We aren’t always self-aware because so much of our processing occurs in the unconscious. This hidden layer of our consciousness makes us inherently unpredictable.
3. You don’t really know anyone else, and they don’t really know you. We may imagine what someone else’s experience is like, but we can never have their experiences ourselves.
4. The reason for your existence is to connect with others. Cooperation, or getting along with others, is not only important and valuable but also the heart of most social processes. “We magnify the diversity of our individuality because we cooperate in so many different ways,” Nigel said, naming fun, productivity, and love as reasons for connection.

Nigel explained that free will and choices affect our behaviour and thus our reputations, or how others see us. “For example, thinking of yourself as an attractive person or an unattractive person will set you on a completely different set of experiences,” he said. “You only have to think of yourself in a different way to fundamentally change lots of aspects in your behaviour.” Assessment-based coaching and many other strategies for gaining strategic self-awareness can lead to successful behavioural modification.

Why Does Individuality Matter?

Nigel quoted the Victorian-era Canadian physician Sir William Osler: “It is much more important to know what sort of a patient has a disease than what sort of a disease a patient has.” This speaks to the fact that people’s reactions and experiences are purely their own, even during shared events and despite other commonalities.

“All lived experience is qualified by who you are,” Nigel said. Unique individuality implies that people must be understood separately, not as part of a group or set of personality types. “My thinking on this upends a lot of leadership development presumption, which is the concept of the average manager. But there is no average manager,” he added. “You have to deal with the raw material in front of you.” In fact, the Hogan assessments have 72 quadrillion profiles, more than enough for one per person who has ever lived.

Understanding Your Unique Story

To Nigel, understanding individuality requires a biographical approach. He described a 4D framework that complements psychometric assessment: (1) destiny, (2) drama, (3) deliberation, and (4) development. “Using these four elements, you can tell the story of a human life,” he said.

Destiny

Destiny refers to the given, unchangeable facts about a person, such as DNA, place and time of birth, childhood environment, and the underlying temperamental basis for adult personality. Identical twins start with the same DNA but instantly diverge in experience. These facts of destiny affect behaviour in the workplace and elsewhere.

Drama

Drama relates to the continually unpredictable nature of life. It makes life fun but also at times dangerous and difficult. How we adapt to the events in our lives is where personality comes in. Personality assessments can predict what kinds of reactions and responses individuals are likely to have to the dramas that may happen in life.

Deliberation

Deliberation refers to free will, the point at which someone stops and says, “Wait a minute!” Deliberation helps us answer the question of why we are here and what we are trying to do. In his executive coaching career, Nigel has observed successful leaders who want to change both their identity, or how they view themselves, and their reputation, or how others perceive them.

Development

Development connects to the idea that people never stop learning. Some learning is beneficial, while some is detrimental, such as responding to betrayal with resilience or mistrust. Personality assessment can support learning by describing a person’s strengths, how they tend to respond to stress, and the values that determine what they seek in life.

Uniqueness and Human Connection

Unique individuality is driven by both physical and psychological factors. Briefly, humans consist of a body and a mind, a concept called mind-body dualism (formalised by Descartes and later reframed by Freud and others). Most of the time, we tend to view the body as subject to the mind, but Nigel suggested this is backwards. “The mind only exists for the sake of the body; the body has this mind to look after itself,” he clarified.

Consequently, when we say that humans are biologically wired to form connections with other humans, we mean that our bodies and minds both crave human interaction. We find people who complement us, and we combine our skills to do something completely new. Relationships help us learn about ourselves when we see how others react to us, feedback that reveals our reputation.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Unique Individuality (UI)

“UI is our last line of defence against AI,” Nigel said. Artificial intelligence performs brilliant mimicry and simulation, yet computers and AI cannot simulate human thought processes. Nigel referred to the neuroscientific concept that human perception is a controlled hallucination. What we see of the world is a mental construction; we’re predicting the stimuli that we see in the moment. Our unconscious adds randomness, chaos, and improvisation. “We have supreme gifts of quixotic strangeness that AI can’t come close to,” he said.

AI represents certain psychological threats and opportunities. If we let machines make decisions for us, we may become intellectually lazy. If we ascribe human motives, such as friendliness, to AI interactions, we may become emotionally gullible. If we give too much importance to facts and too little credit to human ingenuity, we can become fatalistic and feel powerless. For example, focusing on data about athletic limitations can deter someone from striving to compete.

The opportunities presented by AI, however, relate to the concepts that underlie its potential threats. It can help us personalise how we communicate, analyse and process information, and improve how we make decisions. For instance, Nigel used AI tools to write his book—not the actual words but finding resources and exploring questions. “The recognition of unique individuality as something to be reckoned with in the context of the tech revolution is absolutely central,” he said.

Nigel emphasised that the four laws of unique individuality come with moral imperatives. First, be yourself. Second, be humble and forgiving. Third, reach out to other people. Fourth, find the best way of connecting with people. Personality assessment gives us the tools to act on these imperatives by measuring what makes each person unique so we can build stronger, more meaningful connections. “My hope is that unique individuality takes us in the direction of more genuine communality with the diversity that exists between any two people in their makeup and their orientation to the world,” he said.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 144 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post Why Uniqueness Matters: Personality and Individuality appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

At the same time, retention has emerged as the other half of the equation. Hiring more people does little good if high performers disengage or exit within their first 12–24 months. In today’s market, talent attraction and talent retention are inseparable challenges—and both require a more deliberate, insight-led approach.

This article explores why the talent shortage persists, why traditional retention strategies are falling short, and how organisations can shift from reactive hiring to building a workforce that is resilient, engaged, and built to last.

Why the Talent Shortage Isn’t Going Away

Many organisations hoped the talent crunch would ease as markets stabilised. Instead, it has become more complex.

Several forces are converging:

• Skills are evolving faster than job titles. Digital transformation, automation, and AI have reshaped roles faster than most workforce planning models can keep up.
• Candidate expectations have changed. Flexibility, meaningful work, growth opportunities, and leadership quality now outweigh compensation alone for many professionals.
• Mobility is higher than ever. High performers know they have options—and they are prepared to use them.

As a result, organisations are competing for smaller pools of highly capable talent, often using similar attraction tactics and employer branding messages. The differentiator is no longer who hires fastest, but who hires wisest.

The Hidden Cost of Focusing Only on Hiring

When talent is scarce, it’s tempting to double down on recruitment: more advertising, more agencies, more interviews. But this approach often overlooks a critical reality—retention failures amplify talent shortages.

Every regretted departure creates a chain reaction:

• Loss of institutional knowledge
• Increased workload on remaining team members
• Higher recruitment and onboarding costs
• Reduced morale and engagement

In many cases, the roles organisations struggle most to fill are the same ones with the highest turnover. This signals not a supply problem alone, but a fit and experience problem.

Why Retention Strategies Commonly Miss the Mark

Most organisations are not ignoring retention—but many are addressing it too late.

Common pitfalls include:

• Relying on engagement surveys without action. Data without follow-through erodes trust.
• Treating retention as a benefits problem. Perks matter, but they rarely compensate for poor leadership or unclear expectations.
• Assuming high performers will self-manage. Top talent often receives less support, not more, until they resign.

At its core, retention is less about keeping people happy and more about ensuring people are aligned, supported, and able to do their best work.

The Role of Fit: Beyond Skills and Experience

One of the most powerful levers in both attraction and retention is role fit.

Traditional hiring processes tend to prioritise:

• Technical competence
• Past experience
• Immediate availability

While these factors matter, they are poor predictors of long-term success on their own. Many early exits occur not because someone can’t do the job, but because the role environment clashes with how they naturally work, communicate, or handle pressure.

When individuals are placed into roles that misalign with their strengths or derailers, the organisation absorbs the cost—often quietly at first, then suddenly.

Improving fit at the point of hire reduces downstream retention risk and shortens the time it takes for new hires to contribute meaningfully.

Retention Starts with Leadership Capability

Ask employees why they leave, and the answer is rarely the organisation as a whole. More often, it’s the immediate experience of leadership.

Managers play a disproportionate role in retention through:

• Setting clear expectations
• Providing feedback and coaching
• Creating psychological safety
• Managing pressure and change

In talent-short markets, leadership capability becomes a competitive advantage. Teams led by self-aware, adaptable leaders are more resilient—and far less likely to lose critical talent.

Investing in leadership development is not a “nice to have” retention strategy; it is one of the most direct ways to stabilise the workforce.

Shifting from Reactive to Strategic Workforce Planning

Organisations that navigate talent shortages successfully tend to share one trait: they think longer-term.

Rather than asking, “How do we fill this role quickly?”, they ask:

• What capabilities will we need 12–24 months from now?
• Which roles are mission-critical, and which are evolving?
• Where are we over-reliant on a small number of individuals?

This shift enables smarter decisions around succession, internal mobility, and targeted development—reducing reliance on external hiring alone.

What a Sustainable Talent Strategy Looks Like

In practice, organisations making progress on both shortage and retention tend to focus on five interconnected areas:

1. Clarity of roles and expectations – People stay longer when success is clearly defined.
2. Better hiring decisions – Emphasising fit and potential alongside skills.
3. Intentional onboarding – Supporting new hires beyond their first few weeks.
4. Manager capability – Equipping leaders to coach, not just manage.
5. Ongoing insight – Using data to identify risk before disengagement turns into attrition.

None of these are quick fixes—but together, they create a system that attracts the right people and gives them reasons to stay.

Turning Talent Pressure into Opportunity

Talent shortages are forcing organisations to confront long-standing assumptions about how they hire, lead, and develop people. While the pressure is real, it also presents an opportunity.

Organisations that respond thoughtfully—by improving fit, strengthening leadership, and aligning roles with people—can emerge stronger, not just staffed.

In a market where talent has choices, the organisations that thrive will be those that offer more than a role. They will offer clarity, growth, and an environment where people can do their best work—and choose to stay.

The post From Shortage to Strength: Rethinking Talent Attraction and Retention in 2026 appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

What Is the Hogan Competency Model?

The Hogan Competency Model was developed to identify the relationship between personality and the competencies that matter most at work. It includes 62 competencies organised into four domains:

• Intrapersonal – Self‑management skills such as self‑esteem, resiliency, and self‑control. These form the foundation for career success.
• Interpersonal – Skills that enable relationship building, collaboration, and influencing others.
• Business – Analytical and operational skills such as comparing, analysing, coordinating, and innovating.
• Leadership – The ability to direct, motivate, and align others toward organisational goals

This model reflects the most scientifically valid competency framework available in the market, offering clients “efficient competency‑based solutions” grounded in personality science.

The Science Behind the Model

Every competency in the HCM is tied to measurable personality characteristics captured through the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI). The model’s reliability and validity are widely recognised:

PBC research shows strong correlations between Hogan personality scales and key leadership behaviours measured in the Hogan 360. The model allows organisations to compare “the public person with the private person,” building strategic self‑awareness and improving career success. It provides a data‑driven foundation for leadership development, talent decisions, succession planning, and capability uplift. Simply put: Hogan connects who leaders are, how they behave, and how they perform — in one integrated framework.

Competencies Organisations Should Focus On

While all 62 competencies provide a comprehensive foundation, research across thousands of leaders shows that some competencies consistently predict high performance:

1. Achievement Focus – Striving to exceed expectations and driving results.
2. Strategic Skills – Big‑picture thinking, innovation, and long‑term decision‑making.
3. Inspiring Others – Motivating and engaging teams to perform at their best.
4. Emotional Intelligence – Resilience, people skills, integrity, and managing stress effectively.
5. Communication & Influence – Communicating clearly, building relationships, and persuading others.

These competencies consistently differentiate high‑performing leaders and are central to building strong teams, engaged cultures, and high‑performing organisations.

Why the Hogan Competency Model Matters for Your Organisation

Whether you are designing a leadership framework, developing talent, or making strategic hiring decisions, the HCM:

• Provides a scientific, validated foundation for understanding leadership behaviour.
• Ensures your competency framework is aligned with measurable data, not subjective impressions.
• Enables predictive and repeatable talent decisions, improving both performance and retention.
• Links personality, behaviour, and outcomes — the “causal chain” that drives engagement and organisational success.

In a world where leadership shapes up to 70% of team engagement, ensuring your competency model is rooted in science is essential. Download the Hogan Competency Model here.

The post Understanding the Hogan Competency Model: The Science Behind Great Leadership appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

If this scenario sounds familiar, you have probably experienced an overly cautious leader. This kind of behaviour can damage team performance and slow progress on critical business objectives.

Characteristics of Cautious Leaders

At Hogan Assessments, we use three personality assessments to build a complete personality profile of a leader. One of them, the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), measures 11 personality characteristics called derailers. Also known as dark-side personality characteristics, these are strengths when properly managed but can cause career derailment when overused. Derailers may emerge in times of stress, anxiety, boredom, or whenever someone isn’t monitoring their behaviour. Hesitation to the extent that it hinders team performance is often a sign of the Cautious derailer.

The Cautious personality scale describes risk tolerance and attitude toward change. An appropriately cautious leader tends to be deliberate and careful in making decisions, helping protect their organisation from excessive risk. The dark side of caution, however, can make the leader seem unassertive, self-doubting, and resistant to change.

When a leader is experiencing negative emotions, such as worry or fear, the Cautious derailer can be triggered. A leader might resist implementing new technology because they’re concerned about receiving criticism if it goes awry. They might also avoid new people and situations to protect themselves from embarrassment. Sometimes this indecisive behaviour appears without warning, causing a significant loss of momentum.

An Expert Perspective on the Cautious Derailer

In this video, Cody Warren, MA, explains the Cautious derailer and its impact on team performance, decision-making, and organisational momentum.

The Hidden Performance Costs of Caution

Carefulness, thoroughness, and risk awareness are genuine leadership strengths, but only when kept in check. Left unmanaged, the Cautious derailer can create serious problems for the leader, their team, and their organisation. Indecisive leaders tend to retain inefficient or outdated processes and technology. Their behaviour can delay organisational projects, revenue goals, and strategic objectives.

Cautious behaviour in leaders can have negative consequences for their reputations, with others viewing them as inhibited, indecisive, and even fearful. A reputation for timidity can cause leaders to get passed over at executive levels where a greater degree of assertiveness is expected. Their hesitation can cause frustration, mistrust, or inhibited creativity in team members. As a result, teams led by change-resistant leaders risk becoming disengaged and unproductive.

What to Do About Too Much Hesitation

When it comes to making decisions, leaders with the Cautious derailer should ask, “What is an acceptable degree of risk here?” Of course, no leader can predict every outcome of a business strategy. Some ambiguity will always accompany any decision, but analysing the quantity or quality of information needed before deciding can help. For instance, using statistical data or relying on an expert opinion can mitigate risk and clarify a course of action.

One effective development activity for Cautious leaders is practicing assertiveness. This starts with a mindset shift: what might feel aggressive to a Cautious leader is often simply the directness their role requires. Team members need a leader who is willing to be firm and straightforward when needed. To help build a practice of decisiveness, the leader could build a network of reliable subject matter experts whose opinions can inform their decisions. They should also be transparent with their team about their decision-making process, such as how much time they typically need and what kinds of evidence they find most useful.

A Cautious leader’s direct reports might find it helpful to propose ideas accompanied by background research or social proof. Since fear of failure, criticism, or embarrassment can trigger excessive caution, direct reports can reduce that friction by delivering critical feedback privately. They should also communicate deadlines as early as possible so that there is less pressure to make a quick decision.

With strategic self-awareness, Cautious leaders can leverage their natural thoroughness without letting hesitation hold their teams back.

Expert Contributor

Cody Warren, MA, is an industrial-organisational psychologist who is director of knowledge and infrastructure in the data science department at Hogan. When the featured video was filmed, he held the title of senior consultant on the talent solutions team.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post When Leaders Hesitate: The Hidden Costs to Team Performance appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

On episode 143 of The Science of Personality, cohosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, and Blake Loepp spoke with Peter Harms, PhD, Frank Schultz Professor of Management at the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College of Business, about the psychology of underdog leadership.

Peter first discussed underdogs with Blake and Ryne on “Live from SIOP: The Psychology of Underdogs”, at the 2024 Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology annual conference. Two years later, he returned for a full-length episode on his recent research.

Read on to learn about characteristics of underdog leaders across history, sports, business, and politics, and how to think like an underdog.

Characteristics of Underdog Leadership

An underdog is a person or group that starts with a disadvantage in a contest that matters where people expect them to lose. In other words, they’re behind in things that normally predict success. We all expect the underdogs to be beaten by the top dogs—but we hope they won’t be.

Peter mentioned Mississippi State football coach Mike Leach as an ideal example of underdog leadership. Leach spent his career at schools that aren’t considered the biggest or best in their states. How should you compete against the top dogs in football when the odds seem impossible? “Leach knew that if he went head-to-head with them using their strategies, they had the personnel, skill, and resources to beat him every time,” Peter explained. As an under-resourced coach, Leach fought against more prominent teams using creative, unorthodox strategies. The reason stories like Leach’s captivate us goes far beyond football.

Universal Appeal of Underdog Heroes

The tale of the underdog acknowledges the universal truth that life is unfair. Myths and legends help humanity make sense of a world in which some people face more challenges with fewer resources than others. The underdog concept also reminds us of childhood, a time when we were underdeveloped and disadvantaged. In the sense that everyone has at some time been a smaller player competing against the odds, being an underdog is a universal experience.

“The underdog story is present in all religions and cultures, where a small, weak person going up against the big, strong champion, and then uses cleverness and adaptability and flexibility to outwit them,” Peter said.

Underdogs can be found nearly everywhere, from ancient myths to popular culture. Some contemporary underdogs are Katniss Everdeen, Optimus Prime, Frodo Baggins, Moana, and Harry Potter. Most of these stories have a subtle educational purpose, modelling how to uphold societal values, such as integrity, teamwork, persistence, and hope. Let’s look at other places where underdogs often stand out.

Underdogs on the Battlefield

At the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, an army of 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas held off a massive force of Persian invaders for three days. But they didn’t win. “Losing battles are sometimes the ones we remember most,” Peter said. “Thermopylae, the Alamo, Dunkirk . . . people making a last stand in the face of overwhelming odds.”

Underdogs on the Athletic Field

Hara Urara, a Japanese racehorse, was famous for losing 113 races in a row and never winning in her entire career. Nicknamed the “Shining Star of Losers Everywhere,” the horse represented the spectators’ daily struggles because she kept trying but never had a victory.

Among the countless other examples of underdogs from sports is wrestler Wyatt Hendrickson’s surprise victory over Olympic gold-medallist Gable Steveson in the last minute of a famous 2025 match. Underdog tactics involve being unconventional and fast. “It’s not letting the other guys rest or playing by their rules,” Peter observed.

Underdogs in the Boardroom

According to Peter, Joseph Campbell’s concept of the hero’s journey, from The Hero with a Thousand Faces, mirrors the overarching myth of the underdog. The book describes an unlikely hero who goes on an adventure, overcomes challenges, and returns home fundamentally changed. “Whenever I watch Shark Tank, I’m watching the hero’s journey,” he said.

The hero’s journey is a familiar story in Silicon Valley, where startups that began in garages have grown into industry-leading tech companies. For instance, OpenAI dominated the early artificial intelligence market with a couple hundred people versus Google’s massive headcount and billions in resources.

Underdogs in Politics

Political figures such as Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew and Mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani exemplify unexpected success with very few resources. Both showed unconventional strategies and dedicated hard work to earn their appointments. The underdog narrative is often leveraged in US politics, with numerous US presidents running on a platform of working-class, self-made, underprivileged, or bootstrapped success.

Why Do Underdogs Win?

When underdogs win, it satisfies our sense of justice. As an example, in the Judeo-Christian story of David and Goliath, the moral little guy triumphs over the big, bad bully. This outcome seems to restore the world to its rightful order and simply feels fair.

Underdogs can sometimes win when the top dogs fall into the success trap. The success trap is a phenomenon in which a successful person becomes complacent with what they have accumulated and stops taking risks to strive for more. They want to play it safe. In contrast, a successful underdog has a very high tolerance for risk and a vigorous drive to succeed. Safety is not their priority. “Underdogs have that spirit that the big dogs sometimes don’t,” Peter said.

The Underdog Mindset

Peter shared four tips for thinking like an underdog leader:

1. Define success – Victory might not mean taking first place. Instead, it might mean recognition or market share or survival.
2. Challenge the status quo – People in power will create rules to their own advantage. Underdogs introduce new ideas and change the game to suit their strengths.
3. Avoid complacency – The success trap is safe, but it isn’t particularly innovative. Underdogs are willing to relentlessly question their assumptions.
4. Rely on others – Underdogs rarely win all by themselves. People who try to do everything alone are likely to burn out, whereas those who embrace their social support networks (that is, teams) overcome obstacles. “Underdogs are not solo heroes,” Peter said.

Listen to this conversation in full on episode 143 of The Science of Personality. Never miss an episode by following us anywhere you get podcasts.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post The Psychology of Underdog Leadership appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Understanding these talent challenges is necessary for organisations looking to maximise the strategic value of personality assessment this year. Organisational effectiveness will rely on making objective decisions about people based on accurate, reliable, and scientifically validated personality assessment data. In 2026, we are committed to using our gold-standard assessments to help people and teams achieve the extraordinary—especially amid rapid global change.

Leadership Effectiveness in Transition

Despite leadership development being a billion-dollar industry, organisations aren’t developing robust leadership benches. Meanwhile, as C-suite roles continue to evolve, executive turnover is increasing. Jackie Sahm, MS, vice president of integrated solutions at Hogan Assessments, observed that leadership effectiveness has not improved, despite the advancements in industrial-organisational psychology and workplace fairness over the last 10 years. “It’s one of the biggest problems in our world right now,” she said. “It’s not just about the efficacy of leadership development programs. It begins with access to leadership in the first place. Who do we give opportunities to lead? Who does not currently get those opportunities?”

Leadership matters, especially when this year’s outlook is brittle, anxious, nonlinear, and incomprehensible (BANI). Ensuring equitable access to leadership begins with objective assessment. Personality assessment reduces bias in leader identification because it measures the underlying tendencies that drive effective leadership, not just superficial impressions.

For instance, every leader has a preferred approach to collaboration, but some are more autonomous and others more cooperative. How a leader is likely to connect with and influence others is not always apparent in a charismatic interview performance. Similarly, a leader’s ability to create team trust is not necessarily related to executive presence.

Under 2026’s conditions, employee psychological safety is paramount. According to Sahm, leaders who successfully cultivate psychological safety create stability, foster genuine human connection, motivate others with shared purpose and values, inspire trust by showing humility, and build and maintain high-performing teams. Integrating personality into all points of talent management (but particularly your high-potential program and succession planning strategy) is crucial for identifying and developing leaders with these capabilities.

Leading Through AI Integration

A majority of US workers say they’re worried and overwhelmed about AI at work, precisely the kind of anxiety that requires psychologically safe leadership. Allison Howell, MS, CEO at Hogan Assessments, pointed out that human judgment is vital for organisations to decide how they will use AI tools. “We as a population and workforce can have more say in what we want the impact of AI to be,” Howell explained. After all, AI transformation is occurring only due to human agency. Given AI’s unpredictability and the need for human oversight, identifying leaders with sound judgment is imperative.

Poorly integrated AI tools could cause data quality issues at a very minimum. Users of generative AI programs are often reminded that AI can make mistakes but may not understand how plausible AI hallucinations can sound. “We need to retain and train human expertise to ensure AI systems are actually doing what they’re supposed to do,” Howell added. How constructively and ethically humans use AI depends on widespread digital and analytical skills that many workers have yet to build. This skills gap demands both capable leadership and strategic talent assessment.

Leading Through Skills Evolution

From skills-based hiring to reskilling to upskilling, skills are dominating the talent market, and rightly so. The present skills gap is closely tied to creating and using AI tools, requiring the human expertise and judgment that Howell mentioned. Leaders supporting a workforce through 2026’s demands face complex questions about which employees can adapt quickly and which will need more support. Personality assessment can measure how readily someone is likely to embrace or resist change, their attitude toward safety and procedures, and their tolerance for ambiguity or risk. This type of insight is critical when there are more workers than jobs in some industries and more jobs than skills in others.

As skills gaps widen, leaders who can create psychological safety for learning are best positioned to boost well-being and drive results. People need safety and certainty if they are to acquire and implement new skills. If organisations expect their workers to rapidly close the skills gap, it is more important than ever to identify and develop resilient, empathetic, and effective human leaders.

Meeting the challenges of 2026 demands a different approach to leadership effectiveness. Organisations cannot afford to promote based on charisma or wait for bench strength to emerge organically. Personality assessment is how the most competitive organisations will hire, develop, and promote leaders who can provide the stability, connection, safety, and trust that the workforce desperately needs right now.

“Because the scale of transformation is theoretically larger, being able to understand and predict the human response and ways of adapting will remain crucial,” said Howell. “We can use personality data to support and navigate all these transformations.”

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post Top Trends in Personality Assessment Usage in 2026 appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.