Over the last couple of years I have assisted executive search firms looking for candidates at the Leadership levels in the Banking Industry across South East Asia and India.
The Job Description mandates that these candidates (leaders) would have responsibilities for customer interface and project delivery through teams.
Having looked at multiple Hogan profiles of potential candidates being hired, there are three common trends I notice which could possibly cause conflict in their effective functioning:
1. Candidate scores high on Ambition but low on Sociability
The candidate has high expectations and goals that are not proactively communicated to others. A moderately high level of Sociability is important to facilitate job performance because of its association with more extraverted behaviors, such as getting out from behind the desk and in front of others.
Watch out: Communicating with critical stakeholders.
2. Candidate scores high on both Inquisitive and Prudence
The candidate is visionary, open to new ideas and able to see connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of information. High Prudence means s/he may be too inflexible and detail oriented to get anything off the ground and implemented.
Watch out:Prioritising long term and short term opportunities
3. Candidate scores High on Affiliation, Power and Altruistic
High team orientation, the motivation to be well-liked and connected to others can result from high Affiliation. This can conflict with the desire for personal accomplishment and being motivated by telling others what to do (versus being told what to do) often arising from high Power. High Altruistic often results in putting one’s self interests aside in favor of the greater good, which can be counterproductive to the drive and goal associated with high Power.
Watch out: Managing People, ranging from confronting performance problems to maintaining open lines of communication to working effectively across boundaries.
Conclusion:
1. A perfect profile is very unlikely, perhaps impossible.
2. There are a number of ways profile conflicts can occur for a leader. Accurately interpreting conflicts can be of enormous benefit in the leader’s development.
3. In a feedback session, leaders usually respond to an accurate interpretation of their profile by sharing how they have struggled with a particular conflict in the past. If done well, they can gain a lot of value from the interpretive insights for future.
