Cognipsy - Blog #high potential

What we know about predicting leadership

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 18:33:10 +0530

Leadership, as you may already in know, is a rather complex phenomenon. But what you should also know is that great amount of money is spent by companies to hire leaders, train/develop them and deal with them should they not perform. Of all costs the latter is the greatest and is seldom accurately reported.

In this summary of research we briefly discuss the science of predicting leadership emergence and effectiveness. An emergent leadership is a very different from effectiveness model of leadership. However, this difference is not the scope of the article.

Intelligence

Better described as general cognitive ability, intelligence is a great predictor of leadership. In fact of all psychological factors g can predict leadership emergence the best (r=0.4). Ability to work with complexity, think about future, build scenarios, learning things quickly and solving problems on the fly are all much needed competence in a leader and g predicts just that. Needless to say g alone is not a mark of a good leader, but from statistical point of view, g predictss leadership the best.

Personality

Personality is a good predictor of job performance. Leadership requires different behaviours at different instances. The ability to exercise one's traits is a mark of good leadership. However, a great deal of research has proven that conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to idea are all good predictors of leadership emergence. Extraversion and agreeableness have mixed results. Surprisingly, agreeableness has been found to have negative correlations with leadership emergence and positive correlations with effectiveness.

Handling Stress

Leaders are less impacted by stress. And the proof is irrefutable. Biological evidence from cortisol level (stress causing hormone) suggest that the basal levels of cortisol in leaders are higher. Which entails that leaders are used to high stress and their cortisol levels do not increase much with stress. Emotional stability factor from personality also has positive correlations with leadership emergence. Hence, ability to not be perturbed by stress is also a sound predictor of leadership capability.

Emotional Intelligence/Ability

While studies show that EI predicts leadership effectiveness, EI itself is highly correlated with g and big 5 factors. Hence , from psychometric standpoint it doesn't offer any additional insights into leadership capability. Alarmingly, some studies have shown that high EI leads to lower leadership effectiveness.

Creativity

Creativity both in terms of a trait as well as ability is a strong predictor of leadership effectiveness and not emergence. Surprisingly this is true across industries and sectors. This could be a reflection of the fact that strategizing and exploring new avenues of growth do require creativity.

In all, psychology has enough insights into what would make a great leader. Furthermore, definitions of what effective leadership looks like across cultures is similar. This doesn't mean that culture has no impact on leadership. Adequate evidence exists to suggest that socially acceptable leadership behaviours differ from culture to culture. E.g. in US a good leader is expected to be an extrovert while in Japan a good leader is culturally perceived to be introverted. That said, a great amount of leadership can be scientifically predicted with analytical models which are customised to an organization, industry and culture.

5 Leadership sins of First-time Managers

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 18:03:03 +0530

Being a leader is not easy. Besides the scrutiny, you are subjected to performance pressures and above all the need to be accepted as a leader. While a lot goes into making a good leader, this short post discusses what derails even the best of the leaders. The most noticeable nuance of all these 5 derailers is the fact that they are context independent. Irrespective of the context, culture and need of the hour, they will amount to inappropriate and risky behaviours.

Inconsistency

Research speaks volumes on the role consistency of behaviour plays in making a leader successful. The problem is that one strong inconsistent message is enough to ruin what you have worked hard to create. Consistent behaviour makes leaders seem predictable by their followers. This amounts to a feeling of security and faith in the contingent consequence of behaviours exhibited by them. Inconsistent leaders make their teams anxious. Many subordinates might even consider inconsistent leaders to be lacking integrity.

The higher the levels of leadership, higher is the expectation and need for consistency in behaviour. Needless to say extreme situations will demand you to indulge in necessary exceptions. My advice would be to ensure that the team and organization appreciates the fact that this is an exceptional behaviour keeping with the need of the hour and not mere inconsistency.

Sycophancy

It is amazing how need for power both fuels and destroys the need for hunger. As a leader, the last thing you want to do is to be surrounded by sycophants who will almost every time agree to everything that you have to say and caress your power image. Research suggests, that narcissistic leaders are the most likely to patronise sycophants around them. Recent research also suggests that the best and most talented people quit leaders who indulge in sycophancy. It is therefore necessary to encourage others especially those the most junior in your team to challenge you in a healthy manner.

Many a times, leaders appear to be unapproachable and hence subordinates might find them to be closed to newer ideas. In such cases, teams will have tacit need to comply to whatever the leader says. And while you might desire that your team challenges you, they will not. That would lead us to the next derailer, the pair of ears that hear but not listen.

‘I hear them out’ syndrome

I wish I had a penny for every time a manager told me “I do hear them out”. Hearing rarely amounts to understanding. Add a little empathy to hearing and you have listening as the product. Listening provides the rich perspective leaders need. The smallest of cues and the subtlest of hints that enable them to know the true picture. Leaders also need to deal with all kinds of knowledge to be able to make decisions. Specialised knowledge from multiple streams may not always be available with the leaders. Listening in this manner, helps them to learn and improvise. Leaders that know what they are doing and seek opinions only to be liked, do more harm than good. The frequent problem here is the fact that most leaders who are not good at listening, are blind to this weakness.

Performance favouritism

Most leaders exercise some form of favouritism or the other. Most leaders will justify by saying that favouritism based on merit isn’t really favouritism. What leaders reward becomes attitude of the team in the long run. While performance must be rewarded in monetary terms, individual relationships should not reflect performance. When competence is linked with leaders’ affiliation, teams become risk averse, less innovative and competitive while individuals suffer from low self esteem and low morale. Favouritism on any ground leads to the similar problems.

Dwelling in uncertainty

While it is necessary to be immune to ambiguity, it must be noted that followers look up to their leaders for certainty and stability. As a rule, only external environment or the customer must be allowed to increase the ambiguity within system. While leaders must deal with uncertainty, they must not let it thrive. Leaders must be responsible for reducing the uncertainty of the system. This contribution is central to the leader member exchange theory. A leader that reduces ambiguity is seen as competent and respected by the followers. When, uncertainty is necessary depending on situations, leader must reduce the risk and fears of those following them. A typical mark of high performing incompetent leaders is that they off load the risks due to uncertainties to the people under them. Good leaders clearly evaluate the needed uncertainty and hedge their followers against the risks imposed by their decisions.

Many a leaders, due to their innate preferences and personalities seek uncertainty to thrive. A remedial approach would be to allow subordinates to dynamically scope the uncertainties and if possible address them. Such leaders would be benefited by letting their subordinates deal with uncertainties while actively supporting them.

These five sins must be cautioned against independent of industry, context, problem at hand and situation. While the success factors are many, these hygiene issues must be taken care of. These are key to holding people together and winning their respect.

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Why do talent reviews fail?

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 17:56:53 +0530

In a tightly packed conference room executives debate who the next line of leaders are going to be. A number of stories are narrated and a number of documents are churned. What's evident is the process, the discussion and the intense reflection. At the end of the review some decisions are arrived at and the review comes to a close.

While the talent review is a common process and there is little room for diversity of creativity there, success of talent reviews as a part of the talent management process itself is rare. Completion of talent review however is construed as success. That rarely is the case.

So what makes the talent reviews fail? Let's look at the most common derailers of the talent reviews in the corporate:

Conjecture

No matter how many documents are presented in the review, if all of them are manager's estimate or if they are all subjective speculation, talent review is bound to fail. Objective data however difficult must be collected. Common practices are to use a psychometric assessment, 360 degree feedback, behvaioural interview assessment, and performance data depending on roles/KRAs.

In absence of objective data, bias takes over and managers and executives alike tend to favour successful candidates or safe candidates. A clone effect also takes over where in managers who are most like the executives present in the review are favoured and receive positive hearing. A well known fact is that managers are poor judges of individual potential.

Poor Facilitation

All said and done, no culture or company for that matter is perfect and there is always some room for politics and biases. There is little on can do beyond a point. Therefore your best bet is to have an executive or better still an expert process facilitator do the job of facilitation for you. Granted that it may seem costly and depending on culture, a little paranoid, but it has great advantages as well.

The facilitator adds to the trust which is counter intuitive but true. This works well because facilitator is seemed impartial and can ask questions that internal participants may shy away from due to power equations. An external facilitator if chosen well, can have many benefits.

Unclear Strategy

Its common to have talent management programmes but very few have the returns one hopes for. And the major problem is the absence of talent strategy as well as alignment, thereof. A well thought of strategy will articulate, why talent review needs to be done, what need will it meet in a particular organization and how will it be done to deliver that advantage. Strategy must take into account considerations like attrition, talent availability in market, talent availability in house, risk in critical roles, engagement levels, readiness levels, talent mobility and diversity.

A clear strategy will not only help observe and ensure returns but will also save a lot of money and time. In absence, organization struggles to identify the real talent, retain high potential employees and eventually money spent on them goes waste.

There are many other things to watch out for, but in my conversations with talent managers, these three have come across as the biggest problems of talent reviews. For the review to work these three problem areas must be fixed without doubt.