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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Neurodivergence refers to differences in the way individuals analyse and process information. Neurodiversity is the view that neurological differences in people reflect normal variations in brain development. It commonly refers to conditions such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attentiondeficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and dyslexia. There has been a push in recent years to move away from the idea that these conditions are disorders that should be treated to a more nuanced perspective with variations of what is considered typical.

Why is it important to consider neurodiversity in psychological assessment?

Organisations have a moral and legal obligation to ensure that their use of psychological assessments does not discriminate against protected groups. Neurodivergent people may be protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA; 1990), meaning that an organisation legally cannot treat applicants or employees less favorably because of their qualifying disabilities. Because psychological assessments inform many employment decisions, it is critical that the assessments be free from bias and predict outcomes equivalently across protected groups. In other words, assessment items should be understood similarly across neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals, and scores on the assessments should relate similarly to outcomes (e.g., being selected for a job or promotion) across groups.

Are Hogan assessments valid for measuring psychological characteristics of neurodiverse groups?

We have no reason to expect that the validity of our personality assessments will differ for neurodivergent people. Validity concerns the degree to which our assessments predict outcomes of interest. Our assessments ask about a person’s behavioral tendencies (e.g., “I am careful about my work”) and provide fit recommendations based on tendencies that are important for success in that job. In many cases, the behavioural tendencies related to job success are empirically derived (i.e., we have done studies to show that people who score higher on a given scale perform better at a certain job). While there is limited research on this topic, there is no reason to think that the relationship between these behavioral tendencies and in-role performance would change for neurodivergent candidates.

Much of the existing research focuses on personality assessment among individuals with ASD. This research suggests that individuals with ASD often have lower levels of personality characteristics (Lodi-Smith et al., 2019), but there is not enough research to indicate if there are differences in the relationships between personality and performance (Wegmeyer & Speer, 2023). Based on our past research on assessment equivalence, as well as emerging research on the equivalence of personality assessments between individuals with and without ASD (Moon et al., 2025), we suspect that we will find small mean differences on HPI scales but similar assessment functioning and
validity of the HPI. Though research involving groups with other types of neurodiversity is limited, we expect to also see similar assessment functioning for those with ADHD or dyslexia.

Are Hogan assessments fair for measuring psychological characteristics of neurodiverse groups?

Hogan Assessments strives for fairness when measuring psychological characteristics, including for neurodivergent individuals. We focus on normal personality characteristics that predict workplace behaviors, rather than clinical or pathological characteristics. We also employ robust validation methods. While currently not specific to neurodivergence, the principles of fairness are applied consistently, likely benefiting neurodivergent populations as well.

Our approach to fairness ensures that our tools assess psychological characteristics relevant to professional success and development, minimising potential harmful biases against specific groups. Our research demonstrates that the Hogan assessments are comparable across all demographic groups tested (Hogan Assessment Systems, 2023a-g). Additionally, scale scores have been linked to performance in virtually every job in the global economy. The links between assessment scores and job performance do not differ by demographic groups (Hogan Assessment Systems, 2021); therefore, we believe our assessments would be equivalent across additional groups such as various types of neurodivergence. Accessibility features such as untimed assessments and an accessibility portal further enhance fairness for neurodivergent candidates. Our personality assessments are always untimed. We provide respondents with the accessibility portal at www.gotohogan.com/accessibility. Hogan follows
the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure our assessments are accessible to all users. These features allow for equitable participation by addressing individual needs and fostering inclusivity in the assessment process.

Can Hogan assessments be used to diagnose types of neurodivergence?

Our assessments are not clinical assessments and are specifically designed to assess typical, nonclinical, behavioural patterns. They cannot be used to diagnose any clinical conditions. We have tested our assessments alongside clinical assessments and the results indicate that our assessments are, psychometrically speaking, measuring different phenomena (Hogan Assessment Systems, 2024).

Does Hogan recommend using cognitively loaded assessments for people who self-identify as neurodivergent?

Assessments such as the HBRI or the Judgement report which are cognitively loaded or have a cognitive component were not validated on neurodivergent peoples. Due to the content and timed nature of these assessments we currently do not recommend using them for people who are neurodivergent.

What research is Hogan doing regarding neurodiversity and psychological assessment?

As of 2025, Hogan added additional optional demographic questions that can be turned on in HALO. These questions include ones about neurodivergence. Further, we are actively working with domestic organisations and Hogan distributors internationally to collect data from neurodivergent individuals. Having assessment scores from a large number of neurodivergent individuals will allow us to provide quantitative evidence showing the equivalence and validity of our assessments for this group.

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I recently encountered the following client case. An individual was identified as a rising star in his organisation. He completed the Hogan personality assessments as part of the organisation’s high potential selection process. But his assessment results were quite different from how he was described by peers. This was unusual because Hogan assessment results are designed to be consistent with peer descriptions. Our consultant asked the individual if he had received any guidance for taking the assessment, and he revealed that he had “asked ChatGPT how to respond to the assessments, in general.” According to the consultant, ChatGPT advised the candidate to “avoid extreme responses” such as “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree.” Unfortunately, this was bad advice—and the individual was not selected for the high potential program.

ChatGPT’s Advice for Responding to Personality Assessments

After hearing this story, I went to ChatGPT (4.0) and gave it the following prompt: “I am taking a personality assessment and want to get a good score for a job. It uses a ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’ rating scale. How should I respond to the items to get a good score?”

ChatGPT gave some general advice, including “The best advice is to be honest and authentic in your responses.” Then, it followed with six specific pieces of advice: (1) Understand the role and company culture, (2) consider the traits often valued across many jobs, (3) reflect on your experience, (4) avoid extreme answers unless you’re certain, (5) be consistent, and (6) practice self-reflection. Note that I’ve emphasised the fourth piece of advice here because it is similar to the client story above. (More on that shortly.)

Regarding the overall advice, I would encourage anyone to understand the role and company culture before taking an assessment—just as I would for an interview—but the rest of the advice is questionable. For example, although it seems sensible to consider traits that are valued across many jobs, most job candidates are applying for one particular job when they are asked to complete personality assessments. In many cases, a specific personality profile is optimal for that job. Trying to look like you can fit any job might mean you don’t fit the one you want.

Furthermore, the assessment advice from ChatGPT warns that many assessments check for inconsistency in responding. Although that is true, taking care to be consistent in responding to an assessment likely means overthinking it. Most people are consistent in their responses without even thinking about it. Overthinking is more likely to yield inconsistent results than simply responding naturally.

Why You Shouldn’t Avoid ‘Extreme’ Answers on Personality Assessments

I want to return to ChatGPT’s fourth piece of advice, which fully reads:

“4. Avoid Extreme Answers Unless You’re Certain: While it might be tempting to answer with “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree” to make your answers stand out, it’s often more nuanced. Unless you feel very strongly and have specific examples to back up such responses, consider whether a slightly more moderate answer might be more accurate and reflective of your true self.”

Overall, this is bad advice. First, it encourages the test taker to overthink each answer, which is a recipe for inaccuracy. Personality assessments usually advise individuals to respond in a way that feels natural to get the most accurate results. Second, personality assessments are often normed, meaning that an individual’s results reflect not only how they responded to the assessments, but how those responses compare to others’ responses. Take, for example, the Hogan Personality Inventory’s Adjustment scale, which contains 37 items, which are the statements or questions to which the test taker responds. If an individual never used the “strongly disagree” or “strongly agree” options, their minimum possible raw score would be 74, and their maximum possible raw score would be 111. Using Hogan’s global norm, these would be 0 and 62 in percentile scores, respectively. In other words, people who might avoid so-called extreme responses, as ChatGPT advises, limit their Adjustment scores to the 62nd percentile or lower.

Now, for many individuals, that may well be accurate. In fact, for some individuals it is certainly the case that they do not strongly agree or strongly disagree with many statements. That’s OK. The assessments and the norms are designed to provide accurate feedback to these individuals. Yet when an individual intentionally distorts their responses in an attempt to “beat” the assessment, it rarely works out in their favour—as the aforementioned client example shows.

This Adjustment example is just one example of how these kinds of test-taking strategies can impact assessments. How the “avoid the extremes” strategy plays out is different for each scale depending on the number of items and the norms. Nevertheless, this example should show that the advice from ChatGPT to avoid extreme responses is not optimal.

Conclusion

ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools based on large language models can be amazingly helpful. If you need help outlining an essay, building a resume, or summarising some information, these tools can provide some assistance. When it comes to factual information or good advice, you are better off using a simple web search or asking an expert. At a minimum, people need to evaluate the advice they receive from an AI tool before accepting it, just as they would evaluate a draft of an email provided by ChatGPT before sending it. And in the case of personality assessments, getting assessment advice from ChatGPT seems to do more harm than good.

*This post originally appeared on Hogan Assessments

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Why Are Ethics in Workplace Assessments So Important?

Why is the study of ethics in the use of assessments so important, and why should we continue to develop and modify existing ethical guidelines for their use? The Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology (SIOP) Committee for the Advancement of Professional Ethics states, “We depend on the trust of others in order to do our work and we don’t earn that trust without treating them honestly and respectfully (i.e., ethically).”¹ We need standard guidelines for how to handle different situations, especially those in which the best solution varies depending on specific or changing circumstances.

When guidelines don’t exist or talent management professionals do not adhere to them, decision-makers are at risk of doing harm to candidates and employees. For example, it is well known that cognitive tests have the potential for adverse impact when used as the sole factor in hiring decisions because they can bias the selection rate against protected groups of people.

For practitioners to use cognitive tests ethically and avoid discrimination, ethical codes and guidelines need to be considered. When using a cognitive test for selection purposes in an ethical manner, the practitioner must be able to demonstrate that the cognitive test is job relevant and convey that cognitive ability scores predict job performance. At Hogan, we recommend a job analysis and criterion-related validity study, as well as pairing cognitive tests with a well-validated personality assessment. Essentially, scientific evidence is necessary for cognitive tests to be used ethically in the workplace.

So what other ethical considerations do we need to keep in mind when using workplace assessments?

When Is It Appropriate to Use Workplace Assessments?

While SIOP has adopted the APA ethics code, IO psychologists are not the only ones using assessments in the workplace. Our industry colleagues include talent management professionals, consultants, coaches, and other assessment users who all need to keep ethical guidelines in mind when using workplace assessments.

If your organisation has psychologists on staff, they should support their psychological opinions with assessments that sufficiently support their theses and conclusions. However, when this is not possible, the psychologist should document the efforts taken and use the information available to them to support their opinions.²

Talent management professionals should use assessments solely for the specific purposes for which they have been validated. For example, if you know an assessment is not validated for selection use, then it would be unethical to utilize that assessment tool for selection purposes. One should be able to request the assessment’s technical manual or other documentation to confirm the purposes for which the assessment has been validated. Additionally, talent management professionals should clearly define what they’re trying to measure and should only use assessments that are aligned with that goal. Only assessments whose validity and reliability have been tested and accepted for the purposes of that goal should be used.²

How Do You Develop a Workplace Assessment?

Assessment developers should have a strong psychological background along with modern scientific knowledge of assessment design, validation, reduction of adverse impact, and recommendations for use.² Hogan’s own assessments were developed through a rigorous psychometric development process and continue to be updated through a kaizen psychometric approach.

Hogan founders Drs. Robert and Joyce Hogan used the five-factor model (FFM), the most widely agreed upon measure of personality, and socioanalytic theory to write items that reflected the FFM dimensions. Then, they pilot tested these items using undergraduate samples. The pilot testing continued until they had developed 420 items. Those became the first version of the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), which today uses seven scales and 42 subscales to assess personality. Since then, Hogan has focused on continually improving our assessments.

How Should Workplace Assessments Be Used?

When picking an assessment to use, it is best practice to describe the purpose, norms, validity, and reliability of the processes, as well as your qualifications for administering and interpreting the assessments. Qualifications may include, but are not limited to, product-specific certifications, formal or informal product training, and coaching certification. Check with your assessment provider to confirm what qualifications are required.²

In addition to using valid and reliable assessments, you should use current assessments to base your opinions and decisions. The most up-to-date assessments must serve the purpose of your use of the chosen assessment. Talent management professionals should do their ethical due diligence by asking the assessment publisher when the assessment was last updated, how frequently the assessment is updated, and what updates were made.²

When administering assessments, talent management professionals must obtain the assessment taker’s informed consent, except when a legal requirement exists, the informed consent is implied, or the purpose of the assessment is to determine decision-making ability. When using an interpreter to obtain informed consent, strict confidentiality of test results must be maintained, which includes recommendations and reports.²

After the assessment is completed, the talent management professional should be aware of all persons identified to receive test data and should not release test data to unidentified people. The ethical code is in place to prevent the misrepresentation of test data and to lawfully protect confidential information.²

What Else Should You Know About Ethics in Workplace Assessments?

If you are ever unsure of how to ethically proceed in a given situation, it’s OK! That is a good time to seek professional advice. Current Hogan clients can reach out to their Hogan consultant for assistance and guidance. Additionally, you can reach out to the CAPE committee for support with ethical decision-making and assessment use. The CAPE committee can also provide resources on developing an ethics code, teaching ethics in an academic setting, and guidelines for talent management professionals.

If you will be attending the upcoming SIOP conference, join Hogan’s Paige Brown and the CAPE committee on April 20 at 5:00 p.m. in room 209 to discuss current and future ethical issues—specifically how the integration of assessments, technology, and the workplace shape ethical considerations.

This blog post was written by Paige Brown, MBA, MA, solutions partners consultant.

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Recently on Hogan Assessment’s podcast, The Science of Personality, co-hosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, talked with Peter Harms, PhD, professor of management at the University of Alabama, about attachment styles in the workplace.

Often overlooked by organizational psychologists, attachment styles arguably influence every relationship that humans build—leading to significant impact on major organizational outcomes.

Let’s dive into this discussion about how attachment affects leaders and employees.

The Basics of Attachment Theory

“Attachment theory is considered a grand theory in personality psychology because it’s supposed to explain everything,” said Peter. The theory developed about a hundred years ago from an evolutionary perspective on infant and childhood vulnerability. As humans, we want proximity to other people who will nurture us, and when we are separated from that care, we become distressed; a baby cries when a caregiver leaves and is comforted at the caregiver’s return.

Our social nature affects everything about us: our childhood development, our interpersonal relationships, and our worldview. In short, attachment theory gets to the very roots of personality.

Quick caveat: Attachment theory by no means suggests that anyone who has experienced childhood trauma is fated to have a certain personality. Rather, it describes a lens through which people tend to interpret and react to experiences.

3 Attachment Styles

The three common attachment styles can be described in terms of behaviour when dropping off a loved one at the airport.

• Secure attachment – A securely attached person might hug or kiss their loved one and gaze after them for a few moments before leaving.
• Anxious attachment – A person with anxious attachment might embrace many times, talk of future reconnection, and not leave until necessary.
• Avoidant attachment – A person with avoidant attachment might say, “Have fun,” and leave immediately.

Attachment styles are best understood as dimensions on a continuum. People don’t have one exclusive attachment style but rather a pattern of behaviour that we generally default to. “Attachment styles are just like personality,” Peter explained. “They tend to be fairly stable, but they’re not immutable.”

In terms of the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), which measures derailers or overused strengths under stress, the two insecure attachment types loosely correspond to two scales: anxious to Colourful and avoidant to Reserved.

Attachment at Work

“Relationships are really important, and attachment is the personality psychologist’s best tool for understanding relationships,” Peter said, including relationships at work.

Secure workers tend to be more satisfied at work and have higher levels of performance in most jobs, while those who are more anxious, or avoidant express less satisfaction with work and may be more likely to engage in counterproductive workplace behaviours. The anxious people might seem disruptive and clingy, and the avoidant people might seem antisocial and uncooperative.

Attachment theory holds that all people want love and security—even on some level from our leaders and co-workers. If, for example, anxious people are paired with secure leaders who are willing to give them the attention and connection they desire, they don’t feel triggered because their fears of abandonment or betrayal are assuaged.

Secure attachment in the workplace is connected to structure and consideration. Most workers want to know what will happen, what they are expected to do every day, and that somebody at the organization cares about them. Particularly given the Great Resignation, attachment theory speaks to our need to feel connected and engaged at work. Peter suggested that, after alienating workers through relationship-destroying remote work since 2020, it is not too surprising that employees are seeking to fill a psychological need by finding workplaces where they receive appreciation.

Attachment and Leadership

Strategic self-awareness is a key component of leadership development and organizational success. Leaders who understand attachment styles can build secure workplace relationships.

Secure and avoidant leaders tend to be more readily promoted, especially avoidant leaders who may conform to highly masculine “bro company” workplace cultures that value toughness and independence. Avoidant leaders are less likely to be aware of or able to foster the connection and security that employees desire.

Anxious leaders, in contrast, might be able to create employee satisfaction and positive team dynamics, but they often struggle with discipline and direction. They may worry about harming the relationship they have with their workers or driving their employees away, or worry about betrayal from their employees and peers.

To the far more numerous avoidant leaders, Peter advised, “Make sure there’s someone in your organization that people can go to. If you can’t necessarily be there for people emotionally, you can create the context where the organization is caring.”

The Rise of the Avoidant Dimension

The organizational implications of attachment style are critical. Originally, attachment data showed that about 60% of people were securely attached, 20% anxious, and 20% avoidant. But more recent surveys have shown that millennials and Gen Z have different dimensions of attachment, with only 40% secure, 20% anxious, and 40% avoidant.

“As humans, we desire a level of intimacy and relatedness that’s been stripped from the workplace,” Peter said, referring to employees of fully remote organizations who have never met a leader or co-worker in person. “We often talk about what has happened in the changes in the workplace through technical, transactional terms, but we have ignored the implications in human terms. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to things like attachment styles.”

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For many of us, the world of finance is a mystery, filled with names like Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, and Lloyd Blankfein, who are distinguished from the average working adult by billions of dollars.

We may find ourselves glued to our TV screens and caught up in a love-hate relationship with fictional characters in series such as Billions and Succession. We admire (and sometimes cringe at) the tenacity of the incredibly intelligent and shrewd investor, Bobby Axelrod (Billions). Or watch with a dropped jaw as Logan Roy (Succession) displays bullish and ruthless behaviour, even toward the ones he loves.

The finance industry has a reputation for being competitive, focused on getting ahead and winning at all costs. Our pop culture reinforces this reputation. But what do we know about qualities finance executives truly embody—specifically those who work in private equity?

Leadership Skills in Private Equity

Private equity is more than just raising capital. The skills required for success in this industry go beyond achieving high returns. These include driving organic growth, building high-performing teams, creating organizational systems, and having a change-oriented mindset.¹

We know that the success or failure of any organization largely depends on its leaders. In finance, and more specifically private equity, leaders make decisions that directly impact the financial health of the organization. These decisions are driven by personality.

To examine the personalities of leaders in private equity, we searched our archives of Hogan personality assessment data for people who work in private equity. Specifically, we looked for people with the following job titles: board member, chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief operating officer, chief human resources officer, chief actuary officer, chief compliance officer, chief information officer, chief marketing officer, chief revenue officer, chief strategy officer, chief technology officer, partner or cofounder, president, executive vice president, senior vice president, vice president, and director or managing director.

We compiled and analysed the personality assessment results of more than 900 private equity executives. To determine how the personalities of private equity executives differ from other members of the global working population, we compared these results with our global normative data. Our research identified differences in day-to-day behaviours, behaviours that may get in the way when under stress (aka potential derailers), and motivation.

Everyday Personality Characteristics of Private Equity Leaders

In day-to-day behaviours, which Hogan assesses using the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), we found several key differences. First, private equity executives are above average on the Ambition scale, which concerns the tendency to take initiative, compete with others, and drive results. Private equity executives also score above average on Learning Approach, which concerns the tendency to stay up-to-date on business matters and proactively seek out and engage with information or insight. Finally, they also score slightly above average on Interpersonal Sensitivity, which regards the tendency to be skilled at maintaining relationships, considerate toward others, and agreeable.

In practice, we may experience private equity executives as being results oriented and focused on quick yet informed decision-making—capitalizing on the opportunity before it is too late! This is balanced with the need to leverage relationships for the “social capital” they offer.

Potential Derailers of Private Equity Leaders

Hogan examines potential derailers, or behaviours that may inhibit success, using the Hogan Development Survey (HDS). Looking at the personality results of private equity executives, we discovered that they tend to score above average on Excitable. This concerns the tendency to be overly energetic and active but become easily disappointed and lack perseverance with projects or people. They also tend to score above average on Sceptical, which is the tendency to be socially insightful but cynical or argumentative.

Additionally, we found that private equity executives may score above average on Diligent, which is the tendency to be conscientious and hardworking, yet perfectionistic and difficult to please. They also tend to score above average on Dutiful, which is the tendency to work hard to please others.

Thus, private equity executives may be perceived by others as acting quickly, challenging the motives of others, and moving on to the next challenge when the likelihood of success decreases. Because of their high standards of performance and expectations for success, they may be difficult to please and defer to key stakeholders rather than standing up for what they believe in.

Values and Motivations of Private Equity Leaders

Finally, we looked at results from the Hogan Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) to understand the motivation of private equity executives. We found that private equity executives score above average on the Power scale, which indicates desire for challenge, competition, achievement, and success. They also score above average on Commerce, which indicates interest in financials, realizing profits, and finding business opportunities. Additionally, they tend to score below average on Hedonism (desire for no-nonsense environments), Recognition (preference for a culture where work speaks for itself), Tradition (preference for challenging the status quo), and Affiliation (desire for independence).

These results may indicate that private equity executives value success and financial data and may use metrics for keeping scores. Additionally, they appreciate the opportunity to be focused and disciplined, and they may take their work very seriously: “We are here to do a job!” They may have tolerance for ambiguity and believe that process impedes speed. Finally, they may be intentional about engaging with others, preferring to divide and conquer in service of a quick result.

Overall, these results paint a portrait of the typical private equity executive as someone who is focused on results, hard to please, financially driven, informed, disciplined, fast-paced, intentional, and comfortable questioning the status quo.

What Does This All Mean?

Successful organizations must make good decisions about money and people. Though financial organizations have always recognized the importance of being smart about money, there may be an opportunity to explore the people side of the business and its impact on success.

A key insight is that private equity executives may not be proactively engaging with others (i.e., key stakeholders, peers, direct reports). They may be seen as hard to please with high expectations and a temper when those expectations are not met.

As we mentioned at the beginning, private equity is more than just raising capital. It requires the ability to build high-performing teams and create organizational systems—both of which require time, engagement, and collaboration with others. Finding that balance between getting ahead and getting along may differentiate private equity firms that are financially stable from those that are financially successful.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

The post Who Becomes a Private Equity Leader? appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Involuntary Versus Voluntary Turnover

Turnover can occur involuntarily or voluntarily. Involuntary turnover refers to employer-initiated termination of employment, typically because an employee has fallen below performance standards. Organizations may view involuntary turnover as somewhat desirable because it removes poor performers from the workplace; however, organizations likely prefer implementing well-designed developmental interventions to correct poor performers or using accurate hiring practices to avoid hiring them in the first place. Because involuntary turnover is the employer’s choice, Hogan can assist employers with solutions to accurately hire or develop high-performing employees and thus avoid involuntary turnover.

Although addressing involuntary turnover is always important, the current rise in voluntary turnover requires special attention. Voluntary turnover is when the employee chooses to end their relationship with the organization. Compared to involuntary turnover, voluntary turnover compounds the problems associated with needing to replace and retrain new employees because the organization is also losing otherwise good talent. Thus, the primary focus of our post is to highlight science-based tools for addressing voluntary turnover.

What Are the Signs an Employee Might Quit?

Research provides various indicators that can help identify employees who are more likely to quit. Many of these are directly relevant to the solutions Hogan offers.

Personality Characteristics

In a previous blog post, another Hogan expert highlighted personality characteristics and work values associated with burnout and empowerment, both of which are linked to voluntary turnover. In addition, researchers have documented a few general trends linking personality and voluntary turnover across several jobs and organizations. Specifically, higher openness (e.g., HPI Inquisitive and Learning Approach), lower conscientiousness (e.g., HPI Prudence), lower agreeableness (e.g., HPI Interpersonal Sensitivity), and lower emotional stability (e.g., HPI Adjustment) predicted turnover across multiple studies. Personality characteristics even provide unique insight into turnover beyond other factors, such as job complexity, job satisfaction, intent to quit, and job performance.

While a few general trends have been established across jobs and organizations, it can be meaningful to take a more nuanced look at specific organizations or situations.  In an electronics manufacturing firm, for instance, outside researchers showed that higher scores on HPI Inquisitive and Learning Approach predicted turnover regardless of individuals’ work satisfaction and commitment. Higher Learning Approach scores also increased the risk of turnover over time. Furthermore, the HDS Moving Against scales (i.e., Bold, Mischievous, Colourful, and Imaginative) predicted quicker turnover, and the Moving Toward scales (i.e., Diligent and Dutiful) indicated slower turnover. As the label would imply, the Moving Away scales (i.e., Excitable, Sceptical, Cautious, Reserved, and Leisurely) most strongly predicted turnover in cases where the employee disappeared without notice.

Readers should interpret these findings while keeping in mind that they were observed in a single organization, and effects of personality characteristics can vary by job or organization.  Even the most recent analysis across multiple studies showed that higher emotional stability predicted turnover in some situations, but lower emotional stability predicted turnover in others. Although to a lesser degree, the turnover relationships with agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness also varied notably depending on the situation. This finding underscores the need to understand how the dynamics of personality characteristics operate within the specific job and organization. One way to approach such specificity is to focus on job alignment.

Job Alignment

The alignment of individual characteristics, such as personality and work values, with the job requirements and work environment can provide insight into employee turnover. Turnover is more likely when an employee’s personality characteristics or work values do not align with the given job or organization, whether based on perception or objective measurement.

For example, turnover is decreased when congruence exists between the employees’ social values and those of their supervisors and workgroups. These social values (i.e., service, family fun, and inclusion) conceptually map onto Hogan’s Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) scales (i.e., Altruism, Hedonism, and Affiliation/Altruism, respectively). Organizations should focus on fostering congruence between supervisor, workgroup, and employee social values. Other values (e.g., compensation and flexibility) are less relevant. In addition, value misalignment predicts decreased employee engagement, which then predicts increased turnover. This suggests that drops in engagement could serve as an early warning sign of future turnover. Tools such as the MVPI can help decrease the likelihood of both turnover and declining engagement.

How to Reduce Turnover and Improve Employee Retention

Hogan provides many solutions to help reduce voluntary turnover and improve retention of employees who are “too legit to quit,” as MC Hammer would say. An earlier blog shared some ideas on leader-focused interventions, with which Hogan can help. Based on the research discussed here, we highlight additional ways Hogan can help address voluntary employee turnover across all job levels. But don’t just take our word for it! Even external talent scientists argue that organizations can use personality assessments in their hiring processes to reduce the likelihood of voluntary turnover. Specifically, Hogan can help (1) improve job fit and (2) identify specific characteristics that predict turnover in particular work contexts.

Virtually all of Hogan’s solutions provide personality or work value configurations that our own research indicates will align best with the focal job and work environment. We thoroughly and systematically examine the specific work context for which a solution is designed. We then leverage our massive data archives and, at times, collect new local data to identify Hogan scales that are especially relevant to that job and work context.

Consequently, proper implementation of our tools increases the desired alignment between employees’ individual characteristics and their work. As the research shows, this alignment is what will forecast reduced turnover. Hogan’s talent acquisition tools can help reduce turnover by identifying better-fitting applicants from the beginning, and our talent development recommendations can help by improving the fit of current employees.

In situations where turnover is a heightened concern, Hogan’s talent analytics team can construct custom solutions that include scales predictive of turnover in a specific job and organization. If an organization has enough previous employees who have taken Hogan’s assessments and have since quit, Hogan can identify specific personality and value scales that distinguish such employees from those who have not quit. When Hogan data on employees who have quit is not available, Hogan can collect new data to identify scales that characterize individuals who show warning signs of impending turnover. Specifically, we have a pool of survey questions that have been developed by outside researchers to identify employees who are about to quit. In response to said questions, supervisors rate their direct reports’ behaviours that tend to precede turnover. Their employees also respond to Hogan’s assessments, allowing our talent analytics team to recommend profiles of individuals less likely to engage in pre-quitting behaviours.

Indeed, Hogan has a track record of successfully improving employee retention for clients. For example, a global financial services provider saw approximately 300 fewer sales representatives quit per year after implementing a custom talent acquisition profile built by Hogan. This helped save the company an estimated $4.5 million in replacement costs. Another business services company found that health assistants who scored high on their custom Hogan profile were nearly 13 times more likely to stay with the company than those who did not. Likewise, a custom-built Hogan profile helped a global telecommunications company reduce 90-day turnover rates by 50%, saving the company more than $70,000 in employee replacement costs.

Other Factors to Consider

We know that, although personality characteristics explain a substantial chunk of voluntary turnover, they do not tell the full story. Fortunately, research points to additional things to look for that, in conjunction with personality, can help you paint the full turnover picture. Decades of research suggests that thoughts, withdrawal states, attitudes, job characteristics, behaviours, and wellness are all factors associated with voluntary turnover. Of these, job characteristics and behaviours are typically easier to identify. A recent analysis of multiple studies found that less pay predicted more turnover. In addition, fewer opportunities for promotion, less role clarity, more role conflict, more role overload, and more overall stress predicted more turnover. Some work behaviours that predicted turnover include decreased job performance, increased absenteeism, and increased misconduct. Employers will typically have more success in improving employee retention if they pair consideration of these additional factors with a focus on personality and work values. If your organization needs to improve employee retention, consider the personality-based solutions Hogan provides.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

The post Too Legit to Quit: Addressing Employee Turnover appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Recently on The Science of Personality, co-hosts Ryne Sherman, PhD, chief science officer, and Blake Loepp, PR manager, spoke with Jennifer Lowe, MA, director of professional services at Hogan, about how to build a successful team and maximize team potential.

High-performing teams play a critical role in overall organizational performance. Personality sits at the core of team success.

Let’s dive into what makes corporate teams successful, how to build trust in a team, how personality influences teams, and more.

Characteristics of Successful Teams

Successful teams—the high-performing ones full of camaraderie—have these foundational qualities in common:

• a high level of trust
• transparent communication
• clear goals
• a focus on psychological safety

Members of effective teams trust each other and communicate well with each other. “When I get in the room with many leadership teams, I pretty immediately know how the session is going to go,” Jennifer said. The level of team trust is apparent in team members’ interactions. To fulfill team potential, team members need alignment on what matters and clarity about what the objectives are.

In successful teams, team members can offer constructive criticism about an idea without worrying that they’re putting their careers at risk. This characteristic of successful teams is part candid communication and part psychological safety.

It all circles back to trust. “We’re a team together and a team apart,” Jennifer said. “We can support the vision and mission of both the team and the broader organization.”

Challenges to Fulfilling Team Potential

Understanding team challenges is important for fulfilling team potential. According to Jennifer, teams that struggle often have a lack of clarity about the mission. Nothing derails a team faster than mismatched objectives. This could be caused by individuals having different objectives or by team objectives that have increased or changed.

Another common team challenge is when the team acts with too much aspiration and sets unreachable goals. A highly innovative or ambitious team can aim for big results at the risk of overlooking the tactical details of their ideas or failing to communicate their vision to others. Overambitious teams benefit from pragmatic members who will ensure the team’s ideas are actionable.

Teams get derailed when they fail to acknowledge the natural evolution or dissolution of a team. For instance, a team might meet on Tuesdays at 3:00 p.m. because they always have. However, they may not be the right task force to accomplish a new objective—and nobody wants to be the person to say so.

“It’s so interesting how powerful something like auditing the communications of the team and action planning can be,” Jennifer added.

How Personality Influences Team Performance

The Hogan personality tests measure reputation: how we communicate with others, how we make decisions, our sense of urgency, and much more. “When we leverage a personality assessment within teams, it tells us collectively how the team shows up, the way they communicate, and what they’re known for within their organization,” Jennifer said.

A reputational awareness exercise can help team members understand how they are seen by other business units. It also allows the team to build trust and define their operating norms, overall trends, and themes within the team. Team development reveals individual strengths and potential performance challenges, as well as how those impact team performance.

Personality can also influence division of labour within a team. Teams maximize performance when all members capitalize on their strengths to support the whole. Personality data allows team members to unpack how each other operates and how they will engage day to day.

“Understanding how personality can impact team performance helps people understand each other better,” Jennifer said.

Best Practices for Team Development

Every team development initiative requires a customized approach based on team dynamics. When an organization asks Hogan for help maximizing team potential, the Hogan team begins with discovery. Who’s on the team, and what are the goals of team development? Are there new team members, or is there a new team leader? Is the goal to encourage team connection, or is it to refine team strategy?

Before the team session, individual team members should understand their personal strengths, challenges, and values. Well-validated personality tests are useful to communicate this information objectively. This can help set the stage for team development.

“Maximizing team potential starts with individual self-awareness,” Jennifer said. “We want to know what a successful outcome looks like—what the team is trying to achieve—but we also want the individuals within the team to focus on self-awareness.”

Effective team development sessions end with action planning. Understanding how individual strengths fit within the team culture won’t cause any change unless the team commits to actions that drive them toward higher performance.

Team Building Tips for Leaders

If you’re building a team from scratch, start with selecting the right members for the team. A strong selection process is one that is based on data-driven talent insights and behavioural characteristics that will best support the team’s key goals.

Another point to consider when building a brand-new team is whether it’s needed at all. A team is not a solution to every problem, so be sure you are clear on why the team is necessary and what its objectives are. Ask whether you are building a team for the right reasons.

If you, the leader, are the new element in the team, don’t underestimate the impact of your predecessor and yourself on the team’s culture. Culture is set by the values of leaders, so a new leader changes the dynamic of the team even more than new team members do.

If you fear your team is dysfunctional, identify likely causes for derailment. Jennifer explained, “If a team is operating in derailer mode, it may be that they have change fatigue, have reorganized too many times, or are uncertain about objectives.” To improve performance, go back to the basics: the team’s objective, its communication, its culture, and individual self-awareness.

“Teams that make the biggest improvements towards their full potential make these changes part of their day-to-day interactions within the team,” Jennifer said.

Learn more about the High Performing Team Assessment (HPTA) Read the Whitepaper: Personality & High Performing Teams

The post Maximising Team Potential appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

Groups and teams are functionally and psychologically different from each other, just as group members and team members have different needs and goals. In fact, differentiating between groups and teams is an essential first step in leading and developing each one successfully.

Here’s how to know whether you’ve got a group or a team—and what to do about it.

Group or Team: Know the Difference

Groups and teams differ in how they achieve goals. One is driven by multiple individual goals and the other by a single collective goal.

What Is a Group?

A group is a collection of individuals who have separate goals, do independent work, and succeed or fail based on their individual efforts.

An example of a group is a regional sales function in which each rep’s goal depends entirely on individual effort, not collaboration with other sales reps. The sales function’s success in the region is measured by the sum of the reps’ independent achievements; requiring reps to work more collaboratively would be unlikely to affect financial performance.

Group development calls for leaders to ensure that members have access to the same information and resources, stay engaged, possess the necessary skills, and achieve individual goals.

What Is a Team?

A team is three or more people who have a common goal. A team’s ability to achieve that goal is dependent on its members who share common leadership and success or failure. The members also see themselves as belonging to the team; this mental model identifies them as team members and frames their interpretation of events.

An example of a team is a collective of people with cross-functional expertise working toward a shared goal, such as a team of technical experts asked to solve a problem collaboratively.

In addition to similar requirements for group development, team development requires leaders to ensure that team members identify with the team, hold their goals and the criteria for their success in common, and cooperate.

Team Roles

Building a healthy, high-functioning team is not easy. It requires balance between people’s actual jobs and their strengths within the group. These two qualities are differentiated as functional roles and psychological roles.

Functional roles are dictated by people’s titles and reflect their professional expertise, such as front-end web developer, graphic designer, social media manager, or user experience strategist.

Psychological roles, on the other hand, are influenced by the individual strengths of the team members. One person is good at fostering collaboration, for example, while another excels at overseeing processes. Strengths in anticipating problems or in promoting realistic solutions are linked more closely to personality than to job training.

A team performs best when a team’s members are balanced among five areas of strengths:

• Innovation – anticipates problems, identifies trends and patterns, recognizes the need for adaptation, and generates creative solutions
• Pragmatism – promotes realistic, practical approaches and offers counterarguments to refine ideas
• Process – oversees the rules of implementation, the details of execution, and the use of organised systems to complete tasks
• Relationships – takes responsibility for collaboration within the team and understands how outside stakeholders may perceive the team
• Results – takes responsibility for the team’s outcomes by communicating ideas, processes, progress, and problems to the team

Without harmony among a team’s strengths, the team is unlikely to operate at its highest efficiency and may become imbalanced or even dysfunctional. Leaders of high-functioning teams understand how to manage and develop team members based on how their strengths interact.

The Characteristics of High-Performing Teams

Personality affects the success of teams in terms of team balance, team derailers, and team leadership.

Team Balance

Achieving the right mix of skills, experience, and personality is the key to creating a productive team and satisfied workforce.

A high-performing team is a balanced team. Starting a game of baseball with just eight pitchers and four centre fielders would be difficult. Likewise, a team with eight people encouraging team cooperation and four people focused on team outcomes is unlikely to function smoothly.

Team leaders who can assess team balance in terms of strengths can forestall unnecessary struggle and conflict. When team strengths are even and adequate, this is the foundation for a high-performing team.

Team Derailers

Besides the need to keep a balance of personalities on a team, teams face other derailers that stem from personality tendencies and from low employee engagement.

Performance challenges arise when individuals are under stress. Every personality has dark-side tendencies, or derailers, that may express themselves if team members become dysregulated. For instance, people who score high on the Cautious scale on the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), which measures characteristics under stress, can be resistant to change and reluctant to take chances. They can derail a team subtly by avoiding making decisions, rejecting innovation because of the perceived likelihood of failure, or altogether abandoning challenging tasks.

Potential team derailers are also associated with employees who are not engaged. According to Hogan Founder Robert Hogan, PhD, “When employees are engaged, they like their jobs, they work hard at their jobs, they take initiative, and they show loyalty.” Actively disengaged team members can seriously fracture the team dynamic because they may allow their psychological or functional role within the team to lapse.

Team Leadership

Another component of personality that affects team success or failure is team leadership. An effective team leader is one who can manage the team to deliver results, an accomplishment that cannot be achieved without trust.

Trustworthy team leaders are predictable, empathetic, resilient, and humble. They do not behave erratically, they understand people’s emotions, they remain calm under stress, and they forego charisma and arrogance to share credit for collective effort. All these tendencies, which are tied to personality, can be enhanced by deliberate, habitual practice, yet it is also true that well-validated personality data can predict the perceived trustworthiness of leaders and thus their likelihood to lead teams well.

Merely knowing the difference between groups and teams isn’t enough to keep leaders and team members engaged. To grow high-performing teams, organisations need to offer talent development opportunities that are proven to improve engagement and productivity.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

The post What’s the Difference Between Groups and Teams? appeared first on Peter Berry Consultancy.

According to a 2012 Adobe study, more than 80% of people believe creativity is critical to economic growth. A Forbes panel about hiring for creative roles indicates that creativity is perceived as a desirable personality characteristic. In fact, people find creativity so desirable that it’s often subject to what psychologists call the better-than-average effect, which occurs when individuals consistently rate themselves better than average along desirable qualities. Despite the importance of innovation in business, few organisations and fewer managers seem to understand what it takes to keep their creative people happy and productive.

What Is a Creative Personality?

The creativity crisis, which was predicted in 2004, has come to fruition. Between high unemployment and a labor shortage, attracting and retaining talent is a challenge for many organisations. Creative employees are essential to company innovation, so it’s important to understand their personalities.

Psychologists from the Hogan data science team compared 360-degree feedback data with personality data measured using three personality assessments:

1. The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) measures people’s everyday strengths and weaknesses.
2. The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) measures strengths that people overuse under increased stress or pressure.
3. The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) measures the core drivers that determine what people desire and what they are willing to work for.

Individuals who scored higher in Ambition, Sociability, and Inquisitive (HPI); Bold, Mischievous, and Colourful (HDS); and Power (MVPI) were more likely to be identified by peers, direct managers, and clients as innovative. Conversely, those who scored higher in Excitable, Cautious, Diligent, and Dutiful (HDS); and Security (MVPI) were less likely to be identified as having an innovative reputation at work.

A Profile of the Creative Employee

Drs. Robert Hogan and John Morrison described the creative personality in practical terms in their chapter “Managing Creativity.”

Creative, innovative people tend to be

• open to new experiences,
• skilled at organising and evaluating information gleaned from a variety of sources,
• able to easily produce an abundance of ideas,
• concerned with their performative adequacy, and
• motivated to prove themselves.

These qualities may make creatives sound like ideal employees—but here’s the rub. Hogan research shows that creative people tend to be idealistic, nonconforming, and unconcerned about money, which can make them the bane of managers, who tend to be stable, practical, and concerned with maintaining order and controlling costs.

From a psychological perspective, creative and managerial personalities can seem predisposed not to understand one another. Organisational priorities about positive creativity and innovation mean that managers and creative people need each other to succeed.

5 Keys to Managing Creatives

Here are five imperatives for leaders to provide to ensure they are properly managing their creative teams and driving innovation.

1. Freedom and Flexibility

Creative employees need time, space, and resources to innovate.

The bottom line here is not to constrain your creative employees by forcing them to follow processes or conform to structures. Social psychologist Teresa Amabile interviewed 46 managers of North American corporate R&D groups, asking them about examples of high and low creativity in their laboratories. The most frequently cited obstacles to creativity included employees’ lack of control over their own work and lack of freedom in deciding what to do or how to do it. Also mentioned were lack of time, lack of resources, and poor project management.

On the other hand, creativity is enhanced by more freedom and flexibility at work. According to The Wall Street Journal, today’s talent may value flexible work arrangements and other perks even more than compensation. Consequently, managers can encourage innovation among creative employees by letting them work remotely and outside of normal business hours.

Managers should also refrain from demanding an account of their employees’ creative methods because those are likely to rely on unstructured, irreplicable spontaneity. Rather, creatives should be evaluated by the quality of their innovative work products.

2. Conventional Colleagues

Innovators work best alongside colleagues who are just the right quality of “boring”—too conventional to challenge ideas yet unconventional enough to collaborate with.

Creative employees flourish with independence, not required group work with other creatives. Data from Hogan psychologists affirm that innovative individuals are driven by the desire for success and control. They can display above-average drive and competitiveness. Thus, when two or more creatives are forced to collaborate, they tend to compete for ideas or keep them to themselves.

Independence, however, is not the same as isolation. Creative people also need stimulation from coworkers who appreciate and nurture their ideas without competition. The key to supporting creative individuals at work is by building a diverse team in which they can thrive. Creative teams that perform the most effectively have a mix of creative members and those who pay more attention to details and processes.

3. Meaningful Motivation

Rather than offer only monetary rewards, motivate creatives with meaningful work.

Monetary reward systems are poor drivers of performance among creative individuals. Studies from Edward Deci and Richard Ryan show that offering “controlled motivation,” such as money, decreases intrinsic motivation and self-determination. People who received money to read magazines or solve puzzles did so for a shorter time than people who acted for enjoyment, for instance.

Hogan research shows that innovators tend to have more vision than less creative personalities do. Because creatives see the bigger picture and consider why things matter, they can be reluctant to engage in meaningless work. Managers who demonstrate a link between work, meaning, and values can build intrinsic motivation in creative employees.

4. Concrete Goals

Collaborate with your creative employees to set reasonable goals and deadlines.

In their chapter, Hogan and Morrison discuss the need for good goal setting. One of their interview subjects, a vice president for research and development at a computer manufacturing firm, recommended this approach: ask researchers what they thought they could accomplish in a certain timeframe, then support their efforts and keep them on track.

Given that creatives are motivated by adequacy, goals should be tied to performance and supported with clear, credible feedback. Likewise, since creatives prefer to control the means by which they accomplish tasks, deadlines should be largely determined by the innovator and approved by the manager.

5. Good Management

In the end, the factors that negatively impact creativity are the result of poor management. Organisations need to recognize the importance of personality in leaders too. Personality assessments can inform hires and promotions into management roles, and leadership development opportunities help managers become more aware of how their reports might perceive them so they can lead more effectively.

Managers who are unable to build and maintain productive relationships with creative individuals, set clear performance expectations, or give clear or credible feedback, for example, could cause innovators to simply walk away. Leaders who cannot create the nonevaluative atmosphere described by Amabile as fostering the freedom to fail will stifle or alienate creatives to the detriment of the entire organisation. In a climate where 84% of CEOs view innovation as critical to growth but only 6% are satisfied with their innovation performance, maximizing the creative potential of innovators is an essential managerial skill.

If you are interested in more information about using personality assessments to identify and develop leaders who understand how to manage and retain creative talent, get in touch with us today.

Contact us for more information Learn about the Hogan 360

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