Designed using a proven approach for teaching adult learners, this system helps you understand, apply, and engage with behavioral competencies and HR knowledge. Interactive study tools are combined with online learning modules based on the SHRM BASK® to test your knowledge and decision-making skills.

There’s no better way to successfully prepare you for the SHRM certification exams.

1. ASSESS & PLAN

Enter your projected exam date and complete four short pre-tests to establish your current understanding of SHRM BASK® topics and identify your knowledge gaps. Then watch as the Certification Prep System creates your customised study plan. You can sync your personal study plan with the course syllabus throughout your studies.

2. STUDY & LEARN

Your instructor helps lead you through your personalised study plan, designed to help you complete your studies in the most efficient way possible. Topic cards show each topic in your plan and your progress. Click on a card to access online reading content, audio segments, and interactive study tools. Simply click the “+” or “-” sign to add or remove cards to modify your study plan.

3. APPLY & REINFORCE

Put your learning to the test with more than 2,700 online practice questions and a wide range of engaging tools that include flashcards, quizzes, and more. Based on the results of your quizzes, the Certification Prep System will either guide you forward to the next topic or provide you with content and resources for more in-depth review.

4. REVIEW & SUCCEED

Finalise your studies with test-taking tips and a timed, 134-item practice exam to ensure you’re ready to pass the SHRM Certification exam.

Topics Covered

Study with learning modules that provide an in-depth exploration of the knowledge domains and behavioral competencies tested on the SHRM exams.

COMPETENCIES

Leadership

• Leadership & Navigation
• Ethical Practice
• Inclusive Mindset

Interpersonal

• Relationship Management
• Communication

Business

• Business Acumen
• Consultation
• Analytical Aptitude

PEOPLE

• HR Strategy
• Talent Acquisition
• Employee Engagement & Retention
• Learning & Development
• Total Rewards

ORGANIZATION

• Structure of the HR Function
• Organizational Effectiveness & Development
• Workforce Management
• Employee & Labor Relations
• Technology Management

WORKPLACE

• Managing a Global Workforce
• Risk Management
• Corporate Social Responsibility

The post SHRM Certification Prep System Course Details 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.

The post What is the SHRM BASK? appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Although burnout is the result of unmanaged chronic workplace stress,² it’s not an exclusively individual problem. It’s also an organisational phenomenon with organisational causes and remedies. Due to this complexity, among other reasons, burnout is not a simple issue to address. Still, many talent professionals are tasked with the challenge of retaining and engaging burned-out workers—sometimes while facing burnout themselves.

Read on to discover causes of employee burnout, individual differences in burnout, and how personality can help with recognising and managing employee burnout.

Causes of Employee Burnout

Two of the greatest causes of employee burnout have to do with organisational environment and expectations. Employees experiencing a toxic workplace environment are more likely to report burnout and leave their employers.³ Behaviours that contribute to a toxic workplace environment include the abusive, discriminatory, or unethical speech and actions of leaders and peers. Another driver of burnout is the systemic imbalance that causes organisational demands to exceed individual resources, such as when layoffs reduce team size without any adjustment to the team’s required work product.³ This condition leads to unreasonable expectations, overwork, and heightened stress for employees. These issues lie within the responsibility and control of organisations.

While the causes of employee burnout are often organisational, individual differences in personality can explain how burnout affects behaviour. This is why understanding personality is an important metric in understanding burnout. Insights from certain well-validated personality assessments can help leaders, coaches, and talent professionals assist organisations in recognising burnout.

Individual Differences in Employee Burnout

Although burnout can happen to anyone, how likely, quickly, or noticeably burnout might happen varies by person.

Two of Hogan’s three personality assessments can help explain who is most likely to burn out and what kind of behaviours they are likely to exhibit during burnout. The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) provides data about seven bright-side personality characteristics, which are the qualities that facilitate a person’s ability to get along with others and achieve goals. The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) assesses 11 dark-side personality characteristics, or derailers. Dark-side personality characteristics are typically strengths that, when overused, can interfere with professional reputations and careers. Overuse of these behaviours tends to occur when a person stops self-managing due to stress, overwhelm, complacency, or burnout.

Hogan researchers have identified relationships between burnout and scores on the HPI and HDS assessments. Specifically, low scores across the seven HPI scales correlate to burnout, and eight of the 11 HDS scales correlate to burnout.

Hogan Personality Inventory

All the HPI scales were significantly and negatively associated with burnout. The higher that people scored on an HPI scale, the less they reported burnout. Put another way, greater experiences of burnout were related to lower scores on HPI scales. Since it’s typical for people to have at least one low HPI scale, these results affirm that burnout can happen to anyone. If someone seems burned-out, their lower HPI scores could offer insight. Knowing the relationship between personality characteristics and burnout, talent professionals can help people better understand the factors contributing to their burnout.

To put this into perspective, Hogan research demonstrates that low scores on the Adjustment and Ambition scales have the strongest correlations to burnout among all the HPI scales. For instance, someone with a low Adjustment score may be more stress prone and less resilient. If they feel burned-out, they might need to reflect on whether they’ve been experiencing a lot of recent changes and stress. As another example, someone with a low Ambition score may prefer to pursue realistic goals versus difficult challenges. They might need to reflect on whether they’ve been challenged with leadership situations at work beyond their comfort zone.

Hogan Development Survey

Dark-side characteristics are also associated with burnout.⁴ Of the HDS’s 11 scales, scores high on the Excitable and Cautious scales but low on the Bold scale are most strongly correlated to burnout.⁵

Unlike the HPI correlations, the HDS correlations are not all negative. Some HDS scales were positively related to burnout, particularly in the Moving Away cluster of scales. This cluster includes Excitable, Sceptical, Cautious, Reserved, and Leisurely. During derailment, people who score high in the Moving Away cluster tend to withdraw from others. They might act emotionally temperamental, suspicious, risk averse, aloof, or resentful. Among the Moving Away scales, high scores on the Excitable and Cautious scales showed the strongest correlations to burnout:

• High Excitable – The Excitable scale relates to passion, energy, and drive; however, that same passion can also contribute to burnout.⁶ The Excitable scale is strongly correlated with the HPI Adjustment scale. This further demonstrates that individuals who have difficulty managing stress and emotions may report greater experiences of burnout.
• High Cautious – The Cautious scale relates to risk aversion and fear of failure. This HDS scale correlates with HPI Ambition, supporting the notion that individuals who are less comfortable making decisions and taking initiative are more likely to report greater experiences of burnout.

On the other hand, significant negative correlations to burnout appeared in the cluster of scales called Moving Against. This cluster includes Bold, Mischievous, Colourful, and Imaginative. Those who score high in the Moving Against cluster tend to overengage with others. They can seem excessively confident, risk taking, attention seeking, or eccentric. Among the Moving Against scales, Bold, Colourful, and Imaginative showed significant negative correlations to burnout. A negative correlation indicates those with high scores on these scales may be less likely to report burnout, whereas those with low scores may be more likely. Of the three scales, low scores on the Bold scale showed the strongest correlation to burnout:

• Low Bold – As an everyday strength, Bold relates to confidence and assertiveness. During derailment, those who score high on the Bold scale tend to seem aggressive, ambitious, and arrogant. Their belief in their abilities can contribute to a high level of resilience, which might mitigate feelings of burnout.⁵ Therefore, someone with a low Bold score who lacks confidence may be more likely to report greater experiences of burnout.

Burnout might not always be visible. Especially among people with Moving Away derailers, burnout can be difficult for even seasoned talent professionals to detect. Organisations should be proactive about remedying systemic factors in burnout and ensuring their cultures support employee well-being.

How to Manage Employee Burnout

Because burnout is associated with increased mental distance from work,² the ensuing disengagement can be expensive. Absenteeism and decreased productivity from disengaged employees can cost organisations 34% of each burned-out worker’s annual salary.⁷ Organisational intervention is essential to rescue employees from the occupational phenomenon that is damaging to both well-being and profitability.

Such interventions include gathering personality data and educating the workforce about personality characteristics and burnout. Leaders especially need to recognise signs of burnout and build work environments in which burnout is a safe topic of discussion.

Communication

Another meaningful intervention is transparent communication. This is a two-part endeavour. One element is to acknowledge that the nature of work has recently changed and that we all are likely to continue to perform work in a VUCA environment (that is, a work environment characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). The other element is to set realistic expectations for leaders and workers so that employee daily stress can decrease from its current global level of 44%.¹

Surveys

Implementing an engagement survey to ask employees what they need and want can also help organisations apply targeted interventions. For example, by using a combination of survey data and personality assessment data, a healthcare organisation learned that one category of practitioners desired more recognition. By understanding that group’s particular values and drivers, the organisation was able to be direct and specific in its remedy of providing public acknowledgement.

Leadership Development

One of the best interventions for burnout is to invest in leadership development. Effective leaders build and maintain high-performing teams by promoting strategic self-awareness in themselves and team members. Understanding the role of personality in the workplace can reveal how leaders themselves react to stress and pressure. Those same leader personality characteristics, such as coping with stress or taking initiative, have a huge effect on workplace culture and employee well-being.

In these and other interventions, personality data are key to knowing how to support and retain burned-out workers and leaders. If layoffs do reduce team size, for example, leaders who recognise the personality strengths and limitations of their team members will more effectively redefine goals and reallocate work. They will also be vigilant for and sensitive to different signals of stress from individual team members.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post Employee Burnout: Do You Know It When You See It? appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Global insights, professional recognition and practical capability development come together to help HR professionals drive stronger organisational outcomes.

Peter Berry Consultancy (PBC) has announced a new partnership with SHRM, the world’s leading authority on work, workers and workplaces, giving organizations across Australia and New Zealand access to a global professional community, internationally recognised certifications, leading research and practical resources designed to strengthen their impact.

For many years, PBC has partnered with HR functions to help address leadership, culture, organisational effectiveness and workforce challenges. Through this partnership, PBC is extending that support beyond organisational outcomes and investing directly in the capability, credibility and professional growth of HR practitioners themselves.

As workforce expectations evolve and organisational challenges become more complex, HR professionals are increasingly expected to shape strategy, influence leaders and drive business performance. The PBC-SHRM partnership aims to help practitioners meet those expectations with greater confidence, capability and influence.

Helping HR Professionals Create Greater Impact

Through SHRM membership and development pathways, HR professionals gain access to:

• A global community of HR professionals and thought leaders.
• Leading research and insights on work, workers and the workplace.
• Practical tools, frameworks and resources that support better people decisions.
• Continuous professional development and learning opportunities.
• Internationally recognised certifications that build credibility and career progression.
• Global perspectives on emerging workforce, leadership and organisational trends.

Combined with PBC’s expertise in leadership, organisational psychology and organisational effectiveness, these resources help HR professionals strengthen their strategic contribution and deliver greater value to the organisations they support.

SHRM Certifications Delivered Locally

Beginning in early 2027, PBC will deliver preparation programs for SHRM’s globally recognised certification credentials:

• SHRM-CP® (SHRM Certified Professional) for HR professionals delivering people practices and operational HR support.
• SHRM-SCP® (SHRM Senior Certified Professional) for experienced HR leaders responsible for strategic workforce and organisational outcomes.

Programs will be facilitated by SHRM-certified PBC practitioners and delivered both virtually and in person across Australia and New Zealand.

Expressions of interest are now open, with the first cohorts planned for early 2027. A joint SHRM-PBC webinar will also be held in October 2026 to explore emerging workforce trends and the future capabilities needed by HR professionals.

Industry Perspectives

“As the role of HR continues to evolve, professionals need access to globally relevant capabilities, networks and insights that help them create value for their organisations,” said Achal Khanna, CEO – SHRM APAC & MENA. “This partnership will connect HR professionals across Australia and New Zealand with SHRM’s global resources, certification pathways and professional community, supporting their development and strengthening their impact in the workplace.”

Emma Berry, Director at Peter Berry Consultancy, said the partnership reflects PBC’s long-standing commitment to supporting the profession.

“For many years, we’ve worked alongside HR and People & Culture teams to help them deliver outcomes for their organisations. This partnership gives us the opportunity to invest directly in the professionals behind that work, supporting their development, credibility and impact.”

“HR professionals are increasingly expected to influence strategy, shape culture and lead organisational change. Through SHRM’s membership community, certifications, research and global expertise, combined with PBC’s practical experience supporting organisations across Australia and New Zealand, we can help practitioners strengthen both their capability and their influence.”

For more information about PBC’s partnership with SHRM, visit https://peterberryconsultancy.com/shrm

Certification course content reflects the SHRM Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge (SHRM BASK®). This course of study will in no way guarantee or assure success on the SHRM-CP or SHRM-SCP exam. Students must use the most recent edition of the SHRM educational products for this course and may not use outdated materials.

About Peter Berry Consultancy (PBC)

Founded in 1990, Peter Berry Consultancy is a leadership advisory firm specialising in personality assessment, leadership development and organisational effectiveness. Combining evidence-based diagnostics with expert consulting, PBC helps organisations make better decisions about talent, strengthen leadership capability, improve team effectiveness and build succession pipelines. PBC is the developer of the Hogan 360 Suite and High Performing Teams Assessment (HPTA), and the authorised distributor of Hogan Assessments across Australia and New Zealand.

About SHRM

SHRM is the global authority on work, workers, and the workplace. With nearly 340,000 members in 180 countries, we’ve been shaping the HR profession for more than 75 years – helping organisations create better workplaces and empowering workers to thrive.

Our work touches the lives of more than 362 million workers and their families worldwide. By improving the workplace, we’re not just helping businesses succeed, we’re helping organizations navigate the real complexities of work at every level to create a better world.

Media contact: Sally Foot, Head of Marketing

Email: marketing@peterberryconsultancy.com

Web: www.peterberryconsultancy.com

The post SHRM and PBC Partnership appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

The Pervasive Problem of “People Problems”

Hogan’s research highlights that leaders can spend a disproportionate amount of their time dealing with employee issues. This is supported by data from the Center for Creative Leadership, which surveyed 48,000 leaders across 7,000 organisations.

Their findings indicated that “other people issues”, or people problems, are the number one challenge faced by leaders today across all levels, from frontline supervisors to executives.

These “people problems” primarily fall into two categories:

• Attracting Talent: Over 75% of global CEOs are concerned about finding enough talent to fill necessary roles
• Retaining and Engaging Talent: Leaders struggle to keep top talent motivated and engaged. Employee engagement is a critical predictor of turnover, absenteeism and productivity. Gallup reports that one-third of global employees are actively disengaged, meaning they may actively disrupt business and create problems. These talent issues are particularly significant in service-based industries, such as investment or consulting firms, where people are central to the organisation’s value proposition

Understanding the “Base Rate of Bad Employees”

While there’s extensive research on leadership failure (60-75% of leaders fail to create high-performing teams, a rate unchanged in 40 years), less data exists on the base rate of “bad employees”. Existing estimations vary: one-third are actively disengaged, Pareto’s 80/20 rule could suggest 80% are under-contributing, and the Society for Human Resource Management estimates around 10% of the workforce are toxic employees.

A crucial distinction often missed in research is between incompetent employees and toxic employees.

Incompetent Employees: The “Free Riders”

Incompetent employees are defined as workers who leave work for others to complete but don’t create additional work. Using a “coffee cup” analogy, they don’t drink their share, but they don’t add more coffee or spill it. A prime example is the “free rider” problem, common in group settings where some individuals benefit from others’ efforts without contributing equally. This phenomenon leads to disengagement among those who do contribute, as they feel less motivated to exert effort in subsequent rounds.

Hogan utilises two performance models to assess competence:

1. General Employability: Focuses on people skills (getting along, building relationships), learning skills (adapting, quick learning), and work ethic (reliability, dependability). These three skills are highly predictive of performance across most jobs
2. Job-Specific Profiles: Hogan has identified nine job families and created specific personality profiles that predict performance in those roles (e.g., managers, executives, customer support)

Based on these models, an analysis of 60,000 global job applicants revealed that almost 3% of employees had a “highly unemployable” profile, failing to pass a single one of Hogan’s ten employability or job-family profiles. This group represents the bare minimum base rate of incompetent employees, characterised by emotional erraticism, insubordination, and a lack of drive. Managing such employees requires highly specific instructions, constant reminders, and error correction, suggesting they are best placed in roles where performance is not critical.

Toxic Employees: The “Coffee Spillers”

Toxic employees, in contrast, are defined as people who create additional work or problems that need to be solved. In the coffee cup analogy, they pour more coffee into the cup, causing it to overflow and create spills that others must clean up. Toxic behaviours include bullying, harassment, micromanaging, dishonesty, manipulation, narcissistic behaviour, and causing threats or danger to others. These behaviours often overlap with “counterproductive workplace behaviours” like theft or inappropriate acts.

Hogan’s research suggests that toxic workers often combine lower emotional resilience and impulse control with a tendency to be socially dominant, attention-seeking, and sceptical of others. Unlike less capable workers, they may still be ambitious, but this energy can be directed in unproductive or even destructive ways, especially when combined with overconfidence or a willingness to take unnecessary risks.

Hogan’s research estimates that about 6% of the global working population possess numerous traits of a toxic employee.

The Astronomical Cost of Toxic Employees

Hiring a “bad” employee is incredibly costly. David Jones’s 25-year-old book, “The Million-Dollar Hire,” estimated that a $100,000 salary represents a $1 million investment when accounting for salary, benefits, training, overhead, and replacement costs.

More specifically, research by Houseman and Miner on 50,000 workers demonstrated that avoiding a toxic worker saves an organisation $12.50 for every $1 invested. This is significantly more valuable than hiring a superstar, which yields between $1.95 to $4.88 for every $1 invested. In fact, it takes three to five superstars to offset the negative impact of just one toxic worker. Hogan’s analysis further revealed that while top performers generate 7-19% additional revenue beyond their compensation, toxic employees create an additional cost of 44% on their compensation. These costs are often hidden because toxic workers may also have strengths that management clings to, overlooking the disengagement and turnover they cause.

Scaled up, the cost of toxic employees is staggering:

• United States: Estimated at $286 billion annually
• Australia: Estimated at $38.7 billion annually
• Globally: Almost $1 trillion annually due to just 6% of the population

Solutions: Assessment, Development, and Leadership

The solution to combatting toxic employees lies in a multi-faceted approach.

• Personality assessments are designed to measure enduring personality characteristics that predict a wide range of workplace behaviours and outcomes, including job performance and leadership style. Research shows that certain personality profiles can also be associated with counterproductive or disruptive behaviours when expressed in extreme ways. Using validated personality assessments early in the selection process helps organisations make better-informed hiring decisions and reduce the risk of problematic workplace behaviours, while maintaining fairness and predictive accuracy
• Coaching and Development: While toxic behaviour is difficult to “fix” due to the stability of personality, coaching can be effective for individuals who display only one or two toxic-related behaviours. The approach is to raise self-awareness and discuss desired impact to encourage behavioural change
• Avoiding and Offboarding: The most effective strategy is to avoid hiring toxic workers. For existing toxic employees, offboarding is a valuable step that many managers miss due to the “brilliant jerk scenario” where perceived strengths (e.g., high sales numbers) overshadow the hidden costs
• Leadership Responsibility: Leaders play a central role as they are responsible for hiring, supporting, and addressing toxic behaviours. Their actions and the culture they foster can either perpetuate or mitigate toxicity within the organisation

Key Takeaways

• Employee quality is the number one issue for leaders
• Incompetence (3% bare minimum base rate) and toxicity (6% bare minimum base rate) are distinct problems; incompetent employees require backup, while toxic employees create additional work and problems.
• The economic cost of toxic employees is immense, reaching billions nationally and almost $1 trillion globally
• High-quality assessments are the most effective tool to identify and combat toxic employees

The post The Hidden Cost of Toxic Employees – Why “People Problems” Are Every Leader’s Biggest Challenge appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

The question is no longer simply, what can AI do? It is also, what will humans need to do exceptionally well?

Hogan research highlighted five human capabilities expected to become increasingly valuable in an AI-enabled workplace:

1. Judgement
2. Interpersonal skill
3. Originality
4. Adaptability
5. Character

For organisations thinking about leadership, talent and workforce capability, these five areas raise an important question: can we understand them through personality?

The answer is yes, but with an important caveat.

None of these capabilities can be reduced to a single personality dimension. They are complex workplace behaviours that emerge from combinations of personality characteristics, motivations and behavioural tendencies.

That is where a comprehensive personality framework such as the frameworks underpinning Hogan’s personality assessments becomes particularly valuable. Rather than searching for a single score that represents “good judgement” or “adaptability”, we can examine the broader patterns that influence how an individual is likely to approach decisions, relationships, change and responsibility.

Judgement: Understanding how people make decisions

Judgement is perhaps the most complex of the five capabilities.

There is no single Hogan scale that tells us whether somebody will consistently exercise good judgement. Instead, personality helps us understand the tendencies and potential biases that shape how a person approaches decisions.

For example:

• Higher Bold may be associated with greater willingness to take risks and assume positive outcomes.
• Higher Colourful may increase the attraction of decisions that create visibility, impact or attention.
• Higher Cautious may contribute to hesitation when decisions involve uncertainty or potential downside.
• Higher Learning Approach may increase the desire to gather information and build understanding before acting.

Two leaders may reach the same decision for very different reasons. One might move quickly because of confidence and optimism, while another might act only after extensive analysis. Both approaches can be effective in the right environment and problematic when overused.

Personality data therefore gives organisations a richer way to explore the question: what is likely to influence this person’s judgement, particularly when the situation is ambiguous, high-pressure or unfamiliar?

Interpersonal skill: The personality foundations of EQ

As technology takes on more analytical and transactional activities, the ability to work effectively with other people is likely to become even more valuable.

Within the Hogan framework, two scales are particularly important when considering interpersonal effectiveness:

• Adjustment
• Interpersonal Sensitivity

Together, these provide a strong foundation for understanding emotional intelligence.

Adjustment provides insight into emotional stability, resilience and the way an individual is likely to respond under pressure. Interpersonal Sensitivity reflects tact, warmth, consideration and attentiveness to others.

Other personality characteristics can add further context.

For example, Sociability may support networking and relationship building, while very high levels may also create a tendency to dominate conversations or listen less. Reserved may influence whether someone appears distant or detached under pressure. Affiliation can help us understand the extent to which an individual values social connection and opportunities to interact with others.

This reinforces an important principle of personality assessment: effective interpersonal behaviour depends on how characteristics combine, rather than whether a person is simply “high” or “low” on one trait.

Originality: Where new ideas begin

Of the five capabilities, originality has one of the clearest personality patterns.

Two Hogan dimensions are particularly relevant:

• Inquisitive
• Imaginative

Inquisitive reflects curiosity, openness to new possibilities and an interest in ideas, while Imaginative captures the tendency to think creatively, unconventionally and beyond established approaches.

Together, these characteristics can provide useful insight into an individual’s propensity to generate novel ideas and challenge conventional thinking.

There is also an important watch-out.

The same characteristics that support originality can, at very high levels, produce ideas that are difficult to implement or disconnected from practical constraints.

For organisations, the goal is therefore broader than simply identifying “creative people”. It is understanding how originality is likely to show up, where it will add value and what conditions may help convert novel thinking into useful outcomes.

Adaptability: Curiosity, learning and willingness to change

Adaptability is frequently discussed as a critical future-of-work capability, and personality can tell us a great deal about how readily an individual is likely to respond to change.

The strongest Hogan indicator is Learning Approach.

People who are motivated to learn are more likely to actively seek information, build new knowledge and adjust as circumstances evolve.

A number of other characteristics can contribute to adaptability, including:

• Higher Inquisitive, reflecting curiosity and openness to new ideas
• Lower Bold, reducing overconfidence in existing assumptions
• Lower Cautious, supporting greater comfort with uncertainty
• Lower Diligent, allowing more flexibility around established processes and standards
• Lower Tradition, reducing attachment to established conventions
• Higher Science, supporting interest in evidence, analysis and emerging information

Again, the value comes from considering the combination.

Adaptability is more than being comfortable with change. It involves learning, questioning assumptions, experimenting with different approaches and letting go of practices that are no longer effective.

In an AI-enabled workplace, these behaviours will become particularly important as roles, systems and expectations continue to evolve.

Character: Integrity when choices become more complex

The final capability is character.

As AI creates new possibilities for speed, scale and automation, organisations will continue to rely on people to make choices about how those capabilities should be used.

The team highlighted integrity as a central component of character, including being true to one’s word, treating people fairly and avoiding double-dealing.

Two Hogan scales are especially relevant:

• Higher Prudent
• Lower Mischievous

Higher Prudence is associated with reliability, responsibility and adherence to standards, while lower Mischievous can indicate less willingness to bend rules, test boundaries or take advantage of others for personal gain.

Motivational values also provide useful context.

Within the MVPI:

• Lower Hedonism may reduce the tendency to prioritise what is easiest, fastest or most immediately rewarding.
• Higher Altruism may increase consideration of the impact decisions have on other people.

These insights matter because character often becomes most visible when there is tension between competing priorities.

Policies and governance frameworks remain important, but organisations also need people who can exercise sound ethical judgement when the answer is not obvious.

From individual scales to patterns of behaviour

The most important takeaway from these five capabilities is that personality should not be treated as a collection of isolated scores.

Judgement is not one scale.

Interpersonal skill is not one scale.

Originality, adaptability and character are not single dimensions either.

They are multifaceted behaviours that emerge through the interaction of personality characteristics, values, strengths and potential derailers.

This is also why sophisticated personality assessment becomes more valuable as work becomes more complex.

A single trait may tell us something useful. A broader personality profile allows us to understand how different tendencies may work together, where strengths are most likely to emerge and where an individual may need greater self-awareness or support.

The human advantage in an AI-enabled workplace

AI will continue to change the activities people perform and the capabilities organisations value.

Yet the increasing importance of judgement, interpersonal skill, originality, adaptability and character points to something fundamental: the future of work will still depend heavily on understanding human behaviour.

Personality provides a powerful lens for doing that.

Through a deeper understanding of how people are likely to think, relate, learn, decide and respond under pressure, organisations can make more informed decisions about leadership development, selection, succession and workforce capability.

The opportunity is therefore greater than identifying whether someone “has” a particular future-ready capability.

It is understanding the personality patterns that shape how they are likely to demonstrate it, where it may become a strength, and what could get in the way.

As AI capability increases, that depth of human insight may become more valuable than ever.

The post The Five Human Capabilities That Matter More in the AI Era, and What Personality Can Tell Us About Them appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

At Hogan, we call this type of leader behaviour Mischievous. Someone with Mischievous tendencies is likely to seem bright, charming, impulsive, and limit testing. In leadership, risk-taking can yield positive outcomes when leaders find the right balance.

Understanding the Risk-Taking Leadership Style

The Hogan assessments measure three aspects of personality: the bright side (everyday personality), the dark side (potential derailers), and the inside (motives and values). One of our three core assessments, the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), describes the dark side of personality, or how someone is likely to behave if stress, pressure, boredom, or complacency causes them to stop self-monitoring. Dark-side characteristics, or derailers, are counterproductive behaviours that can hinder career success. Mischievous is one of the 11 derailers Hogan measures using the HDS.

The HDS Mischievous scale measures behaviours ranging from quiet and conforming to charming and risk-taking. At first impression, leaders who tend toward risk-taking behaviour can seem engaging. They usually make quick decisions, seem fearless, and avoid dwelling on mistakes, making them excellent entrepreneurs. People who score high on Mischievous will enjoy testing limits and seek out variety to alleviate boredom. They often live out the saying that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

This risk-taking style of leadership can be highly effective. Using charm to build rapport is a valuable skill for networking and engagement. Likewise, challenging rules and bypassing procedure to achieve goals can be productive. Leaders with high Mischievous behaviour must maintain balance to discern which risks are worth taking and when.

Signs of Impulsive Leadership

A Mischievous style of leadership without any checks and balances can cause lasting negative consequences for leaders’ reputations. Caricatures of risk-taking behaviour in leaders include Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones, Tyler Durden in Fight Club, and Commodus in Gladiator. These fictional portrayals show people who believe that if they don’t dominate others, they’ll be dominated. To them, breaking rules and exploiting others’ weaknesses is justifiable because they are smart or important enough to get away with it.

Leaders with risk-taking behaviour patterns can appear defiant, hasty, or manipulative at their worst. Stress or boredom can trigger a leader to deliberately bend or break inconvenient rules. Their impulsivity is compounded when they ignore or dismiss the long-term consequences of their actions. At worst, they use charm to manipulate others to advance a personal agenda.

A risk-taking leader in derailment can fracture team trust by failing to follow through, alienate good organisational citizens by ignoring limits, and lose credibility by taking irrational risks. Even though such a leader might maintain strong upward and outward relationships, direct reports are likely to see Mischievous behaviours during times when the leader isn’t self-monitoring.

How to Balance Mischievous Tendencies

Using the stop-start-continue framework, a Mischievous leader can learn to balance risk-taking tendencies.

Mischievous leaders should start identifying triggers of derailing behaviour. Many people who have high Mischievous scores hate to feel bored. A leader who is aware of their risk-taking impulses will be better equipped to exercise strategic self-awareness and manage their reputation.

They should stop viewing other people as obstacles to manage. Instead, they should start looking to them as allies. A circle of trusted peers and team members can hold Mischievous leaders accountable to their commitments, counterbalance impulsivity when needed, and share information about how others might perceive them. Assessment-based coaching can assist in designing context-specific development goals.

They should keep questioning whether rules are necessary. Often in bureaucracy, procedures are holdovers from prior leaders and may hinder progress. Mischievous behaviour can also drive innovation when it earns buy-in from others and builds excitement. The main trick is knowing when it’s too much versus just right.

Expert Contributor

Ryan Rush, PhD, is a cognitive psychologist who works as a senior consultant on the talent solutions team at Hogan Assessments.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post Risk-Taking Behavior in Leadership: Finding the Right Balance appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

The post A Focus on Australian Leaders and Business Executives appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

When not managed, perfectionism at work can turn into micromanagement. To executives, a manager who focuses on details and quality may appear ideal, but direct reports know the truth. Leaders who lean too much on perfectionism seem controlling and stubborn. This can leave employees feeling alienated, disempowered, and distrusted. At Hogan, we call this behaviour Diligent.

Signs of Perfectionism at Work

Diligent is one of 11 scales on the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), a personality assessment that measures potential derailers. A derailer is an unsustainable, maladaptive behavioural pattern. Derailment occurs when perfectionism crosses the line into micromanagement.

The HDS Diligent scale concerns a range of behaviour from relaxed, tolerant, and willing to delegate (low scores) to meticulous, picky, and critical (high scores). At their best, managers who have high Diligent scores may come across as organised, detail oriented, exact, and conscientious. They tend to set extremely high standards for themselves and others. At their worst, perfectionistic managers may seem critical and obsessive.

As individual contributors, people with high Diligent behaviour excel in attention to detail and perform at an elite level. They usually accomplish whatever they set out to achieve with excellence in goal setting and progress tracking. However, in leaders, this drive for quality can often come at the cost of relationships with their teams. When they publicly criticise employees’ performance (Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada) or harangue employees about report cover sheets (Bill Lumbergh from Office Space), their perfectionism at work has gone too far toward detail obsessed and nitpicky.

When Perfectionism Becomes a Problem

Holding high performance standards is a strength, but expecting constant perfection isn’t reasonable. Leaders with unmanaged Diligent behaviours appear rigid and inflexible about quality, details, schedules, timing, rules, and procedures. They embody the idiom about not seeing the forest for the trees: being so focused on details that they miss the broader context. This granular perspective can hold leaders back from succeeding in senior roles.

A Diligent leader’s unattainable standards can frustrate even the highest-performing team members. High Diligent behaviour can also cause a lack of ownership, growth, or development among team members. If a leader struggles to delegate, their team can lose essential experiential learning. A leader who just does the work themselves keeps employees from exercising and developing their skills. Employees may ultimately become disengaged because they simply expect their boss to redo their work. Over time, the Diligent leader might develop a reputation of being hard to work for.

How to Manage Micromanagement

Those who are prone to micromanagement should keep their commitment to quality but moderate their perfectionistic tendencies when needed.

Appropriate delegation is one of the best skills for a perfectionistic leader to practice. Trusting that others will do their work effectively, even if the work doesn’t align neatly with the leader’s personal preferences, is essential for team harmony. Delegation challenges leaders to shift their mindset from controlling processes to building capability among their team members.

Partnering with people who have complementary strengths can help mitigate perfectionism. A trusted colleague or coach, for instance, can interrupt unproductive behaviour or encourage meeting expectations instead of exceeding them. For accountability, leaders can communicate these development goals to the team and discuss responsibility adjustments and delegation.

Finally, redefining perfection will be important. As leaders advance, maintaining control over every detail is both detrimental and impossible. Senior and executive leaders must prioritise strategy rather than tactics and evaluate the results rather than the process. They must stop demanding the right way and learn to accept a good way.

Expert Contributor

Cecelia Gordon, PhD, is an industrial-organisational psychologist who works as a consultant on the talent solutions team at Hogan Assessments.

*This article originally appeared on Hogan Assessments.

The post From Asset to Liability: How Perfectionism Becomes Micromanagement appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Our new whitepaper, The Core5 Model of Leadership Effectiveness, introduces a powerful framework that distills what the very best leaders do differently. It combines years of research, Hogan Personality Assessments, Hogan 360 data, and the Hogan Competency Model to give leaders and organisations a clear roadmap to success.

The Five Core Competencies That Set Elite Leaders Apart

Through our research, we’ve identified five meta-competencies that consistently define effective leaders. Together, they form the Core5 Model of Leadership Effectiveness:

1. Credibility – Acting with integrity, reliability, and professionalism. Leaders with credibility coordinate resources efficiently and set the tone for quality and accountability.
2. Emotional Intelligence – Managing stress, showing empathy, and building strong relationships. These leaders are resilient, considerate, and skilled at bringing people together.
3. Achievement Focus – Competitive and driven, they set clear goals, push for results, and take initiative without waiting for direction.
4. Strategic – Visionary leaders who think big-picture, make smart decisions, and drive innovation, even in the face of obstacles.
5. Inspiring – Leaders who motivate and influence others, build high-performing teams, and create environments where people want to give their best.

These five dimensions are measurable and improvable, and they link directly to leadership performance

Why Leadership Matters More Than Ever

The whitepaper makes it clear: leadership is the most consequential force in business. It shapes culture, drives engagement, and ultimately determines results. As Dr. Robert Hogan says, “Leadership is a resource for the group. It should be evaluated in terms of team performance compared to other teams engaged in the same activity.”

Elite leaders don’t just manage tasks—they align people to purpose, strategy, and performance. They understand that being an employer of choice means building winning teams, enriching the customer experience, and creating workplaces where people thrive.

From Insight to Impact

The Core5 Model isn’t just theory. It’s designed to be practical, evidence-based, and actionable. Using Hogan assessments and coaching, leaders can:

• Build self-awareness and identify derailers.
• Translate 360 feedback into targeted development.
• Invest in high-performing teams as the true unit of performance.
• Drive strategic clarity and engagement across the organisation.

Download the full whitepaper to explore how the Core5 can transform leadership capability in your organisation.

The post The Core5 Model of Leadership Effectiveness appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.