Prized by organizations for her education, knowledge, and experience as an executive, business expert, and coach, Dr. Janson brings a lot to the table on the subject of talent management and leadership potential. Offering sneak peeks at her new book, Determining Leadership Potential, will leave you wanting to know more before hiring new candidates.
Personality is perhaps the most precious part of yourself, the element that sets you apart and makes you unique. Among other things, it distinguishes you as an introvert, extrovert, optimist, or pessimist. In many cases, personality is credited as the reason for a person’s success – or frankly, their failure. It is the failure part we want to focus on in this article because too many hiring managers are making highly detrimental mistakes, impacting businesses around the world.
One authority on people and business, Dr. Kimberly Janson, CEO and founder of Janson Associates, urges hiring managers to strategically and carefully consider specific factors before making hiring decisions. Based on a meta-analysis of thought leaders, her research, and 25+ years of practical experience from around the world, Dr. Janson directs us to evaluate candidates based on four big differentiators: personality, intelligence, motivation, and learning agility. Science and experience point us to these four variables. While all four are critical, personality can sometimes be a wildly misunderstood idea by leaders.
According to Dr. Janson, “There is more to consider in personality than a candidate’s positives. Leaders also need to look for negatives – personality extremes such as being too self-focused, critical, volatile, or detail-oriented.” Dr. Janson calls these traits “derailers” because, taken to the extreme, they can be major roadblocks to a candidate’s success and promotability. In contrast to their positives, derailers are polarizing in creating distance and frustration in their team members.
Homing in on personality, Dr. Janson references the centuries of research indicating personality is largely fixed. “While the manifestations of personality are behaviors, which are changeable, the patterns of behavior are incredibly difficult to change. I’ve been in meetings with top-tier leaders in well-known companies, and the decision makers were discussing hiring a person with a plan to change them. Hard stop right there. Don’t marry or hire someone you wish to change.”
So many frustrations employees have regarding managers are personality-related – one of the top three reasons people leave companies is the person’s manager. With utmost discretion, Dr. Janson shares examples of leaders with personality derailers causing major problems for some very good companies.
- Acts so horribly, there are 87 complaints about her treatment to legal and HR.
- Incapable of doing his job, yet so paranoid he wouldn’t let people in his department talk to anyone else in other departments.
- So conflict-avoidant that she had other people deal with bad news and problems – and the bad behaviors of others perpetuated as a result.
- So overly cautious a CEO refused to make decisions.
- So introverted that he never leaves his office, and his team gets no coaching or direction.
While these may seem like small behaviors, over time they can cause turnover, a downturn in business results, employee engagement issues, and much worse.
Dr. Janson expounded on this frustration, “This probably sounds so familiar to you – someone you’ve encountered probably came to mind as you read these examples. People demonstrating bad behaviors are running all over companies. These are issues with people’s personalities.”
How do we stop this? According to Dr. Janson, “We stop it by not letting it happen in the first place. We need to do a much better job flushing out these personality traits in the hiring or promotional assessment process and stop kidding ourselves. Honestly, we can be so much better at hiring the right people. The impact of bad leaders is tremendous, so we MUST get better at it – and personality is a big space people should learn about to develop more competence.”
One terrific resource available to help is assessments. Assessments are necessary to objectively and clearly evaluate candidates on factors as complex as personality, intelligence, motivation, and learning agility. It does require some expertise to be able to analyze and utilize assessment data, but the resources invested in making the best hiring decisions possible are well worth it. A wrong hiring decision can cost an organization six to seven figures, or more, when you consider the far-reaching adverse ripple effects one wrong candidate can have on projects, employee demoralization, and turnover.
Top talent is the key to the success of any organization. Because of her deep expertise and commitment to helping people and organizations unleash their potential, Dr. Janson has authored two books on talent management and leadership, one of which is launching in August and now available for presale, Determining Leadership Potential, Powerful Insights to Winning at the Talent Game.
Dr. Janson and her co-author, Dr. Melody Rawlings, conducted extensive research studies for the book – one included interviewing and surveying 51 CEOs from a variety of backgrounds, countries, industries, and organization sizes. Because this work is so critical, Dr. Janson and Dr. Rawlings created a website, www.determiningleadershippoential.com, to provide companion resources for Determining Leadership Potential, where much more information is provided on not only personality, but also intelligence, motivation, learning agility, and assessments.
Relying heavily on science learned while earning two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in Business, Dr. Janson also draws upon invaluable wisdom gained from years of experience. She served in top-level executive positions for H. J. Heinz, Bank of America, Hasbro, and Bank of Boston before establishing Janson Associates. Her client list continues to be no less impressive. Her motivation stems from her passion for working with executives, teams, and companies that want to become better at leading and managing. Her life’s work has involved motivating and training others to achieve their best.
In contrast to negatives, which Dr. Janson helps organizations address, she has had the pleasure of participating in some amazing success stories as a consultant in hiring decisions. “When companies do their due diligence in assessing candidates for personality, intelligence, motivation, and learning agility, weeding out poor candidates, and opting for truly good ones, I get to see the far-reaching positive effects one excellent leader can have on an organization,” says Dr. Janson. “That is one of the greatest rewards and one of my favorite things in my work at Janson Associates.”
To be among the first to receive a copy of her new book, Determining Leadership Potential, it is available for presale, and to inquire about Dr. Janson’s premier consulting and coaching services, she can be reached at Janson Associates.