Preppers are rare, only making up approximately 6% of the working population. Their Hogan profile is highlighted by very low scores on Affiliation, Recognition, and Power with above average scores on Tradition and Security on the MVPI; low scores across most of the HPI scales with the exception of an average score on Prudence; and high scores on Excitable, Skeptical, Cautious, Reserved, Leisurely, and Dutiful on the HDS, with an exceptionally high score on Cautious. See Figure 1 below for the full profile.

Figure 1: Preppers personality profile

The Reputation of Preppers

We had eight Hogan consultants with a combined 82 years of experience provide independent, written interpretations of the Preppers profile shown above. Some of the words our experts most frequently used to describe Preppers were “self-critical,” “emotional,” “follow,” “careful,” “risk,” “stability,” and “predictable.” Additionally, we examined the workplace reputation of Preppers by drawing on Hogan 360 data gathered with Hogan distributor Peter Berry Consultancy.

Colleagues, supervisors, and subordinates said Preppers build trust and loyalty with other, are polite and considerate, avoid double-standards, and produce high-quality, error-free work. At the same time, Preppers’ work colleagues also said that they are not very competitive and driven, lack passion, energy, and assertiveness, and do not think long term about new opportunities. In other words, Preppers are dependable employees who have a strong desire for predictability and stability but are not seen as hard drivers pushing others for results.

Our job performance archive also provides insight regarding how Preppers are perceived by their supervisors: bosses give high marks to Preppers for focusing on quality, working hard, and being dependable. At the same time, they give Preppers low marks for managing conflict, inspiring others, attracting talent, and building teams. To summarise, Preppers are defensively pessimistic, motivated by fear, and seek out environments that are stable and predictable. They are introverted, but effective employees when they can keep their emotions under control.

Common Careers for Preppers

Preppers prefer careers where they can find stability and work with limited social interaction. Like Misfits, they prefer jobs with limited oversight where they can complete their tasks unmonitored and they tend to be most successful in jobs with clear instructions for performance. Preppers also do well in roles where the goal is to detect potential threats, pitfalls, and safety issues. Our data show Preppers are overrepresented in the military as well as in admin/clerical and technician jobs.

Preppers are underrepresented among executive job roles, likely because they fear the risks associated with high-profile roles. We also find that Preppers are over-represented among samples of remote computer workers, which is a good fit for their interpersonal style and their preference for predictability. In popular media, characters such as the Nick Fury (Marvel), Craig Middlebrooks (Parks and Recreation), and Rex (Disney’s Toy Story) are prototypical Preppers — dependable, organised, and prepared for the worst.

Advice for Preppers

If you are Prepper, you should recognise that many people are less cautious and more comfortable taking risks than you are. You tend to proceed with a safety-first attitude and like to be prepared for every possible scenario. Your colleagues may see you as overly worried about bad outcomes and as someone who delays projects unnecessarily. As a result, you may prefer jobs where you can work at your own pace with few deadline pressures.

In leadership roles, you will want to carefully review all reports and the details of all possible decisions. Your staff may see you as prone to slow decision-making and as a logjam slowing down processes for the entire organisation. You will have to work hard on your delegation skills, and it will be critical for you to hire employees who you can trust and empower to make decisions without you. On the bright side, your business unit will be well-prepared for disaster scenarios.

How to Deal with Preppers

If your boss is a Prepper, you should realise that he or she will have a hard time coming to decisions quickly. You will want to be sure to cover every possible scenario and detail in your reports because your Prepper boss will be ready to ask about them. The only way you will get your plans through will be by out-preparing him or her. Pressuring your boss to move decisions along will likely only make things worse, resulting in your boss locking him or herself away to “deliberate.” However, if you frame your arguments in terms of improving safety or future security, your boss will be more inclined to act quickly.

If any of your employees are Preppers, recognise that these people will have a strong preference for predictability, stability, and clear work assignments. They will prefer work where they can operate at their own pace and that emphasises quality and getting the details exactly right. While Preppers are hard-working and dedicated, they also tend to second-guess themselves and will be slow to commit to any course of action. Your most challenging task as the supervisor of a Prepper will be keeping his or her fear of failure in check and not letting delays bog down the larger team.

*This article was originally published by Hogan Assessments.

The post 8 Personality Types: A Deeper Look at Preppers appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Misfits make up approximately 7% of the working population. Their Hogan profile is highlighted by below average scores on Hedonism and very low scores on Affiliation on the MVPI; low scores across the board on the HPI with extremely low scores on Adjustment, Ambition, and Interpersonal Sensitivity; and very high scores on the “moving away” cluster (Excitable, Skeptical, Cautious, Reserved, and Leisurely) of HDS. See Figure 1 below for the full profile.

Figure 1: Misfits personality profile

The Reputation of Misfits

We had eight Hogan consultants with a combined 82 years of experience provide independent, written interpretations of the Misfits personality profile shown above. Some of the words our experts most frequently used to describe Misfits were “isolation,” “stressful,” “challenges,” “pressure,” “mistrusting,” “passionate,” and “emotional.” Additionally, we examined the workplace reputation of Misfits by drawing on Hogan 360 data gathered with Hogan distributor Peter Berry Consultancy.

Colleagues, supervisors, and subordinates said Misfits have the right knowledge and experience to be effective at work. At the same time, Misfits’ work colleagues also said that they bring a negative attitude to work, lack enthusiasm for customer service, and have poor people skills. In other words, Misfits often have the technical expertise and capacity to do their work well, but struggle with the social skills needed to truly excel in modern work environments.

Our job performance archive also provides insight regarding how Misfits are perceived by their supervisors: bosses see Misfits as having difficulties with conflict management, political savvy, professionalism, and relationship building. Likely due to their lack of social skills, Misfits received the lowest overall performance ratings in our archive. To summarise, Misfits have the competence and capabilities on par or, in some cases, even better than their colleagues. However, their pessimistic and aloof interpersonal style creates difficulties in the workplace for their colleagues and supervisors.

Common Careers for Misfits

Misfits prefer careers where they can work in isolation and without much social interaction. They prefer jobs with little oversight where they can complete their tasks unmonitored. They also tend to be most successful in jobs with clear instructions for performance. Our data show Misfits are overrepresented in both the military and technician jobs.

They are also slightly over-represented among first-line supervisors, likely due to their technical skills, knowledge, and expertise in the job. We also find that Misfits are over-represented among samples of remote computer workers, which is a good fit for their asocial interpersonal style. In popular media, characters such as the Black Widow (Marvel), April Ludgate (Parks and Recreation), and Beast (Disney’s Beauty and the Beast) are prototypical Misfits — skilled, but reclusive and emotionally volatile.

Advice for Misfits

If you are a Misfit, you should first recognise that your peers and work colleagues will see you as atypical. They will have difficulty understanding your dislike for meetings and groupwork as most of them will truly enjoy it. Although you may prefer this kind of work, you should realise that most modern workplaces require teamwork. As a result, you may find careers in less typical roles to be more personally rewarding. For example, you might prefer careers where you can work remotely or with things, rather than with people.

In leadership roles, you will tend to focus on the technical and task-specific aspects of your work. Your staff may see your preference for working alone as a signal that you do not like them or that you are simply a mean person. As a result, you will have to work extra hard to demonstrate to your staff that you care about them as individuals and their career development. You will also have to learn to keep any emotional outbursts out of the workplace and away from your staff. In general, you may be a better fit as a leader of a business unit without people-leader responsibilities.

How to Deal with Misfits

If your boss is a Misfit, you should know that he or she will have a hard time connecting with you and the rest of the staff. Your boss will be very task-oriented, expecting you to know what you are supposed to do and to do it without much supervision. The good news is that your boss will call few meetings and have no complaints about any requests for you to work remotely. The bad news is that your boss will not be enthusiastic about providing you with feedback on your work and might be unduly negative in providing such evaluations.

If any of your employees are Misfits, recognize that these people have a strong preference for clear goals, objectives, and structure. Additionally, they will prefer to be assigned work that can be completed independently with little oversight. While your Misfit will be technically skilled, he or she may shy away from groups, committees, or even staff social gatherings. Your most challenging task as the supervisors of a Misfit will be keeping his or her emotions in check and not letting any pessimism spoil the attitudes of the larger team. It will be up to you to get the most of your Misfit’s technical skills, knowledge, and expertise and to work to improve his or her interpersonal skills.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post 8 Personality Types: A Deeper Look at Misfits appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Networkers make up approximately 13% of the working population. Their Hogan profile is highlighted by slightly above average scores on Recognition, Power, Affiliation, and Aesthetics on the MVPI, but below average scores on Security; very high scores on Sociability and very low scores on Prudence on the HPI; and high scores on the Bold, Mischievous, Colourful, and Imaginative on HDS with low scores on Diligent and Dutiful. See Figure 1 below for the full profile.

Figure 1: Hogan personality profile of Networkers

The Reputation of Networkers

We had eight Hogan consultants with a combined 82 years of experience provide independent, written interpretations of the Networkers profile shown above. Some of the words our experts most frequently used to describe Networkers were “risky,” “social,” “outgoing,” “innovative,” and “manipulative.” Additionally, we examined the workplace reputation of Networkers by drawing on Hogan 360 data gathered with Hogan distributor Peter Berry Consultancy.

Colleagues, supervisors, and subordinates said Networkers are assertive and energetic, have strong influencing and negotiation skills, are passionate, and competitive and driven. At the same time, Networkers’ work colleagues also said that they have questionable ethical standards, frequently produce work with errors, are sometimes unprofessional, and do not always treat people fairly and without favouritism. In other words, Networkers are socially skilled, influential, and charming, but also prone to taking risks and breaking the rules.

Lastly, our job performance archive also tells us that Networkers are seen as high-performers when it comes to presenting to others, managing conflict, driving strategy, communicating, and inspiring others. Networkers also tend to receive high overall performance ratings from their supervisors. To summarise, Networkers are interested in climbing the corporate ladder and use their social skills to do so rapidly.

Common Careers for Networkers

Networkers prefer careers where they can connect with other people and rely on their social skills. They like meetings, delivering presentations, and working on group projects. They enjoy roles in which they can take the lead and be the centre of attention. Our data show Networkers are over-represented in managerial and sales jobs.

They are also over-represented in executive roles (as opposed to individual contributor roles), suggesting they prefer work where they have the most power, influence, and command over the room. Because of their ability to connect with others and to sell themselves, Networkers are often drawn to entrepreneurship and start their own businesses. In popular media, characters such as the Thor (Marvel), Tom Haverford (Parks and Recreation), and Anna (Disney’s Frozen) are prototypical Networks — social, spirited, and energetic.

Advice for Networkers

If you are Networker, you should first recognise you have a real talent for connecting with people, playing corporate politics, and standing out front. Your manager will see you as an energetic and enthusiastic high-performer. However, your colleagues may see you as a bit of a showoff and as someone who takes more credit than deserved. Because of your skill at rubbing elbows with the right people, you are primed to move up rapidly in your company. Unlike Overachievers, you are more willing to play corporate politics and to take shortcuts to get to the top, which means you will likely get to leadership positions quickly.

In leadership roles, you will tend to focus on your efforts on continuing to fast-track your career. You will focus on big objectives that can make a splash and leave the details for achieving those objectives to your team. Be sure to give credit to your team when they deliver on your promises, otherwise they will start to resent you as their manager which will ultimately result in your best employees leaving. While they will respect your ability to get the attention of senior management, no one enjoys someone else taking credit for their work.

How to Deal with Networkers

If your boss has the personality profile of a Networker, you should know that he or she will constantly be looking to build new and strong ties with the upper echelons of the company. In other words, he or she will spend more time managing up than managing down. Your boss will present you with an agenda and a vision for what he or she would like to see done but have no interest in the details regarding how it gets done. And, it will be up to you to get things done. The most important thing for your Networker boss is that you make him or her look good. If you care about getting credit for your work, you will need to document exactly what you did because your boss will often get the credit otherwise.

If any of your employees are Networkers recognise that these people have a real talent for making contacts and charming others, including you. They will prefer to be assigned to big projects and they will enjoy opportunities to present their work in front of a large group, especially if that group includes power members of management. While your Networker will be energetic and ambitious, it will be incumbent upon you to make sure he or she is actually getting work done. Many Networkers advance on social skill alone generating little to nothing in terms of productivity. It will be up to you to find tasks and objectives that maximise your Networker’s natural skill-set.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

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In a recent PBC Hogan × SHRM webinar, Alexander Alonso, SHRM’s Chief Knowledge Officer, joined PBC Director Alex Bond to explore workforce skills, organisational culture and AI adoption. The discussion marked the launch of PBC Hogan’s partnership with SHRM, bringing research, learning and professional development opportunities to HR practitioners across Australia and New Zealand.

A central message emerged: employers need to connect AI adoption with how they develop their people, design work and measure performance.

Building confidence through clarity

During the webinar, Alonso cited research indicating that just 30% of Australian workers believed AI’s benefits outweighed its risks, placing Australia last among the 47 countries in the research discussed.

His interpretation was that workers could recognise AI’s value while still wanting greater clarity about its use. Questions about what is permitted, how information should be handled and where accountability sits can make it difficult for people to move forward confidently.

For employers, this creates a practical opportunity. Clear policies and guidance can help employees understand how AI fits into their work and the expectations that apply.

That guidance needs to be supported by learning. People need opportunities to understand the tools available to them, practise using them and recognise when human judgement is required.

Working with the strengths of organisational culture

Alonso described a prominent Australian workplace culture in the research as the “tactical architect”: structured, steady and team-focused, with an emphasis on proven approaches and centralised decision-making.

He explored how these characteristics could support AI adoption. Clear direction can establish consistent expectations, while a team-focused environment can help people learn from one another.

He also acknowledged the potential for stability to become slower change. Leaders therefore need to consider how their organisation’s existing strengths can support experimentation and adaptation.

For Australian and New Zealand employers, the useful question is how their own culture influences learning. Do people feel comfortable admitting what they do not know? Can they question established practices? Are new ideas given space to develop? These questions need to be considered within each organisation’s context.

Bringing AI into the broader development strategy

One of Alonso’s clearest challenges was to stop treating AI skills and upskilling as separate initiatives.

As AI changes tasks and ways of working, it becomes part of the capability people need to perform their roles. Development planning therefore needs to consider where AI is relevant, how it can support performance and what people need to learn to use it effectively.

The starting point is defining what AI capability means for the workforce. Different roles will require different levels of understanding and application. A shared foundation can establish expectations, while role-specific learning can help people apply those expectations to their work.

This gives employers a more purposeful basis for development: identify the capability required, understand current gaps and create opportunities to practice.

Turning individual experimentation into shared learning

The discussion also explored AI use that takes place outside an organisation’s established policies or visibility.

Alonso encouraged employers to consider how individual experimentation could become a source of shared learning. That requires a culture where people can discuss what they are using, explain what has worked and ask for guidance when they are unsure.

He suggested working with IT colleagues to establish an approved environment in which employees can test ideas within clear parameters. Practical experimentation can help people develop skills while giving the organisation greater visibility of useful applications.

Recognition also matters. Sharing examples of effective AI use can help colleagues see what is possible and understand how human expertise contributes to the result.

Leaders can reinforce this by inviting questions, acknowledging their own learning needs and making time for teams to exchange experiences.

Measuring progress beyond participation

Training participation provides only part of the picture. Alonso encouraged organisations to connect workforce skills and AI adoption with the outcomes they are seeking to achieve.

The webinar identified measures including engagement, retention, business performance, AI training participation and the development of new skills.

For leaders, the task is to establish what progress should look like and review it over time. Are people applying what they have learned? Is their capability supporting organisational priorities? Where is further development needed? Clear measures help make learning an ongoing part of workforce planning and performance conversations.

A practical starting point for leaders

The discussion offered several actions employers can take:

• Clarify expectations: make approved uses, responsibilities and boundaries easy to understand.
• Define capability: establish what AI literacy and effective application mean for different roles.
• Connect development: include AI within broader workforce learning and development plans.
• Create opportunities to practise: provide approved tools and environments for experimentation.
• Share learning: recognise useful applications and encourage open discussion.
• Review progress: connect development activity with workforce and business outcomes.

Alonso closed by encouraging a balance between healthy scepticism and openness to possibility. For employers, that means giving people the clarity, support and opportunities they need to explore AI thoughtfully.

PBC Hogan’s partnership with SHRM supports the continuing development of the HR profession across Australia and New Zealand through research, learning and professional recognition opportunities.

Contact PBC to learn more about the partnership and opportunities to build capability within your HR team.

The post Building AI confidence and capability: what Australian and New Zealand employers can do next appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Passive aggression can be part of a pattern of counterproductive behaviour that Hogan calls Leisurely. While an attitude of pleasant cooperation is a great asset in a leader or coworker, it can become a liability when it conceals negative emotions and affects engagement and productivity.

Signs of Passive-Aggressive Leadership

Hogan assesses three aspects of personality: the bright side (everyday personality), the dark side (potential derailers), and the inside (motives and values). The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) describes derailers, or the dark side of personality. These are behaviours that can become counterproductive in times of stress, pressure, complacency, or boredom. This is derailment. On a day-to-day basis, they may be strengths, but when derailment occurs, they can damage careers. The Leisurely scale measures behaviours ranging from cooperative and openly expressive to independent and quietly resistant. At their best, people with high Leisurely scores may seem agreeable, diplomatic, and easy to work with. They tend to protect their own time and pace and value their independence. At their worst, they may seem stubborn, uncooperative, and resentful of interruptions or oversight. Leisurely is one of the 11 derailers Hogan measures using the HDS.

Because Leisurely people can feel resentful toward authority and annoyed by interruptions, they may distance themselves from others, cause productivity delays, and pursue private agendas. They’ll say yes but mean no. Over time, failure to follow through on commitments damages their reputations and relationships.

How Passive Aggression Causes Team Dysfunction

A leader’s passive-aggressive behaviour undermines their team’s trust and effectiveness. Something as small as making others wait for them can create interpersonal friction over time. Routinely saying one thing and doing another damages team psychological safety. The key is the difference between what is shown and what is felt.

Others may perceive such a leader as stubborn, sulky, and irritable when the negative feelings they usually conceal start affecting their behaviour in extreme ways. For instance, they procrastinate or dismiss deadlines for work they think is unimportant. Or they produce work that is well below their capabilities. They might resist complying with requests or feedback, feel resentful when interrupted, or serve their own interests instead of the team’s.

Undependable behaviour in a leader teaches their team not to rely on them. When asking for help provokes retaliatory delays, teams learn to stop asking. They stop bringing needs to the leader entirely.

How to Manage Leisurely Behaviour

With strategic self-awareness, Leisurely leaders can preserve their independence and diplomacy while ensuring their yes actually means yes. Leisurely leaders often hold priorities for themselves that differ from those of the team, department, or organisation. They may resist leadership development unless persuaded that change will benefit them. An exercise that surfaces shared goals and values can help reconnect a Leisurely leader to the team’s mission.

Open communication is one of the most effective ways to address Leisurely behaviour. Building boundary-setting skills can help a passive-aggressive leader recognise when saying no is appropriate. Likewise, building assertiveness skills can help them say no professionally. Roleplaying with a Hogan-certified coach helps the leader explore safe ways to express frustration or annoyance in the workplace.

To gain trust through reliability, leaders with Leisurely tendencies should set achievable due dates and share these with their team. Making fewer commitments overall—and keeping the ones they do make—builds the reliability that earns trust.

Expert Contributor

Jaclyn Menendez, PhD, is a consulting manager on the talent solutions team at Hogan Assessments.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post How to Work Successfully with Passive-Aggressive Leaders appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Alexander Haslam, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Queensland, recently coauthored a paper about the axioms of zombie leadership.¹ The research offers some insight to reduce the influence of zombie leadership’s myths.

What Is Zombie Leadership?

The concept of zombie leadership was inspired by Zombie Economics by John Quiggin.² Quiggin observed that the field of economics is full of ideas that have been refuted academically but still influence the decision-making of policymakers and other economists. Disproven ideas also persist in leadership practices. To describe the philosophy of zombie leadership, Haslam and his coauthors compiled eight core axioms, expressed as absolute statements that research has debunked:

1. Leadership is all about leaders.
2. There are specific qualities that all great leaders “have.”
3. There are specific things that all great leaders do.
4. We all know a great leader when we see one.
5. All leadership is the same.
6. Leadership is a special skill limited to special people.
7. Leadership is always good, and it is always good for everyone.
8. People can’t cope without leaders.

According to Haslam, the golden axiom of zombie leadership is that leadership is all about leaders. “We’re fixated on leaders and their character, but leadership as a process is about a relationship between leaders and the groups they lead. Fundamentally, it’s proved by the followership of others,” Haslam said.

As the axioms demonstrate, the characteristics of successful leaders are not one-size-fits-all. Successful leaders vary in skills and experience. Haslam pointed out that individuals shape their context and are shaped by it. This dynamic, he says, gets lost when personality is treated as fixed and predictive. Leadership itself depends on others choosing to follow, not on a leader’s individual traits.

Zombie Leadership vs. Effective Leadership

So, what keeps zombie leadership alive? It’s a systemic issue perpetuated in the leadership-industrial complex, popular media, and society at large. Leadership development, for instance, is an $80 billion global industry that often makes assumptions about leadership qualities and behaviours.

To provide an example from the media, Haslam pointed to team sports commentary to show how the zombie model of leadership informs our views of coaches and teams. After a significant victory or outstanding performance, the press typically wants to lionize the coach for the team’s achievement. “People who are good at leadership recoil from that,” Haslam observed. Instead, they direct recognition to the team’s effort.

How does the zombie-type coach respond? “Yes, it was me. I’m actually rather good, aren’t I? Thank you very much,” Haslam quipped. He called out self-aggrandisement at the expense of the team as a red flag.

When people gain power, their influence can become destructive. In fact, nearly everyone who has ever had a boss knows the chaos and unhappiness that can ensue when a leader uses power to prioritise personal interests above those of the group. People don’t want to follow leaders like that.

Although organisations continue to select leaders who seem charismatic or leaderlike, effective leadership is the ability to build and maintain a team that performs well relative to its competition. Leadership depends upon the team’s willingness to follow; the act of leading necessitates others who choose to follow. Haslam said the assumption that leadership resides in the individual is unrealistic. “You need that group process for leadership to manifest itself,” he explained.

The Usness of Leadership

Haslam described leadership as the process of influencing group members to contribute to the group’s goals. Under this definition of leadership, widely held in similar forms throughout academic literature, a leader’s power stems from the actions of others, not from their own achievements. When successful, this process of influence often takes the form of shared decision-making, responsibility, and relationships—far from dictatorial orders.

When people gain power by accomplishing work through others, the leaders are more effective and their followers more successful. “Leaders are people who create, advance, represent, and embed a sense of us. Leadership is all about usness,” Haslam said.

Hogan research supports Haslam’s ideas about leaders, teams, and usness. Our global data show that a huge gap exists between the characteristics people want in their leaders and the leaders that organisations promote. This underscores how zombie leadership skews organisations toward the wrong leaders, as opposed to leaders that teams actually want to follow. According to Haslam, “We want people who take care of us, inspire us, motivate us, make us feel good about what we’re doing, and help us to be better.”

Individuals in power may resist this idea because it requires them to change. They would rather hold on to zombie leadership because it serves their self-interest. Haslam told a story about colleagues who spent years researching effective leadership in a certain organisation. When they presented their findings and recommendations to the C-suite, the CEO pushed their report aside and proceeded to lecture them on what leadership was. (Spoiler: It was zombie leadership.)

How to Challenge the Zombie Leadership Narrative

Zombie leadership continues to affect organisations around the globe, wherever people still believe leadership is about leaders. Academic research on leadership has remained disconnected from real-world practice. Rather than focusing on leaders as individuals, leadership research should place leaders in the context of team dynamics, assessing leadership according to team performance. Likewise, leadership development programs should focus on how to build and maintain high-performing teams. “What you want leadership development to do is to direct people towards the people that they’re trying to lead,” Haslam said.

Understand Leadership Effectiveness

Haslam criticised top organisational leaders who single-mindedly pursue influence, money, and status: “I don’t think those people are doing leadership. They’re not interested in influencing or shaping the group.”

Organisations must stop selecting leaders based on confidence and charisma. They must evaluate leaders based on the performance of their team. A leader whose team has high morale and engagement, understands and feels good about the purpose of its work, and produces results—this leader leads their team well.

Celebrate Effective Leadership

Leadership doesn’t only take place in corporations; it happens everywhere that people share a common goal. To counteract zombie leadership, we need to broaden our view of who can be an effective leader. We need to celebrate leaders who run organisations that aren’t based in boardrooms.

From families to clubs to classrooms, effective leaders make teamwork happen. Haslam suggested that a rule of thumb for identifying a good leader is someone who treats their team members with the respect and consideration they would show family members: “Fundamentally, good leadership is a democratic process in that it’s shared and distributed and we all have a role to play. We should start to run the world the way we want to run our families. If your family is functional, you’re not doing zombie leadership.”

Challenge Assumptions

Using the axioms of zombie leadership, let’s evaluate leadership effectiveness in the groups to which we belong. Question the assumptions that inform who leads and how they lead. “The organisations we’re members of are the ones that we can change,” Haslam said. “We desperately need to challenge this narrative because it’s hugely destructive.”

When others see the benefits of doing things differently, they’ll begin to support effective leadership practices. They will challenge the leadership models of more groups. Even if those who adhere to leadership myths push back, ask the difficult questions anyway.

Stay Hopeful

Better leadership—even if it’s a ten percent, five percent, or one percent improvement—will make a better world. Imagine the cascade of positive change if more leaders worked to serve their teams rather than themselves. These are not easy myths to bury, but as Haslam said, “It’s not going to happen without our effort.”

This article was adapted from episode 155 of The Science of Personality.

References

1. Haslam, S. A., Alvesson, M., & Reicher, S. D. (2024). Zombie Leadership: Dead Ideas That Still Walk Among Us. The Leadership Quarterly, 35(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2023.101770
2. Quiggin, J. (2012). Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post Is Zombie Leadership Running Your Org? appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Choosing the right assessment for selecting or developing employees can make or break the success of a talent initiative. Why bother using assessments that don’t predict performance, or that fail to resonate with your business leaders? When deciding on the right assessment for your valuable talent, pay attention to the scientific rigor with which the instruments have been tested.

Any good tool should have concrete data demonstrating its validity and reliability. Validity and reliability can tell you two general things: 1) that the assessment is measuring what you want it to, and 2) that it will reliably assess the same thing each time ensuring that the results you get aren’t a one-off.

An easy way to think about this concept is with a bullseye metaphor: The very center of the bullseye is exactly what you want to assess.

What is Validity?

Validity refers to the accuracy of the assessment. In essence, does it measure what it is supposed to measure? While there are several types of validity to pay attention to, the most important for our purposes is predictive validity.

Predictive validity tells us how accurate a tool is at predicting a certain outcome. In the case of personality assessments, a good tool will be able to predict how well someone will perform their job. Validity is typically measured with a coefficient between 0 and 11 (called the Pearson correlation coefficient). The closer to one, the more accurate the predictive power of the test. The predictive validity of the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) is .29 for predicting performance across job families. However, when the HPI is combined with the Hogan Development Survey (HDS) and Motives, Values, and Preferences Inventory (MVPI), that number jumps to .54. While this may not seem very high, a good comparison is to look at the validity for something completely unrelated.

For example, the predictive validity of ibuprofen for pain reduction is only .14. For another, more closely-related example, the correlation between structured job interviews and job performance is .18. There are many ways of measuring validity, some more useful than others. Any assessment provider worth their salt should be able to provide you with evidence of validity. If they don’t, it’s worth considering why not.

What is Reliability?

Reliability, on the other hand, refers to the consistency of the test. The reliability of an assessment can be evaluated in two broad ways: 1) internal consistency, and 2) test-retest reliability.

Test-retest reliability is a measure of consistency of responses over time. In other words, are people responding to questions the same way each time they take the test? Inconsistent responses can indicate that assessments results are not actually measuring personality, which should be relatively stable over time. Test-retest reliability uses a correlation of scores (again, using the Pearson coefficient) from a first assessment and a second assessment sometime later.

For Hogan, the short-term test-retest reliability is .81 for the HPI, .70 for the HDS, and .79 for the MVPI. Internal consistency relates to the questions that are used in each assessment. Test takers will notice that many questions appear to measure the same thing. This is on purpose. Asking a question in a few different ways helps us to ensure that we are getting an accurate measurement of the concept. Like validity, reliability scores are also measured between 0 and 1 (this time with a coefficient called Cronbach’s alpha). The closer to 1, the higher the reliability. The average internal consistency for the HPI scales is .76, .71 for the HDS, and .76 for the MVPI. 1Absolute value. Scores between -1 and 0 indicate a negative correlation.

The important thing to note is that there is no one right way to measure reliability or validity. In fact, assessment publishers should constantly be monitoring their products to ensure they maintain the accuracy that they claim. Hogan Assessments are far above industry standards with continual evaluation of our own assessments. We are partial though, and we encourage you to seek out this information with any assessment system you choose. Hogan Assessments have appeared in over 400 peer-reviewed publications to ensure that our tests are hitting the bullseye.

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Personality is the driving force behind human behaviour. At PBC, we eat, sleep, and breathe personality psychology. We study the science of personality, we’ve pioneered the use of personality tests to improve workplace performance, and our tests evaluate all aspects of personality: the bright side, the dark side, and the inside. But we also understand that not everyone knows personality like we do, and that’s why we put together this guide to help you develop your expertise.

What is personality?

While there are many definitions of personality, our perspective on the subject derives from socioanalytic theory, which integrates interpersonal theory with evolutionary psychology.

Socioanalytic theory assumes that human nature is characteristically social. People always live in groups, which always have a hierarchy with a well-defined structure of power and a leader. People need to have a system of meaning, such as religion, philosophy, or science, that helps them make sense of the world. As a consequence of these three things, people will always have three main motives: getting along with others (i.e., cooperation), getting ahead of others (i.e., competition), and finding meaning. Personality is what determines how people work toward those goals and the extent to which they achieve them.

More specifically, three components of personality shape our interactions: identity, reputation, and social skill. Identity is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves—it’s the person you think you are. While there might be some takeaways in how we perceive ourselves, we are usually wrong. We often have an inflated idea of our own talent, or we might be unnecessarily hard on ourselves.

Reputation, on the other hand, is what everyone else thinks of us, and it’s based on our overt behaviours and social skills. Your reputation is the person other people think you are. Your success in the workplace is dependent on your reputation, and this is the part of personality that the best personality tests are based on.

Does personality change over time?

If changes to someone’s personality do occur, they happen very slowly. Individual behaviour can change on a day-to-day basis, but personality refers to behavioural patterns that we see consistently over time. It’s helpful to think about the following analogy about the weather to describe personality changes. While we can’t predict daily weather very accurately, we have an idea of what’s likely to happen. It’s much easier to predict regional and seasonal weather patterns. Like the daily weather, behaviour can change moment to moment and context to context. But personality is more like the regional and seasonal weather, where it takes time to see change.

Think about development coaching. You have a reputation for behaving a certain way, but through coaching, those behaviours can change. It’s just going to take time before others notice, and those changes aren’t going to deviate much from your natural tendencies. Personality is quite stable; that is, people do not change very much once they reach a certain age.

Scores from personality tests also can be quite stable when the assessment is well constructed. A person retaking a quality personality test will get very similar results most of the time, while retaking a poorly made personality test can have dramatically different results. But just like scores on many other types of tests, including cognitive ability tests and certain medical tests (e.g., blood pressure), personality assessment scores can fluctuate, even over short intervals. At Hogan, we’ve found that fluctuating scores on reassessments typically fall within two points of the original assessment score. This degree of variation does not usually affect the interpretation of the overall personality profile. In fact, when these changes do occur, they tend to be a result of a change in methodology and not reflective of a change in the individual.

How are personality tests made?

We spend a great deal of time thinking about the difference between identity and reputation when we build our personality assessments. Identity, or how we think about ourselves, is frequently changing and often self-serving, and that makes it a poor basis for building personality assessments. Reputation, or how others think about us, is often more stable and a more useful way to build personality assessments that predict job performance. The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Because reputation reflects past behaviour, reputation is the best predictor of future behaviour.

We validate our assessments by having people take those assessments. Then we ask other people who know them, such as peers, direct reports, and managers, to describe what they’re like. The assessment data and observer ratings—along with job performance review data, objective performance data, and 360-degree data—are stored in a database with personality data from several million people. Once someone has taken our assessments, we can use the information from our database to predict whether the person will be able to do a job, how they will behave on the job, and even whether they will like the job.

How do personality tests predict job performance?

Personality assessments should measure personality from the perspective of reputation, which is how others are likely to describe or experience us.

Reputation is a collection of past and present behaviours described by others, and we know it to be the best predictor of future job performance. We have found that personality helps us to describe the characteristics and behaviours that are required for or important to job performance—things like resiliency and strategic self-awareness and collaboration.

Hogan’s personality tests are based on decades of research on personality psychology and measurement, and they have been validated against external criteria, including job performance and peer ratings. This allows us to describe the reputation that a job candidate likely has in the workplace.

We also compare the way a job candidate scores to thousands of other people to determine how that person will likely behave at work. Using custom research involving job analysis, we can also create personality profiles to determine how well candidates will fit into a particular job role or organisational culture.

Are personality tests accurate? What is validity?

In the case of personality assessments, a good tool can predict how well someone will perform their job. Not all personality assessments are accurate. Because the assessment industry is largely unregulated, many personality assessments on the market do not measure what they claim.

There are two main questions that determine whether an assessment can deliver accurate results. Does it measure what it’s designed to measure? And does it measure it consistently? In short, accuracy requires evidence of validity and reliability. There are many types of validity. Criterion validity is the best type of validity to use for personality tests. Criterion validity refers to the accuracy of predicting a desired outcome. So in the case of personality tests, the outcome is predicting performance in specific jobs. Reliability refers to the consistency of the measurement.

One way that you can evaluate this consistency is with test-retest reliability. Test-retest reliability refers to consistency of measurement across multiple test administrations. For example, using a ruler to measure height will produce the same measurement every time. That’s because a ruler is a reliable measure of height. We want our personality assessments to function in the same way.

We take pride in the validity and reliability of our assessments; they have a proven track record of predicting job performance.

Do personality tests discriminate or violate privacy?

We believe that personality assessments should be valid and fair to every job candidate and we have worked hard over the past three decades to democratise access to employment. Our validation research meets the highest professional standards, which means our assessments provide equal opportunity based on occupational qualifications and have no adverse impact on the candidate.

Broad research on personality has been conducted around the globe. When we look at that research, it shows that people are quite consistent. There aren’t really meaningful differences—based on things like age, gender, or ethnicity—in how individuals score on well-validated and accurate assessments.

The Hogan assessments are used to predict and measure workplace-related outcomes. They’re not diagnostic or clinical tools, which means we don’t use them to identify or diagnose any sort of clinical disorders. Because of that, and because they are well-constructed and valid instruments, they comply with all industry and professional regulations and don’t violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Hogan’s researchers spend a lot of time and effort ensuring that our assessments are predictive of the workplace outcomes we care about, applicable to a broad audience, and non-invasive.

Can people fake personality tests?

Despite the name, personality tests are not actually tests but rather an assessment of an individual’s personality. That means that there are no right or wrong answers, so faking is extremely difficult. When you answer a personality question, it’s actually a consideration of job fit. Do you fit with that job?

Another thing to consider is what experimental studies on faking tell us. When people are instructed to fake an assessment for a particular job deliberately, they get different scores than they would have gotten by answering honestly. But in the real world, when someone is actually trying to apply for a particular position, faking has no impact whatsoever on the person’s overall scores. That is, the person won’t get better job-fit scores.

In fact, in studies we’ve done here at Hogan, we’ve found that people who try to fake on personality assessments often get worse job-fit scores than they would have gotten if they had just applied for the job and taken the assessment in a more natural way.

In sum, the big picture on faking is that it’s not really an issue for personality assessments.

How can businesses use personality tests?

Talent acquisition and talent development are two primary applications for personality tests in the workplace.

Organisations can use personality tests to determine if candidates have the key personality characteristics to be successful in a job and if they fit the company culture. Assessments can also be used to uncover performance risks, improve interview techniques, and compare candidates side by side.

In industries that have a high risk of injuries and accidents, such as construction or oil and gas, safety assessments can be used for preselection. This allows companies to hire the right people to develop a culture of occupational safety. For talent development, personality assessments can be used to identify employees’ strengths and weaknesses. Personality tests can encourage employees to take proactive steps to improve performance and help employees avoid career derailment.

What are the benefits of using a personality test?

Personality tests have many benefits for employment decisions, including identifying a match with core competencies and reducing bias in hiring.

First of all, the core competencies for most jobs are linked to personality characteristics, and a well-constructed assessment can measure those. This can be beneficial for hiring decisions as well as performance management. The benefits of hiring the right candidates and promoting the right employees can help an organisation to improve its business outcomes—for example, by increasing the bottom line and reducing turnover.

Second, while there are many valid ways organisations can identify and develop talent, personality assessments offer the unique benefit of reducing the impact of bias on personnel decisions. Personality assessments are less discriminatory than classic evaluation methods, such as interviews and cognitive assessments. By reducing the impact of bias on employment decisions, personality assessments can also promote increased diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

How can you assess a personality assessment?

You don’t have to go too deep into the science to assess a personality test. There are three things to consider: job relatedness, reliability, and validity.

Job relatedness is an important scientific and legal standard that helps determine whether an assessment measures what is important for success on the job. Job relatedness is established through the process of job analysis. The assessment provider should be able to explain how the job analysis process works and how the process supports the use of the provider’s assessments for specific purposes.

The second factor to consider is reliability, which refers to the consistency of the assessment. Does the assessment reliably measure the same thing each time? This is what ensures that the results you get from the assessment aren’t a one-off. If the assessment is supposed to measure enduring characteristics, such as extroversion, it should be able to measure the same level of those characteristics each time. Ask the assessment provider to provide evidence of the assessment’s reliability.

The third factor to consider is validity, which refers to the accuracy of the personality test. Does the test measure what it’s supposed to measure? A valid assessment is one that helps you make accurate predictions. Just like with reliability, you should ask the assessment provider for documented scientific evidence that the assessment will help you make the predictions you need to make.

Finally, while making your evaluation, remember that decisions made using assessment results affect people’s lives for better or worse. Peter Berry Consultancy is the Authorised Distributor for Hogan Assessments in Australia. Click here for certification workshop dates.

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A team under strain

Picture this: a team of 9 in the operations arm of a mid-sized financial services firm. A restructuring removed a layer of management and two colleagues, and the remaining team shared their work. A new system was due within six months to replace the one everyone was used to, and the targets stayed exactly where they were. Senior leaders called it a chance to do things differently. The team, being committed, responded the way dedicated teams do with longer hours, more meetings, more effort.

For a while, performance was stable. Then small cracks started to appear. In the corridor and on private chat, the same line kept surfacing: “we can’t keep this up.” Two people, each confident they knew what mattered most, spent a fortnight on overlapping work. When the new system did not function optimally, people went back to their old spreadsheets rather than raise it in a team meeting where concerns were now rarely aired at all. Decisions that once took a conversation took three meetings. People became protective of their workloads and frustrated with colleagues they saw as not pulling their weight, and the high performers carried an increasing share of the workload while others withdrew. Six months later, two of the strongest people had resigned, engagement had fallen, and deadlines were being missed, despite everyone working harder than ever.

It would be easy to blame the restructure, the new system or a few individuals who could not hold the line. None of these fully explain the dynamics that led to this final result. What had failed was the team’s capacity to absorb sustained pressure and adapt, and more effort did not restore it. In an environment where change had become the norm, fragility had replaced adaptability.

Why teams, and what “effective” means

All organisations experience periods of instability. This could be driven by broader forces like politics and the economy, or more localised, where perhaps there is a change in leadership or restructuring occurs. Yet regardless of the nature of these disruptions, organisations are expected to navigate uncertainty while continuing to deliver results. They lean heavily on teams to do it, for good reason. A team that works well is sharper than any one person in it, with shared perspectives in decision-making to avoid blind spots and benefit from complementary expertise.

That is a conditional claim, though. Hackman suggests that whether a team beats its members working alone depends far more on how it is set up and led than merely having the label of team.¹ So, it helps to be precise here: by a team we mean two or more people who interact, share goals and depend on one another’s work to achieve them.²

What makes such a team effective? Hackman’s answer has three parts: the people who receive the work rate that work as good, the team becomes more capable of working together over time, and its members leave better for the experience than they were before. The third part deserves attention. How many teams have you belonged to that left you energised rather than drained? Most measures of team performance stop at the first part: financial results, delivery volume, quality, etc. The second and third are where resilience often resides. A team that cannot adapt to setbacks risks poorer decisions, weaker collaboration and less innovation over time, while its members become more stressed, disengaged and exposed to burnout.

What team resilience is

Researchers define team resilience as “a team’s capacity to bounce back from adversity-induced process loss”.³ In simple terms, process loss is where team coordination and effort get disrupted due to an event that creates adversity and induces stress. Adversity need not be a global shock like a pandemic; it can be a key member or leader leaving, a regulatory change, or an operational breakdown. Team resilience in these moments has been linked to stronger team and project performance, greater team creativity and, for senior leadership teams, improved organisational outcomes such as financial performance or the organisation’s ability to adapt to new environmental requirements.⁴

At this stage, it is important to highlight two points related to the nature of team resilience. First, team resilience is not individual results averaged out across the team. A team of resilient individuals is not automatically a resilient team.⁵

Second, the research points to four collective resources a team draws on when adversity hits. In the academic literature, these four appear as team potency (collective belief they can achieve difficult things), teams’ mental models of teamwork (shared understanding of ways of working), team capacity to improvise (adapting and adjusting appropriately), and team psychological safety (the safety to speak up and take risks). Kirkman and Stoverink provide more accessible terms where needed calling the four resources team confidence, teamwork roadmaps, capacity to improvise and psychological safety.⁶ A caution is warranted here as research on team resilience is growing rather than settled. Treat what follows as a well-grounded way of thinking based on current evidence, not a settled framework.

Where the Four Horsemen come from

A team that cannot adapt through change and grow is fragile because it responds in a rigid way to what is thrown at it. Across the literature and our consulting work, we see fragility appear in four recognisable ways, where each team resource starts to erode. We call them the Four Horsemen of Team Fragility: Doubt, Drift, Defaulting and Distrust. To be clear, the four resources come from research on team resilience as noted earlier. The Four Ds are our PBC framework for describing what it can look like when those resources start to erode. They are practical indicators that help to identify trouble early, not a validated diagnostic measure.

Identifying the signs of Team Fragility

Each D is something you can observe, and each helps identify a possible shortfall in one of the four resources.

1. Team Confidence vs Doubt: “We can’t do this”

Team potency, or team confidence, is the shared belief that the group can succeed through whatever comes its way. It is a collective belief, not the sum of individual self-belief, and it matters most where people depend on each other.⁷When confidence erodes, teams can fall into Doubt, where problems feel overwhelming, initiative declines, and the team loses belief in its ability to succeed. Something to try: Confidence tends to follow evidence. Break the pressure into pieces of work the team can win, then celebrate what it has already achieved. Leaders who point only at the gap to their target usually deepen Doubt.

2. Shared Ways of Working vs Drift: everyone pulling their own way

A shared mental model of teamwork refers to a common understanding of who does what, who needs what from whom, and how decisions get made. Teams with shared models coordinate and perform better.⁸ A model built for old conditions can become no longer fit for purpose when circumstances change and the team does not revisit it. Teams can begin to Drift when this shared understanding weakens, leading to different priorities, mixed messages and poor coordination. Something to try: Redraw the roadmap out loud and together whenever conditions shift. You can also look to answer three questions together: what matters most now, who owns what, and how will we make decisions and share information?

3. Collective Improvisation vs Defaulting: retreating to the old playbook

This refers to a limited capacity to improvise rather than adapting quickly when the plan no longer fits. Defaulting is not a character flaw. Staw and colleagues showed that threat makes groups narrow their focus, tighten control and fall back on well-rehearsed responses.⁹ Expect it, forecast it, and then you are better able to plan for it. Teams lapse into Defaulting when their capability to improvise is lacking and they start relying on familiar routines, waiting for direction, or applying solutions that no longer fit the situation. Something to try: Agree in advance where people may depart from procedure without asking, and rehearse a few “what if” scenarios so that improvising is not happening for the first time under stress.

4. Psychological Safety vs Distrust: staying quiet rather than speaking up

Psychological safety is a shared belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks such as admitting an error or expressing disagreement.¹⁰ It is often mistaken for niceness, but it is really what allows hard things to be said early because there is a high-level of trust between team members. Meta-analytic evidence links it to information sharing, learning, and performance.¹¹ When psychological safety is low, teams can slip into Distrust, where people protect themselves by withholding information, avoiding challenge and remaining silent about emerging issues. Something to try: Leaders need to go first by naming their own uncertainty, asking directly for dissent, and treating the first piece of bad news heard as information, not an accusation. How it is received sets the norm for whether the next issue or concern is shared.

How the Horsemen feed into each other

The Four Horsemen are symptoms of a shortfall in the underlying resource. The symptoms also feed one another; for example, a team that stops sharing information (Distrust) loses sight of shared priorities (Drift). A team that has drifted misses what has changed and retreats to routine (Defaulting). Routine fails to fit the problem, setbacks accumulate, confidence within the team goes (Doubt), and people become more guarded. That sequence is our reading of what can often happen in teams, not an established causal order, but it explains why a small crack left alone can lead to a knock-on effect across the team. The Four Horsemen are not causes of fragility in themselves. They are observable signs that a team’s capacity to adapt, recover and perform under pressure may be starting to weaken.

What you can do

Team resilience is not static

It waxes and wanes, and you can develop it, so a risk identified for a team today does not have to define a team’s future. A quick fix or one-off intervention will most likely disappoint, so keep monitoring and managing. While the evidence that team resilience matters is strong, the evidence for which team-level interventions work best is still contentious, so start small, tweak and check if things change. Timing also matters. Alliger and colleagues distinguish strategies used before adversity strikes (minimising), during it (managing) and after it (mending).¹² Before adversity strikes, strengthen the four resources while doing so is cheaper. During adversity, watch for the 4 Ds and redraw the roadmap as conditions shift. Afterwards, review what happened, repair trust where it may have fractured and carry the lessons back into how the team works.

The leader’s role

Leaders shape the conditions in which the four resources grow or wear away.¹³In practice this means creating clarity on purpose and priorities (guarding against Drift), encouraging constructive challenge and learning (countering Defaulting), making progress visible so that confidence has something to rest on (mitigating Doubt), and making it safe to speak up when problems emerge (reducing Distrust).

Choosing and inheriting teams

Who is on a team may make resilience more or less likely, so selecting based on what a team needs is worth thinking about. If you have inherited a team, individual assessments can help, with some caveats. As team resilience is not the sum of individual resilience, a profile cannot tell you whether a whole team system is resilient. It can show how particular people tend to behave under pressure, and so where a pattern like Drift or Distrust is most likely to start.  

A quick self-check

If you would like a practical way to reflect on your team’s resilience, use the Four Horsemen of Team Fragility framework as a quick sense-check. You can start by asking yourself: Which of these patterns appears most often in my team today? The answer may reveal where attention and conversation are needed before small issues become larger challenges. While the framework draws on current research into team resilience and effectiveness, it is not a validated diagnostic tool. Think of it as a conversation starter that can help identify areas worth exploring more deeply. If you would like to go further, at PBC we work with leaders on team effectiveness, coaching, psychometric assessment and facilitated team interventions designed to strengthen a team’s ability to adapt, recover and perform under pressure.

Andrew Morris

Principal Consultant

The post The Four Horsemen of Team Fragility: Spotting the Signs That Your Team May Be Unravelling appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

The SHRM Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge® (SHRM BASK®), formerly the SHRM Body of Competency and Knowledge® (SHRM BoCK®), represents the evolution of the SHRM Competency Model by further defining the knowledge areas in addition to the behavioral competencies. The SHRM BASK was developed through a series of large-scale research studies that incorporated the viewpoints of thousands of HR professionals from around the world. It was most recently updated in 2021, and now includes nine behavioral competencies as well as one technical competency.

In addition to describing the HR field, the SHRM BASK is used to define the content areas of SHRM’s certification examinations: the SHRM Certified Professional (SHRM-CP®) exam for HR professionals in operational roles and the SHRM Senior Certified Professional (SHRM-SCP®) exam for senior-level HR professionals in strategic roles. The two SHRM credentials provide reliable indicators to the global business community that the credential-holder is a recognized expert and leader in the HR field with the necessary capabilities in both aspects of HR practice—competencies and knowledge—that are required for effective job performance.

Further, the SHRM BASK is also the common framework for the item writers who develop SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP exam questions, as well as individuals and organizations developing exam preparation materials. SHRM’s own operations for exam development are separate and independent from its operations for study material development. SHRM observes a strict firewall between these activities to protect the integrity and credibility of the certification exams.

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