Nearly all leadership development programs target individual growth and the development of soft skills, which are personality-based behaviors such as emotional intelligence, influencing skills, relationship management, etc., and 63% of organizations use executive coaching to support leader growth.Efforts to change or improve soft skills are hard to quantify, study, and measure, making ROI difficult to calculate.

This raises a question that we get from clients every day: Can you really change your personality? If so, how much? What strategies or interventions work best?

Reading the business news makes it obvious that CEOs have a huge impact on organizational success. When corporations succeed, their CEOs are usually credited for company performance. When corporations fail, sometimes in colossal fashion, their CEOs are blamed and unceremoniously removed. At Hogan, we are no strangers to this conversation, frequently emphasizing the critical role of leadership in organizational success and failure. But just how important is it for organizations to get the right person in charge? What is the value of an effective CEO?

March 11 marked the one-year anniversary of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring COVID-19 a pandemic. In May 2020, we analyzed changes in weekly mean scores during the seven weeks after the WHO declaration. At the time, we found little evidence of COVID-19 changing personality assessment scores, with the exception of statistically significant but minimal changes in Science and Altruism scores.

Having the right people in the right job roles means everything when it comes to organizational success. But if your organization doesn’t have a sound talent acquisition strategy, identifying and hiring those people can be a murky process, dependent on guesswork and laden with potential for mistakes. That’s why you need a playbook — a game plan with proven methods for your team to find its most ideal new players. Here’s what you need to know to get started.

2020 va ramane cu siguranta un an de cotitura in istorie. Cu evenimente neasteptate, fara precedent, pe multiple planuri, cu puternice si subtile implicatii pe termen scurt si lung. Am fost pusi in fata unor situatii care ne-au schimbat tututor maniera in care privim lumea, intelegerea asupra a ceea ce putem controla si ce nu, modul in care ne raportam la noi insine, la munca, la viata, in general, si la cei din jur.

Am invatat, mai mult sau mai putin, sa traim cu incertitudinea, sa planuim pas cu pas, pe termen scurt, sa ne adaptam unui mod de lucru care este in curs de asezare, sa reprioritizam, sa ne acceptam umanitatea, trauma traita colectiv si personal, vulnerabilitatea mai mult decat vreodata in vremurile «certe».

Liderii au fost nevoiti mai mult ca niciodata sa se adapteze unor realitati complet noi, sa iasa din zona de confort, sa aiba grija de oameni si de business asa cum nu au mai fost nevoiti vreodata sa o faca. In acest context, calitatea celor care sunt la putere conteaza mai mult ca oricand pentru ca afacerile sa supravietuiasca, sa se rearticuleze, sa performeze, pentru ca oamenii sa isi mentina nivelul de energie, motivatie si angajament.

One of the primary tasks of leadership is to effectively and efficiently allocate an organization’s resources. In business, this requires leaders to make critical decisions that ultimately determine the success or failure of the organization. However, making good business decisions alone is not enough to guarantee success. Effective leaders must also have the interpersonal skills to get along with others and build high-performing teams. Both critical reasoning skills and interpersonal skills are effective predictors of performance. Logically then, employers who care about job performance should want to know two things: do my employees make good decisions and do they have the interpersonal skills to effectively function? The best way to answer these questions is by using assessments.

At the end of October Hogan Assessment run a European survey regarding the Future of work.

Take a look at the summary results:

There is great value in using well-validated 360 and personality assessments to help enhance your self-awareness and development. While both types of assessments provide valuable insights regarding a your strengths and opportunities when used alone, they are particularly powerful when used together as part of coaching or development conversations. The 360 assessment provides useful information on your performance and reputation at a given point in time, while personality assessments help to explain what may be driving certain behaviours.

Drawing on recent research examining the results of over 2,500 leaders with matched 360 and personality data, this article summarises some key insights on the association between personality and 360 performance. Considerations for leaders wishing to enhance their performance and reputation are also included.

Derailers are important because they are the habitual behavioral patterns that can get in our way. Typically operating below the level of conscious awareness, these behaviors are often easy to ignore. But when overused, they hinder performance. Coaching people to learn to work with derailers and manage stress can be a gateway into new understanding and help them increase their effectiveness.

The Stress-performance Relationship

The relationship between stress and performance level can be summarized by the bell-shaped stress-performance curve, also referred to as Yerkes-Dodson law (figure 1).

The black swan of COVID-19 came from out of nowhere to disrupt daily life and derail an historically strong economy, with social and economic aftershocks that will reverberate for years to come. The pandemic has also revealed some things about the state of play in leadership that we have to face.

Gross disparities in how leaders have responded make it painfully obvious how unprepared many of them were for the crisis. Further, a distinguishing quality of those who were able to rise to the challenge is versatility: They drew on a broad range of mindsets and behaviors in leading their teams and organizations through constantly shifting, and often conflicting, priorities and challenges.

This highlights a distinct form of leadership that’s well suited for disruptive change and simultaneously exposes significant problems with the way leadership is typically defined, assessed, and developed.