People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1 - 10

perspectives - counterpoint
The foregoing discussion leads to the question, "What is the profile of an ideal leader?"
I start with Peter Drucker's observation that
leadership is really about followership, that
leadership should be understood in the context of what the followers expect from their
leaders. The points presented above suggest
that followers want to see six characteristics
in their leaders--integrity, good judgment,
competence, vision, humility, and fierce ambition for collective success-and those characteristics provide a guide to an optimal
assessment profile.

Dr. Robert Hogan defied decades of
conventional wisdom and academic
tradition by proving that personality
predicts performance. Thirty years
later, Dr. Hogan's theories on personality and leadership continue to challenge mainstream thinking and have
been adopted by some of the largest
and most successful companies in the
world. He can be reached at rthogan@
hoganassessments.com.

References
Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2010). The Truth About
Leadership: The No-Fads, Heart-Of-The-Matter Facts
You Need to Know. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Macey, W. H. and Schneider, B. (2008). The meaning of
employee engagement. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1: 3-30. doi: 10.1111/j.1754-9434.2007.0002.
Delaney, John T. and Huselid, Mark A., The impact of
human resource management practices on perceptions of
organizational performance. The Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Aug., 1996), pp. 949-969.
Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Hayes, T. L. (2002). Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction,
employee engagement, and business outcomes: A metaanalysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(2), 268-279.
Bentz, V. J. (1967). The Sears experience in the investigation, description, and prediction of executive behavior. In
F. R. Wickert & D. E. McFarland (Eds.), Measuring Executive Effectiveness (pp. 147-205). New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts.
Hogan, R. and Hogan, J. (2001), Assessing leadership: A
view from the dark side. International Journal of Selection
and Assessment, 9: 40-51. doi: 10.1111/1468-2389.00162.

PEOPLE & STRATEGY

Getting Leadership
Back to Its
Purpose: And It's
Not About You,
Cupcake
Dave Winsborough
Bob Hogan is obsessed with leadership, and
has done more than most to highlight the idea
that the person in charge is profoundly consequential to the well-being and lives of those
who follow. The characteristics of integrity,
judgment, competence, vision, humility, and
ambition he describes have a timeless quality
to them.
As they should, for Hogan's thinking is
rooted in evolutionary biology and locates
the importance of each element in our
profoundly group-oriented nature. Humans
live in groups, and there is always a status
hierarchy in the group; being closer to the
top of that hierarchy confers greater rewards,
be they food, money, sex, or attention.
This also means that followers always hold
out hope that the people who climb to the top
will have their interests at heart, be competent, and behave benevolently towards them.
Sadly, the evidence in human society shows
that good leadership and occupying the top
job are simply not one and the same. There is
no shortage of self-aggrandizing leaders who
prove to be inept or corrupt, or both. A partial
list might include Robert Mugabe, Bashar alAssad, Kim Jong-un, Robert Fuld, Carly Fiorina, and Bernie Ebbers. If you notice a trend
in the list, it's very likely causal: recent experimental work by John Antoniakis1 shows that
access to power and testosterone interact and
lead to corruption, even among individuals
who are otherwise honest.
Consider descriptions of the bad and
incompetent against Hogan's list. Barbara Kellaway describes "rigid," "intemperate,"
"callous," "corrupt," and "insular" as markers. Sidney Finklestein describes "dominant,"
"over-identified," "overconfident," "ruthless,"
"slick," and "tried-and-true." Don't these look

a lot like the opposite pole of the features
described by Hogan?
But there is a conundrum: While few would
argue with the list, how does anyone who
does not embody the attributes described by
Hogan make it into a leadership role? This is
a real, practical, and consequential question.
There are five classes of problems when it
comes to leadership.
First, the hierarchical nature of human society means subordinates defer to leaders. That
is, they create distance around them, tend to
provide only good news, and tell them what
they like to hear.
Second, many of the traits that seem attractive
when one is young and showing potential can
ossify or become overused when the reins of
power are handed over.
Third, evidence suggests that leaders tend to
hire in their own image-and some firms like
Goldman Sachs are obsessive about ensuring
the fit is very tight.
Fourth, the study and practice of leadership
and leader development are premised on a
tautology-by studying only those in charge,
the picture that emerges is going to look a lot
like the people who are already in charge.
Finally, leadership has become an end in itself.
Our obsession with leadership inside companies typically means that leaders are trained
as individuals in a pampered and often expensive manner. As Rob Kaiser has pointed out,
the nearly $15 billion spent on leadership
training and development hasn't impacted
trust in leaders as measured by the Harris
Poll. Leadership seems decoupled from its
biologically determined purpose-to act as a
resource for the good of the group.
So a plea to the readers of this journal: Use
the six characteristics that Hogan outlines
only as a screen, a selection tool, and an ongoing index of suitability as you choose leaders
for your own enterprise.

Reference
Bendahan, S., et al., Leader corruption depends on power
and testosterone, The Leadership Quarterly (2014), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2014.07.010.

People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of People & Strategy Winter 2015 Vol. 38 Issue 1