Monica Mok – FutureTHINK!

How do I tell my staff she has not performed well this year?

Monica Mok — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 23:00:48 +0000

If you are a leader or a manager of a team, are you comfortable conducting a performance review with an under-performer on your team?

As Leaders and Managers, it is inevitable that one day we will need to confront a poor performer at work.

However, not all of us are comfortable confronting employees about their poor work performance, and not all of us are experts at conducting performance reviews.

And to add fuel to the fire, not all organisations provide the required training for leaders and managers to conduct proper performance reviews with their employees.

Many of us, as leaders and managers, often struggle with what to say, how to say it and what to do when it comes to performance reviews, especially with an under-performing team member.

So how should you approach the performance review of an under-performer and what can you do to ensure the performance review is effective and productive?

Here are some tips for you as a leader or a manager on how to approach a performance review:

Self-Reflection

Before you jump to the conclusion that the employee is a poor performer, you need to do a little self-reflection.

As Leaders and Managers, sometimes we get so caught up with our own objectives and agendas that we overlook the fact that disengaged employees and poor performers may be the direct result of our own actions (or inaction).

“As Leaders and Managers, sometimes we get so caught up with our own objectives and agendas that we overlook the fact that disengaged employees and poor performers may be the direct result of our own actions (or inaction).”

Ask yourself these questions:

Do they have the necessary resources (tools, money, time, skills) to do their jobs?
Have I provided them with the required guidance to do their jobs?
Have I given them proper instructions for them to get their jobs done?
Have I clearly communicated my expectations and objectives to them so that they understand what they need to do?
What have I not yet communicated to them so they are able to get their jobs done efficiently?
What might I have done to cause the employee to under-perform?

We need to accept the fact that not all under-performers are incompetent or disinterested in their jobs. We need to accept the fact that some employees under-perform because we as leaders and managers fail to provide them with the right environment, resources and the necessary support and guidance for them to excel. Many times, employees do not perform up to expectations due largely to our neglect and oversight.

Begin a Dialogue

Start a one-on-one dialogue with the employee in question. Your dialogue should be focused on the possibilities and solutions rather than on the problems and the past.

Use the following STAGES* model to guide your dialogue with your employee during the performance review:

T – Be specific about the Topic

A – Ask for opinion

G – Give evaluation

E – Establish action plan

S – Set review date

First, set the stage for the dialogue with the employee.

This is the time for you as the leader or the manager to outline and explain why this dialogue is taking place and what the employee can expect from this session with you. This is your opportunity to establish the correct rapport and to create an appropriate climate for the dialogue.

Second, be specific about the topic you want to discuss with the employee.

Clearly identify the topic for discussion and ensure the employee fully understands what you will be discussing. Avoid addressing too many topics or subjects during a single dialogue. Be focused. It is best to focus on one topic at a time.

Third, ask the employee for his/her opinion.

Here you may ask for the employee’s self-evaluation or self-assessment of the issue or topic you are discussing with him/her. If this is a performance issue, ask for the employee’s self-assessment of his/her own performance in that area.

Fourth, give your evaluation of the employee’s performance.

This is when you provide the employee with your honest evaluation of his/her job performance. Remember to stick to the specific subject/topic/issue that both of you had agreed to at the beginning of the session. Do not digress. Focus on possibilities and solutions – not problems and the past. Remember, the aim here is to get the employee to move forward and to improve. So the focus should be on the options and possibilities.

Fifth, establish an action plan.

Agree on an action plan with the employee. It is important that the employee agrees with and is fully committed to the action plan. Ensure that the action plan is reasonable and actionable, so that the employee is able to work on it and make progress towards improvement.

Finally, set a review date.

Again, it is important that the employee agrees to the timeline and the review date. The review date should not be too far off into the future, nor should it be too soon that you do not allow sufficient time for the employee to take reasonable positive actions to make progress.

Review Regularly

Once the performance review is done, you need to follow-up regularly to ensure that the action plans you have agreed upon together with the employee is executed and done as agreed. Schedule regular mini-reviews between major review milestones.

One of the biggest mistakes most managers and leaders make is to put off consistent, regular reviews. Doing a review once a year or once every six months is not sufficient when managing an under-performer.

“One of the biggest mistakes most managers and leaders make is to put off consistent, regular reviews. Doing a review once a year or once every six months is not sufficient when managing an under-performer”

Consistent, regular reviews to ensure the employee is making positive progress and that the employee is taking concrete actions is extremely important if you want to see measurable and tangible improvements in performance.

Performance reviews need not be the dreaded year-end exercise leaders and managers have to go through with their employees. When approached and done correctly with the right attitudes, performance reviews can be a very powerful tool to motivate your employees and to re-kindle their passion for their work.

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About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

He is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. This model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach. Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the Author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been featured on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital and other publications. His comments on Team Collaboration was quoted in the Spring 2014 Edition of the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

*The Manager’s Coaching Toolkit by Dr. David Allamby

Monica Mok

Should You Throw Performance Ratings Out the Window?

Monica Mok — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 07:00:00 +0000

The big boys have done it.

Juniper, Adobe, Deloitte, Accenture and Cigna have all done it.

And even General Electric (GE) – the one that popularised Performance Ratings – have all thrown Performance Ratings out the window.

So why are all these large organisations ditching performance ratings? The more important question you should be asking yourself is : “Should you ditch performance ratings also? Will it work for you?”

Here are 3 reasons why some large organisations decided to ditch Performance Ratings:

1. Nature of work

Our work has become global in nature. We are getting increasingly involved in multiple teams that often are spread around the world. We are doing and getting in work that our managers don’t see and perhaps don’t even understand. So how can managers know what performance ratings to give the employee when they don’t fully understand what each employee does on a day-to-day basis?

2. Collaboration undermined

As they say, “The sum is greater than its parts”. Collaboration in teams has been undermined by performance ratings. This is because in a performance rating system, all employees are “forced” to fit the curve (aka Bell Curve). In other words, if you have a team of 10 excellent performers, you will be forced to reward only 1 or 2 for excellent performance. The rest would have to settle for lower ratings. This often leads to increased internal competition, where employees compete with one another and undermines team collaboration. It also leads to increased hostility between individuals and this undermines collaboration.

3. The world is changing too fast

Spending time once a year to do performance ratings for an employee is no longer effective in today’s fast changing business environment. It is a VUCA world we live in today and in order for organisations to thrive, they need people who are agile, flexible and adaptable. People who can learn, unlearn and relearn in a constantly changing and shifting business environment. Once-a-year performance rating is no longer able to keep up with the constant changes. What is needed is a constant and regular review of an employee’s performance throughout the year.

So should you throw out your performance rating system too?

We need to keep in mind that what suits these big boys like Accenture, Deloitte, Cigna, etc does not necessarily suit your organisation. No two organisations are alike and it would be premature to jump on the bandwagon by throwing out your current performance rating system.

What you should do instead is to take a good hard look at your current system and determine what needs to go, what needs to change and what needs to continue.

Here are some questions you might wish to ask yourself when you review your current process:

The bottom-line is you should not hastily ditch your performance rating system. Take time to review and improve on your current processes. One thing you could implement straight away is to have more regular reviews between managers and employees. Once a year review is grossly inadequate and this should be thrown out. Your employees will thank you for it.

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is the Author of two books:

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Monica Mok

Is Past Performance a Good Predictor of Future Performance?

Monica Mok — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 07:00:00 +0000

In almost every investment brochure, you will see a disclaimer that says: “Past performance is no guarantee of future results”. However most investors (or so they call themselves) completely ignore this disclaimer.

Similarly in the world of hiring and recruiting, most hiring managers ignore the fact that past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

Performance-based questions, competency-based interviews, behavioural-based questions – these are all focused on past accomplishments and past performance of an individual.

In our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world (VUCA) that we live in today, past performance is no guarantee of future results.

In our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world (VUCA) that we live in today, past performance is no guarantee of future results

Knowing a person’s past accomplishments is good, but it is no longer sufficient in our VUCA world today. Investments in Human Capital is very much the same as investing in stocks and shares in the investment world.

Vicki Swisher, Korn Ferry senior director of Intellectual Property Development and author of Becoming an Agile Leader, says “People who are learning agile more readily absorb new skills, behaviors, and insights — and then carry those forward to perform successfully, especially in unfamiliar situations. The agile learner enjoys and deals well with ambiguity and complexity and doesn’t accept the status quo. These are attributes needed in virtually every 21st century organization.”

In addition, a study of 800 executives around the world by Egon Zehnder revealed that “Seventy-eight percent of executives said past performance is no longer the best predictor of success in a new role and 87 percent noted that strong inter-personal traits are a key differentiator when identifying a truly exceptional leader.” Read Egon Zehnder’s press release here.

So what should you do when assessing and evaluating your next potential hire?

1. Focus on the person’s APTITUDE.

Aptitude refers to the ability and the capacity to unlearn and learn at the same time — to unlearn what we already know and learn what is needed to for us to be successful in a constantly changing business landscape.

When assessing a person’s Aptitude, you should look beyond the person’s ability to learn new skills or to attain new knowledge. This is because with the correct attitude, almost anyone is able to pick up a new skill or to gain new knowledge. However the true measure of a person’s Aptitude needs to include the person’s ability to be able to connect with others, establish trusting relationships, build trust with co-workers, and most of all, to be flexible and adaptable to the constantly changing environment.

Alvin Toffler, a futurist and the author of “Future Shock” said it very succinctly:

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” ~ Alvin Toffler

2. Go beyond their past accomplishments, past performance and past behaviour.

It is not about past accomplishment. It is not about past performance. It is not about past behaviour that will determine how you will perform in the future.

Think back to a time when your organisation hired a star performer from another organisation, only to find that the new star performer could not deliver after coming on-board.

This is no surprise as Professor Groysberg of Harvard University did an extensive study of star performers and found that most star performers fail to perform after joining the new organisation.

Extensive research by Professor Boris Groysberg of Harvard University showed that the best performers typically bring with them up to 30% of their capabilities when they move from one organisation to another, contrary to what most believe.

3. Ask “future-oriented” questions, rather than questions on past performance, accomplishments and competencies.

So how do you assess a person’s ability to learn and adapt for tomorrow’s demands?

Here’s your most important interview question of all time:

“Tell me a time when you had to completely unlearn what you already knew and learn something completely new.”

The intent of this question is to understand from your potential hire his or her ability to be able to unlearn what is no longer needed and to learn what is needed to get the job done.

What is most important when assessing and evaluating a potential candidate is that person’s ability to adapt to fast changing conditions, complex environments and ambiguous situations.

Focus on the person’s adaptability, flexibility and capacity.

What is most important when assessing and evaluating a potential candidate is that person’s ability to adapt to fast changing conditions, complex environments and ambiguous situations

So as you prepare yourself to meet with your next candidate, focus on asking “future-oriented” questions, and not dwell too much on “past” performance.

Assess and evaluate your candidate on how well he or she would be able to adapt to the new environment. Assess and evaluate your candidate on how well he or she is able to unlearn the past and learn what is required for him or her to be successful in his or her new role and the ever-changing environment.

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is the Author of two books:

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Monica Mok

Performance Management: How to Manage an Under-performer

Monica Mok — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 07:00:00 +0000

It’s that time of the year again when performance appraisals are done, budgets are set and strategies are put in place.

This is the time of the year when you identify the weakest links in your team and identify the individuals who have not performed up-to-mark and decide what to do with them.

However, not all of us are comfortable confronting employees about their poor work performance, and not all of us are experts at conducting performance reviews.

And to add fuel to the fire, not all organisations provide the required training for leaders and managers to conduct proper performance reviews with their employees.

Many of us, as leaders and managers, often struggle with what to say, how to say it and what to do when it comes to performance reviews, especially with an under-performing team member.

So how should you approach the performance review of an under-performer and what can you do to ensure the performance review is effective and productive?

Here are some tips for you as a leader or a manager on how to approach a performance review:

Self-Reflection

Before you jump to the conclusion that the employee is a poor performer, you need to do a little self-reflection.

As Leaders and Managers, sometimes we get so caught up with our own objectives and agendas that we overlook the fact that disengaged employees and poor performers may be the direct result of our own actions (or inaction).

“As Leaders and Managers, sometimes we get so caught up with our own objectives and agendas that we overlook the fact that disengaged employees and poor performers may be the direct result of our own actions (or inaction).”

Ask yourself these questions:

Do they have the necessary resources (tools, money, time, skills) to do their jobs?
Have I provided them with the required guidance to do their jobs?
Have I given them proper instructions for them to get their jobs done?
Have I clearly communicated my expectations and objectives to them so that they understand what they need to do?
What have I not yet communicated to them so they are able to get their jobs done efficiently?
What might I have done to cause the employee to under-perform?

Begin a Dialog

Start a one-on-one dialog with the employee in question. Your dialog should be focused on the possibilities and solutions rather than on the problems and the past.

Use the following STAGES* model to guide your dialog with your employee during the performance review:

T – Be specific about the Topic

A – Ask for opinion

G – Give evaluation

E – Establish action plan

S – Set review date

First, set the stage for the dialog with the employee.

This is the time for you as the leader or the manager to outline and explain why this dialog is taking place and what the employee can expect from this session with you. This is your opportunity to establish the correct rapport and to create an appropriate climate for the dialog.

Second, be specific about the topic you want to discuss with the employee.

Clearly identify the topic for discussion and ensure the employee fully understands what you will be discussing. Avoid addressing too many topics or subjects during a single dialog. Be focused. It is best to focus on one topic at a time.

Review Regularly

One of the biggest mistakes most managers and leaders make is to put off consistent, regular reviews. Doing a review once a year or once every six months is not sufficient when managing an under-performer.

“One of the biggest mistakes most managers and leaders make is to put off consistent, regular reviews. Doing a review once a year or once every six months is not sufficient when managing an under-performer”

Share this article with your friends and colleagues!

*The Manager’s Coaching Toolkit by Dr. David Allamby

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is the Author of two books:

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Monica Mok

Is friendship a good measure of employee engagement?

Monica Mok — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 07:00:00 +0000

The measure of friendship on employee engagement has been touted by Gallup for the longest time. In their employee engagement surveys, one of the questions employees have to answer is: “Do you have a best friend at work?”

The question is: Does the measure of friendship determine the level of employee engagement?

The answer I believe is both yes and no.

Yes, because having a best friend at work means you have someone whom you can pour your heart out to; there is someone that would listen to you; there is someone that will not judge you; there is someone who would give you unbiased feedback and comments. This could help the employee overcome adverse situations in a better way.

On the other hand, having a best friend at work is one of the most difficult things to do. And the reason is because friendships are forged naturally, and not the result of corporate initiatives. Take for instance, team-building activities. Team-building exercises can help employees who already work well together, form better and stronger relationships. However rifts between employees could be worsened if the employees don’t get along at work and they are put together to work together as a team in a team-building exercise. This is because the flaws and shortcomings of the other party will become even more apparent.

To illustrate, suppose you and I work very well together, and we are placed together in a team-building exercise. By virtue of the fact that we already get along well and work well together in the office, we will be able to easily work together in the team-building exercise. Team-building exercises can enhance bonds and relationships if the people involved already get along well together.

Now imagine you and I are always at each other’s throats. We just can’t get along; we can’t agree with each other; and we can’t work together productively. Would a team-building exercise help you and me to get along better and work better together? The chances are extremely slim. This is because your flaws will become even more obvious to me and vice versa. This runs the risk of further widening the rift between you and me. No amount of corporate orchestration can foster the personal bonds of friendship.

According to Rodd Wagner, a former principle of Gallup, data shows that friendship actually ranks lower than collaboration and team work.

The reason is this: While friends may make you happy, team mates help you get things done.

What most people want is to have great team mates who can all work together and get things done. And if we become friends along the way, that’s a bonus, but not crucial.

I have worked in organisations where people are very productive, but they are not best friends. On the other hand, I have seen best friends who are totally ineffective and the least engaged simply because they did not want to upset their best friend.

So the bottom-line is this: Friendship is not a crucial determinant in employee engagement. So perhaps we should all stop using friendship as a measure of employee engagement in our workplace.

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is the Author of two books:

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Monica Mok

Do Happy Employees Make Successful Companies?

Monica Mok — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 07:00:11 +0000

NOTE: This article first appeared on LinkedIn in June 2014.

There has been so much focus on Employee Happiness recently. There is even a National Workplace Happiness Survey Information Session coming up soon right here in Singapore to talk about – you guessed it – Workplace Happiness!

Not too long ago, I came across a blog on Twitter written by a senior consultant from a huge international HR consulting firm saying that Happy Employee = Successful Company.

It certainly sounds great at first glance and I’m certain that most people would agree with it.

However I respectfully disagree.

You see, it all depends on how you define “Happy Employee” and how you define “Successful Company”.

If you simply took this at face-value, you would likely come to the conclusion that as long as you keep your employees happy, they will do good work for you and positively contribute to the success and growth of your organization.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

Happy Employees ≠ Successful Companies

I have worked in companies and organizations with very happy employees, but the performance of most employees were at best mediocre. Those companies were successful but they weren’t wildly successful. So what was holding these “happy” employees from performing at their best and taking their organization to new heights?

I have also come across companies that place too much emphasis on Employee Satisfaction (aka Employee Happiness) and they pull out all stops to ensure they get the highest scores on their once-yearly employee satisfaction survey results. And some of the things they do to desperately keep their employees satisfied are to organize dinners, social get-togethers and Karaoke sessions.

Unfortunately, most people – managers and organizations alike – have grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted the true meaning of “happy employee”.

The Case of a Happy Employee and a Very Unhappy Manager

I was recently told of an incident about a head of a department who chided a manager for not giving an employee the option to “consider??? being deployed to a branch office on a temporary assignment.

As I was told, the company had just set up a new branch and needed to deploy existing employees from the head-office to the branch.

The manager was not able to hire new employees due to a headcount freeze, and therefore had no other options but to redeploy existing employees from the head-office to the branch to ensure operations at the branch would proceed as planned on opening day.

However the employee who was to be assigned to the new branch objected violently and protested against being assigned to the branch.

The head of the department got to know about it and chided the manager for not considering the feelings of the employee who protested. And so the head of department sat down with the employee to “listen??? to her complaints. The final decision was to give the employee one month to decide if she wanted to accept the assignment to the branch.

The decision by the head of department to allow the employee one whole month to think about the assignment led to huge backlash that almost derailed the opening of the branch. And in the end, someone else still had to be assigned to take the place of the employee who protested!

So was the employee happy? Absolutely!

But was it productive? The answer is obvious.

Why did the head of department decide to give the employee a full month to consider the assignment? Well, you guessed it – their recent employee satisfaction survey results were not good!

So in a desperate attempt to do better in their next employee satisfaction survey, the head of department decided to pander to the wants and demands of his employees.

Know the Difference between Happiness and Contentment

It should be obvious by now that keeping employees happy does not mean pandering to their wants and demands, because pandering to their wants and demands may make them happy but is not going to motivate your employees to do their best for your organization. In fact, it will do just the opposite and will do more harm than good.

It is vital that managers and organizations understand that there is a fundamental difference between a motivated and genuinely happy employee, and one who is simply contented.

Employees who are genuinely motivated will naturally be happy with their jobs. They see challenges as opportunities to do better and to improve. They are always looking to do more and achieve more. Motivated employees are naturally happy and that in turn translates into higher productivity, efficiency and effectiveness.

In contrast, an employee who is simply contented will not be motivated to do a better job, to improve or to achieve more. Contented employees are happy (no pun intended) with what they have, happy with what they are doing and will not seek out challenges or opportunities to do and contribute more.

The Bottom-Line

Happy employees create a successful company – only if the employees are genuinely motivated and happy. Contented employees (who are incidentally also happy) do not contribute to the success of any company. Contented employees breed mediocrity.

So if you want your organization or department or team to achieve peak performance, you will need genuinely motivated and happy people doing the jobs they love. And in order to motivate people to love their jobs and the company they work for, you will require a certain type of leadership.

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is the Author of two books:

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Monica Mok

Assessing the Dark Side of Your Candidates

Monica Mok — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 07:00:58 +0000

A recent doctoral study of 3200 candidates by Christian Enger Gimsø at BI Norwegian Business School found that those with narcissistic personality traits tend to ace interviews and get selected for management and leadership positions.

The study found that when organizations set out to recruit new leaders, they typically look for candidates who are dynamic, self-confident, strong negotiators, and who have the capacity to be tough decision makers – traits that are usually associated with strong leadership skills and abilities. Unfortunately these are the same “qualities” in people who have narcissistic tendencies.

People with narcissistic personality disorders tend to be concerned with dominance, recognition, power and status, and they naturally gravitate to leadership and management positions. Most of them would not think twice about using others to achieve their own goals.

Generally, people who are high on the narcissistic trait lack the ability to relate to others and they would not think twice about running their own agendas at the expense of others around them.

So how do you work around this conundrum?

Here are three suggested strategies to overcome this challenge:

1. Treat all candidates as equally as possible during the job interviews.
  • Ensure that every candidate is assessed using the same methods and strategies. Use the same questions for every candidate so as to ensure equal treatment and therefore fair assessment.

1. Do not just assess candidates for qualities you want; also assess candidates for qualities you do not want.
  • As mentioned earlier, do not just focus on assessing the positive attributes or core competencies of the candidate you are interviewing. Probe into the negative attributes as well. Look into those traits and qualities that you definitely do not want in your organization or on your team.

Perform thorough reference checks.
• If it is a leadership position that you are recruiting to fill, do not stop the reference checks at their peers or their bosses. Talk to their subordinates if you can. Subordinates very often can provide you with a very different perspective of the candidate.

Obviously, this should not be restricted to recruitment of leadership and management positions. You should assess for negative traits and attributes in the non-leadership and non-management positions as well.

Put simply, assess for negative traits for all positions that you hire. It always pays to obtain a more complete and well-rounded view of your candidate – both the positive aspects of the candidate and also the negative aspects or the “dark side” of your candidate.

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is the Author of two books:

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Monica Mok