Certification Webinar Trains Human Resource Professionals on 360 Feedback for Leadership Development

Employers seek effective ways of developing leaders as the rate of change accelerates in workplaces worldwide. In response to this critical need, Performance Programs, Inc. now offers convenient and cost-effective professional certification webinars on 360 feedback instruments in Clark Wilson Group's Task Cycle(R) Series.

The Task Cycle 360 Feedback Series is the longest established, best researched 360 feedback collection available today. The Task Cycle is a logical sequence of steps essential to overall effectiveness of management and leadership. It is a scientifically validated, predictive model with well-researched mathematical foundations. The ten surveys in the Task Cycle series are role-specific and validated.

The Task Cycle was developed by Dr. Clark Wilson, who was the first to use 360 feedback for management development in 1973. Task Cycle research continues today and norms are continually updated based upon thousands of cases in the research database.

The 2009 certification webinars are scheduled on September 16 or November 12 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (East Coast time). The two-hour session is conducted by industrial psychologist Dr. Paul Connolly, who was a close colleague of Clark Wilson. Connolly is also co-author of several Task Cycle Surveys published by Clark Wilson Group. Through the webinar and post-webinar follow-up, participants learn to administer, interpret, and provide coaching to individuals. The agenda includes: Key requirements and best practices in 360 feedback; the Task Cycle model, including an overview of psychometric background ; in-depth discussion using sample reports; review of several 360 assessments including Executive Leadership Survey, Leadership Competencies for Managers, and Survey of Management Practices; review of sample profiles and interpretation. Certification includes a 30-minute review of participant’s first case by telephone, as well as an extensive collection of 360 feedback support materials.

Investment is $600, which includes products and services that would be more than $1500 if purchased separately.

For further information, or to register, call Sonya Hamilton at 1-800-565-4223. Performance Programs is an authorized distributor and certification training provider for Clark Wilson Group.

New Research on Leadership Versatility

When it comes to leadership competency, more is not always better. Research shows that the most effective leaders know how and why to balance their skills--and to avoid overreliance on their comfort zones. At a December 15, 2008 webinar, PPI hosted author and researcher Rob Kaiser in a presentation of his work on Leadership Versatility. Kaiser explained why the ability to switch gears and exert different leadership skills at different times results in better business outcomes. You can view the Leadership Versatility webinar on our web site.

Rob Kaiser, coauthor of the book, "The Versatile Leader" (Pfeiffer, 2006), studied top leaders for more than ten years with Bob Kaplan of the consulting firm Kaplan & DeVries. Their work resulted in the Leadership Versatility Index® (LVI) a 360-degree assessment tool with a radically new rating scale. Not just cosmetic, the features they developed were awarded a U.S. patent and hailed as revolutionary by MIT's Sloan Management Review. Rob Kaiser is a partner with Kaplan DeVries and a thought leader with over 100 publications and presentations on leadership.

The webinar discussion includes:

1. An up-to-date leadership competency paradigm that you can put to work in your development programs.

2. The ways that traditional measurement scales can lead executives to counterproductive behaviors and a new alternative measurement scale.

3. Research that shows the relationship between leadership versatility and positive business outcomes.

4. Practical application of the leadership versatility model to reduce executive derailments.

We hope you find the webinar interesting and look forward to talking with you about how this research fits into your executive development efforts.

Nonprofit Leaders More Skilled than Corporate Counterparts

Nonprofit Leaders Rate Higher in 360 Feedback

Never assume anything.

It’s an old warning—and one that proved true again when we studied leaders of nonprofit organizations in partnership with Community Resource Exchange during 2007. CRE, a 27-year-old New York City consulting organization, provides high-value capacity building services to nonprofit leaders and organizations.

"Leadership in for-profit endeavors is widely studied," says our associate Jean Lobell, a Managing Director at CRE. "The same is not necessarily true for nonprofits, but the lack of data never stopped people from assuming that nonprofit leaders are less skilled than their for-profit counterparts."

"Imagine our delight and surprise," she says, "when our study showed that nonprofit leaders, as seen by their managers, direct reports and peers significantly (alpha > 0.05) outscored for-profit leaders on 14 out of 17 skills." The study is based on Clark Wilson Group’s validated Survey of Leadership Practices™, a competency-based 360-degree feedback instrument.

The strength of the findings was a surprise to both CRE and PPI, as well as to a group of nonprofit leaders who had participated in the study. While it is premature to declare that nonprofit leaders are clearly more effective, this study challenges the assumption.

Want full details? We were pleased to have the study featured in the Nonprofit Quarterly, a highly respected magazine that focuses on themes of critical importance to leaders in the nonprofit sector.

Executive Leadership Competencies Mapped to "FYI" Competencies

Many organizational coaches and HR departments rely on Lombardo and Eichinger's For Your Improvement: A Guide for Development and Coaching. Performance Programs recently mapped the 4th edition of the book, popularly known as FYI, to all the items on two validated 360 feedback surveys: Survey of Leadership Practices and the new Executive EQ. Both are published by Clark Wilson Group.

This is an effective way to bridge the compentency-based 360 feedback into developmental action plans. For more information about these maps, please contact Paul or Sonya at 1-800-565-4223.

New 360 Survey Measures Executive Emotional Intelligence

Executive leadership skill differs from the leadership required at lower levels of organizations. First, executive leaders create and articulate visions. Second, executive leaders must lead people to engage in those visions. Research is clear that the emotional intelligence of leaders greatly influences their effectiveness in the latter task. Thus, emotional intelligence is a great career asset for motivated leaders.

Executive EQ helps chief executive officers, presidents, and vice presidents understand perceptions of their emotional intelligence through competency scores on vision, organizational and marketplace awareness, self-awareness, energy, self-confidence, self-management, engagement and more. It is appropriate for anyone responsible for communicating vision and engaging followers in that vision.

This new survey is based on the reliable, validated Survey of Executive Leadership from Clark Wilson Group. It integrates several special qualities articulated by Daniel Goleman in his breakthrough book, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam, 1995), such as self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-confidence, and meets Wilson’s rigorous research standards.

Clark Wilson Group’s Executive EQ survey differs from other EQ surveys in two ways. First, Wilson surveys are based on a learning model. They measure observable behaviors. Thus, Wilson’s EEQ survey looks only for competencies that people can change and develop through training and reinforcement. EEQ fact sheets are available now. For sample reports, call 1-800-565-4223.

Employee Engagement Study: Quality of Leadership as Important as Pay

by Kathleen Groll Connolly

Leaders with a high versatility index have employee teams with high job commitment and engagement according to a unique industry-university collaborative study at the North Carolina State University. The research was conducted by Dr. Beth Coberly under the supervision of Dr. Denis Gray, Professor, Department of Psychology, to improve the hit-rate of breakthrough innovations by faculty members who are involved in research for private business. They sought the key workplace factors that promote the job satisfaction, commitment, and engagement of highly creative knowledge workers. The study included faculty from nearly thirty cooperative research centers from around the U.S. “We found that leaders who were flexible at adjusting their styles and behaviors to the leadership situation also had the most satisfied and committed research teams,” says Dr. Gray.

Rob Kaiser, a partner with the executive development consultancy, Kaplan DeVries Inc., which also supported the research, points out that the number one motivator of commitment for the researchers in this study was personally meaningful work on compelling projects. “This is not a surprising result, in itself,” he says. “But it does underscore the importance of matching creative people to the right job and playing to their natural interests and talents.”

Kaiser continues, “What surprised us was that versatile leadership tied for second place with rewards as the next most important factor.” Kaiser concludes, “In other words, compensation is no substitute for weak leadership"

The study employed the Leadership Versatility Index® (LVI). The LVI measures the extent to which leaders have a well-rounded style and vary their approach with the situation, as opposed to over-relying on one way of leading or another. The LVI and its decade-long development are described in a 2006 book, "The Versatile Leader" (Pfeiffer/Wiley), coauthored by Bob Kaplan, Ph.D., and Rob Kaiser.

More information?

Can 360 Feedback Help Executives Develop Charisma?

By Paul M. Connolly, Ph.D.

The following is from an address by Dr. Connolly at a convention of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP). He explores the question of whether leadership charisma can be isolated through measurement, with the goal of providing coaching to help executives develop greater charisma. He shows how two instruments, the Clark Wilson Survey of Executive Leadership™ and Hogan Personality Inventory (PDF), were used to answer the question.


Some years ago I was working with a customer who I’d jokingly classify as difficult, but seriously describe as one of the brightest, most competent HR practitioners I’ve ever met. We were working on behavioral measures to support his plans for developing high-potential leadership candidates. Our discussions often led to a topic almost as inscrutable as nature vs. nurture. It’s the topic of personality vs. behavior as the source of one of the most highly effective leadership traits: charisma.

I insisted that while personality is important, it is–in a training and development context–irrelevant. Personality factors cannot be taught. In fact, most personality factors are generally well established by adolescence. They change only with difficulty, through traumatic life events or concentrated psychotherapy.

Leadership, I further insisted, consists of actions–the things people do. In other words, the sum of a person’s leadership is equal to the parts of his or her behaviors.

Being the highly experienced practitioner that he was, my customer wouldn’t let me escape that easily. Many of the candidates in the high potential group we were working with had, in fact, been selected because they exhibited charisma. "Your education," he told me, "is about to continue."

Charisma is the hard-to-define, rare characteristic in a person that causes others to want to listen, to follow, and to perform. It is a magnetic, "pulling toward" characteristic. It is motivating and extremely valuable in a leader. Is charisma the inborn talent that makes the difference between a good manager and a great executive? Or is it a series of behaviors that, when present in subtle juxtaposition, simply appear to produce a result greater than the sum of parts?

Furthermore, is charisma a personality factor or a behavior factor? It is probably both. Our challenge became clear: Could we develop a measurement that was true to the meaning of charisma and was also true to the principles of good developmental feedback? This question was of such interest to my client that we engaged in special research in an attempt to find out.


Research Program: Measurement of Charisma

We surveyed 135 managers in the organizations ’s high-potential program. They were selected through various means: Some were nominated by their immediate management, some were nominated by other management, and a handful were self-nominated (a temporary process whereby an individual has a chance to "prove her/himself" in spite of "management blockage"). The group went through various processes and assessments, including the two measures we are discussing today, the Clark Wilson Group's Executive Leadership Survey™ and the Hogan Personality Inventory.

Exhibit A

Demographics of Study Sample


Average Age: 41 (SD=5.8)

Caucasian: 101 men, 20 women
Minority:12 men, 2 women

Total Sample 135

It’s important to mention here that the sample exhibited a level of ambition higher than 85% of the general population of working adults, as measured by the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI). In other words, they came to the high potential program with an intrinsic desire to succeed. The purpose of our research was to provide them with tools that would give them a unique insight into how to enhance their success by emphasizing certain behaviors and skills.
Whatever measures we developed had to meet the three criteria of well designed developmental feedback. This means that every questionnaire item must do the following:
It asks for data that is observable by others. This leads to rating consistency and reliability.It asks for observations that relate to the role of an executive. This is one aspect of assuring validity.

It addresses a behavior that is under the control of an individual to change. In other words, it is a behavior that can respond to training if the individual is willing.

The third criterion is very important because behavioral feedback is most suitable for improving performance, not simply understanding performance.From a developmental feedback perspective, charisma is a problem variable. It doesn't meet the third of the key criteria for good feedback items: responsiveness to training.

Looking at the history of research on charisma, however, we made an interesting discovery. The behavioral descriptions of the characteristic all center on enthusiasm, speed of motion, running, jumping, vocal projection, eye contact. In other words, the observable actions center on the individual’s apparent energy level.


Measuring Executive Energy

For years I have worked with the Task Cycle Model, developed by Clark Wilson, Ph.D., as the research platform for 360-degree behavioral feedback to executives and leaders. We selected this as the behavioral instrument for our study. The model incorporates the behavioral dimensions shown in the Task Cycle exhibit below. We decided to add an Energy dimension to our behavior-focused Leadership survey. We incorporated it as a subscale under Drive. It contained seven items. When we administered the survey to our sample of 135, I expected the Energy dimension to fail as an experiment. I believed it would not factor "cleanly." In other words, I thought that it would be too closely related to other dimensions, such as Vision. I thought it would provide no new, independent information.

I was wrong.

Our seven items factored cleanly, more highly related to one another than to anything else in the survey. We had indeed improved our survey. We were now receiving a more complete picture of a high potential’s behavior profile.

This completed one leg of the journey.


Personality Measures

We wanted to see whether high Energy scores correlated with charisma-related scores on a personality instrument. We felt that if a person was already scoring high on the charisma scales, they would benefit from becoming conscious of how others perceive their energy. They could, for instance, learn to project more energy in key situations to improve their effectiveness.We chose the Hogan Assessment Systems series of instruments for this part of the study. The Hogan instruments are mathematically similar to Wilson instruments. Hogan also uses the concept of independent factors. The structural similarity between the two instruments simplifies the search for common touch-points. Hogan Personality Inventory looks at charisma through three subscales: No Social Anxiety (gregariousness), Leadership (wanting to be in charge), and Self-confidence (having the wherewithal to move forward). Comparing scores for the study group, we found the correlation moderate but significant. They generally ranged from .2 to .3. While this may sound low to those familiar with statistical measurement, we were very excited! It is rare for any personality measure to correlate with a behavior measure at more than a .4 level. This is commonly called the Personality Trait Ceiling among psychometricians. They theorize that it is due to self-perception errors.

Our two selected instruments produced the following results on the three charisma-related items:

Exhibit B

Correlation between HPI Charisma Measures and Executive Leadership Survey Energy Measure:

"No Social Anxiety" (gregariousness): .32 correlation
Leadership (wanting to be in charge): .32 correlation
Self-confidence (having the wherewithal to move forward): .10 correlation

The moderate correlation between lack of social anxiety and the desire to be in charge showed that the energy-related behaviors can be related to personality factors. For the individual who comes to management with these personality assets in place, we could help them see which behaviors might improve their effectiveness.

So, my client was correct and my education was continuing. I began to see that a portion of the phenomenon called charisma can be quantified, studied, reported, and, most importantly, developed.

Copyright 1998-2007 Performance Programs, Inc.

Study: Usefulness of 360 Feedback Varies Across Cultures

Low "power distance" and individualism mark the cultures where 360 feedback seems to be most effective, reports a study recently published in the Academy of Management's Learning and Education (2007, Vol. 6, No. 1, 33-50). "Power distance" refers to the degree of inequality among social levels, while "individualism" refers to identity based on self rather than one's group.

Feedback recipients in the U.S., where 360 feedback for management development originated, and Ireland, where power distance is lowest of the five cultures studied, showed the greatest gains. Lower gains were achieved in Israel, Phillipines and Malaysia.

The study, titled "Does 360 Feedback Process Create Actionable Knowledge Equally Across Cultures?", was coauthored by Frank Shipper, Richard Hoffman and Denise Rotondo. Shipper has researched various aspects of management effectiveness for more than 20 years, often using Clark Wilson Group 360 feedback instruments. This study included 360 feedback recipients in the US, Ireland, Israel, Philippines, and Malaysia. Culture is likely to affect 360 feedback in two basic ways, say the authors. "The process of seeking and providing multiple sources of feedback is based on values and assumptions not equally shared by all cultures," they write. In addition, "the relationship of [360 feedback] outcomes to various cultural values may also come into play."

Using Clark Wilson Group's Survey of Management Practices™, the study showed important nuances in the usefulness of feedback information to individuals from five different business cultures. It used four values that have been found to differentiate cultures: uncertainty avoidance, power distance, individualism and "masculinity" (orientation to competition and outcome, as opposed to cooperation and process).

The paper discusses the implications for both further research and practice. The printed article is available on the PPI shopping cart for $10 including shipping to the U.S and Canada (for international shipping please contact PPI).

Clark L. Wilson, Ph.D., Dies at 92

Innovator of 360 Feedback for Training and Development Applications

Clark Loudon Wilson, Jr., 92, a psychologist credited with introducing the concept of 360-degree feedback to the management training field, died August 12 at the Shenandoah Valley Westminster Canterbury retirement community in Winchester, Virginia. He had a stroke in late July while visiting his hometown of Riverside, California. I was a long-time associate of Clark Wilson and coauthor with him on several surveys. I was very lucky to work with Wilson. He was a great teacher, the kind that you find only rarely in a lifetime.


Dr. Wilson’s greatest contribution to the field of industrial and organizational psychology came late in his career after he began to develop the Multi-Level Management Surveys in 1970. An expert in psychological measurement and statistics, he developed assessment tools for managers that provided feedback on relevant managerial and leadership skills from the manager him/herself, the supervisor, direct reports, and peers. The Survey of Management Practices, Survey of Leadership Practices, and Survey of Executive Leadership, were among his most popular titles; the leadership surveys were developed with the cooperation of the World Bank. Over time, multi-level feedback, or 360-degree feedback as it is now known, became a powerful instructional technique that enables individuals to see themselves as others see them and improve their managerial effectiveness. Up to the time of his death, Wilson continued to develop and publish a full range of assessment tools that were of rigorous psychometric standards and highly regarded in the field. The surveys addressed many aspects of organizational behavior and were used throughout the world to improve the performance of managers and leaders.

Clark Wilson published his last book in 2003 at the age of 90. How and Why Effective Managers Balance Their Skills brings together his conclusions from 30 years of research.

In the 7th edition of Organizational Behavior, a leading industrial psychology textbook by Robert Kreitner and Angelo Kinicki (McGraw Hill, NY), the authors offer this assessment in a two-page article in Chapter One:

“Many attempts have been made over the years to paint a realistic picture of what managers do … Fortunately, a stream of research over the past 20 years by Clark Wilson and others has given us a practical and statistically validated profile of managerial skills.”

Clark Wilson was a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychologists.

Leading Textbook Notes Contribution of Clark Wilson

More than three decades ago, Clark Wilson Ph.D. developed the first 360 feedback surveys for organization development applications based on his Task Cycle® theory. The following excerpt from the 7th edition of Organizational Behavior, a leading industrial psychology textbook, appears in a two-page article in Chapter One: “Many attempts have been made over the years to paint a realistic picture of what managers do … Fortunately, a stream of research over the past 20 years by Clark Wilson and others has given us a practical and statistically validated profile of managerial skills.” Authors: Kreitner and Kinicki, newly published by McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Clark Wilson Group has invested heavily in product development throughout the history of the Task Cycle Surveys.

Skills Increase At Director Level, According to New Norm Study

The measurable skill of the average director receiving Clark Wilson Group 360 feedback is up. We recently conducted the biennial norm update for all fourteen Task Cycle® surveys, adding more than 300,000 records to our database. We found the average perceived skill at manager and director levels has increased again by as much as 4%. This continues a trend we began to observe about 15 years ago. The only group that had a noticeable decline in skill ratings by others is executives!


In 360 feedback, the recipient rates him or herself on the same feedback questionnaire as his or her manager, peers, subordinates, and sometimes customers. Wilson surveys are based on the validated Task Cycle, a logical, sequenced, six-step approach to overall effectiveness.

Management-level feedback received through the Survey of Management Practices stayed about the same, not moving significantly since the mid-1990s.

Director-level feedback, received through the Survey of Leadership Practices, moved up from all perspectives. Managers of director-level personnel increased their opinions of their director-subordinates by 4% over the past five years. It may not sound like much, but in the world of large populations and long-term data collection, it is. Peers and direct reports of directors boosted their opinions by 2% - 3%. Even the directors gave themselves a 1% - 2% boost. This continues a positive trend we’ve seen over fifteen years.

Executive-level feedback recipients increased their self-appraisal over the past five years by 1% - 2%, but did not fare so well in others’ feedback from the Survey of Executive Leadership. Managers and peers of executives decreased their appraisals by 2% - 3% since five years ago. The good news? Measures of trust in these executives inched up from the lows of 2000 by about 4%.

What does the increased skill level of directors mean? The three questionnaires have remained essentially the same since the mid-1990s. The business population using them is also very similar. Are directors skilling up? Is this a reflection of the number of MBAs and other highly trained individuals in these positions? Have organizations done a better job of providing training?

We’re not sure why it happened, but it may bode well for the executive level as directors advance their careers. We wish them luck!

How Can We Increase Job Competency with 360 Feedback?

A core competency statement describes the capability required to do a job successfully. Many organizations have conducted extensive studies of core competencies. We're often asked to use competency study results and customize useful feedback questions to reflect those competencies.

Generally, we limit 360 feedback questions to behaviors that people can change, especially if the feedback is being used for development. This maximizes the opportunity to design effective training. We review each of the competencies for its observability by others.

Customized 360 feedback is usually not validated. However, an organization can obtain validated items or groups of items to create a hybrid survey. For validated competencies, the Task Cycle® Surveys from The Clark Wilson Group are an excellent source. If your organization's competencies match part or all of these, you can capitalize on this research by adding them to your custom 360 feedback questionnaire.

For more information, visit www.performanceprograms.com

How is the concept of validity applied to 360 feedback surveys?

Validated 360 surveys measure behaviors that meet the following criteria:

The behaviors are observable
The behaviors can be trained.
The behaviors do not overlap.

They are based on skills that research has shown are correlated with actual job performance. This approach also provides a hierarchy of skills, which helps feedback recipients prioritize their training. Again, the hierarchy is based on research about which skills impact performance the most.


There are many kinds of validity in psychological testing and surveys. All aim to determine whether a test actually measures what it was designed to measure. All approaches to validity have a role to play. In our field, 360 degree feedback surveys for training and development, the key type is construct validity.

This refers to the underlying qualities the instrument measures. Construct validity is evaluated by determining the degree to which the explanatory concepts behind the instrument account for an individual's performance on the instrument. For example, the Survey of Management Practices measures the qualities of management. A demonstrated strong manager should have high scores on the survey whereas a known weak manager should have low scores.

The aim of a 360 feedback research program should be to test the instruments and their underlying constructs. The research should show how the instrument meets or exceeds technical standards for each of the following techniques:

Application of judgmental and logical analysis
Correlational analysis
Process analysis
Analysis of group differences
Changes over time
Responsiveness of scores to experimental treatment.

Can 360 feedback be used for performance appraisal?

We don't recommend it by itself. There are numerous operational problems when using 360s in this way. Furthermore, validated 360 feedback surveys should never be used for performance appraisal unless they have been revalidated for that purpose.

When is 360 feedback most useful?

Multi-rater feedback excels at identifying perceptions of behaviors -- both the individual's self-perceptions and the perceptions of others. It forms a powerful basis for changing negative perceptions, because behavior can be changed through training and development.

What are the choices and tradeoffs among 360 feedback approaches?
There are 3 basic "organizing principles" to consider. You can use validated surveys, which use research linking specific skill areas to actual work outcomes. These offer the power of predictability -- if the participant exhibits a certain set of linked behaviors, he or she will be more effective. You can use competency studies, based on internal analysis of required skills and abilities. These measure internal progress against internal goals and needs. You can use vision and/or value statements, based on the need to move an organization in a direction. These are extremely useful feedback to management, helping them fine tune their leadership activities.

What is the difference between feedback for assessment and feedback for development?
Developmental feedback is restricted to job performance aspects that can be changed through training. Assessment feedback includes all aspects of a person that influence job performance, such as personality and motivation in addition to behavior. A 360 feedback instrument can be successfully combined with personality measurement to accomplish assessment. This integrated approach can be used to support training and development, at the same time providing insight into motivation.

Personality Tests, 360 Feedback Help Executives Avoid Career Derailment

No amount of training can “change” our personalities. Why, then, are personality tests and other assessments a part of many executive developmental programs these days?

The answer may lie in the power of self-awareness—a commodity that some would-be fast trackers have in short supply, according to our sources. “At some point in their professional lives, the more successful people have already rationalized why people react to them they way they do,” says Gary D’Lamater, Ph.D., a 20-year veteran of executive education and coaching based in Corrales, New Mexico. “I provide them feedback, but they’ll say, ‘That’s interesting stuff, but I’ve been successful in spite of it.’”

That's the fallacy. What they “got by” with in the past may prove to be their undoing in the next position. “Much of my work is done with individuals who are stuck and can’t move or who have been moved up too quickly and are floundering,” says D’Lamater. These are people whose careers are at risk of derailment.
Frank Shipper, Ph.D., is Professor of Management in the Franklin P. Perdue School of Business at Salisbury State University in Salisbury, Maryland. He has studied career derailment, working primarily with validated 360-degree feedback instruments. “Research has shown that poor self-awareness can be related to career derailment, particularly among executives,” he says. “Our studies suggest that assisting managers to see themselves as others see them on specific skills could either prevent derailment or aid recovery. The fatal flaw for would-be fast-trackers, based on our research, is a lack of self-awareness.”

While there is no straight line between personality tests and executive excellence, Shipper’s work makes a very convincing case for providing upwardly-mobile professionals with validated information that shows them how others may be perceiving their attitudes, words, and most importantly, behaviors.

“It’s another lens on the assessment camera,” says Christine Fahnestock, whose 30 years of assessment work has made her a firm believer in the value of personality testing. Fahnestock is president of Fahnestock & Associates in Glastonbury, Connecticut.

Same Skills, Traits May Not Fly at Higher Levels

Fahnestock works frequently with high-potential individuals who are being considered for higher-level positions. “I explain to people that awareness is the first step. It’s even more important for people who are upwardly mobile. In terms of personality tests, they are often very high on adjustment, ambition, and confidence. The flip side is they don’t listen much to input about themselves. They can be full of themselves about what they’re doing right.”

She gives the example of a young female executive who is currently being considered for high-level management. “Until now, she’s been golden. She is so bright and so fast to provide insights. She’s also extremely competitive and has been seen as a star up to now.”

Fahnestock’s challenge is to help her see that some of the personality traits that brought her this far may be her undoing at the next level. “If she goes to the next level, it will be a liability if she doesn’t learn to build strategic relationships. [At the next level] it will be all about sharing in the success of moving this company ahead—not about standing out. She won’t be able to play that card anymore.”
Fahnestock uses a “triangulated” assessment in much of her work, combining behavioral simulations, cognitive testing, and personality tests. “I’ve been amazed at how well the personality tests reinforce what we see behaviorally and cognitively,” she says. “But the real grabber is that the candidates are amazed at how accurate it is. It reinforces their belief in the fairness of the selection and development processes.”

Using 360-Degree Feedback to Improve Self-awareness

D’Lamater thinks that personality tests may have their greatest value for the executive coach. “Personality tests help me understand the person’s motivation,” he says. But to help his clients see themselves as others see them, D’Lamater often uses 360-degree feedback instruments. These surveys are usually based on strictly behavioral observations from bosses, peers, direct reports, and clients, plus a self-assessment on the same questionnaire. They address issues such as a person’s skill in communications, planning, praising subordinates, and other areas for which specific training can be provided.

“I find people very receptive to 360 feedback,” says D’Lamater. “Personality tests show me, as the coach, whether the individual has the motivation and energy to get through the difficult process of changing their behaviors. It helps me find an effective approach to the individual.”

Both D’Lamater and Fahnestock noted that personality tests and 360 degree feedback can help someone quickly come to grips with their developmental needs. “If a candidate is motivated to succeed, the combined feedback can arm him or her with a level of self-awareness that would be difficult to achieve in other ways,” says Fahnestock. “They get past the idea that they need to ‘give up’ some behavior or that their personalities are flawed.”

“It gives my clients a fuller and more predictive assessment,” Fahenstock adds. “It also allows them to back off from some of the more time intensive and expensive approaches to assessment.”

The message from these two coaches is clear: While personality tests cannot change personalities, they can help motivated individuals change behaviors that impede their career progress. That’s the power of self-awareness in a management career.

For more information, visit www.performanceprograms.com