Hogan: What Your Personality Says About Your Leadership (and Your Dark Side)

Leadership directly impacts business results, with up to 45% of financial outcomes tied to effective leadership. The Hogan Assessment System helps organisations understand how personality affects leadership strengths, stress responses, and motivations. Here's what you need to know:

• Three Key Components:
  • HPI (Bright Side): Highlights traits like emotional stability, ambition, and sociability in everyday situations.
  • HDS (Dark Side): Identifies stress-induced behaviours that may derail leadership, such as perfectionism or overconfidence.
  • MVPI (Values): Explores core motivations like recognition, power, and altruism to predict cultural fit and job satisfaction.
• Why Personality Matters:
  • It shapes relationships, decision-making, and stress management.
  • Hogan's database of over 11 million assessments provides insights used by Fortune 500 companies.
• Challenges:
  • Costs (£320 per assessment) and complex interpretation require certified experts and structured implementation plans.
• Best Use Cases:
  • Executive development, succession planning, and team alignment.

Dr. Hogan on Hogan

The 3 Key Hogan Leadership Measures

The Hogan Assessment System evaluates leadership potential and performance through three distinct measures. Each one hones in on specific dimensions of leadership, providing a comprehensive view of strengths and challenges.

HPI: Normal Personality Traits

The Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) examines the "bright side" of personality - the traits that emerge during everyday situations. This assessment is supported by extensive validation.

The HPI evaluates seven key dimensions, each with a direct impact on leadership:

HDS: Risk Factors and Challenges

The Hogan Development Survey (HDS) identifies behaviours that may surface under stress and potentially derail leadership effectiveness.

For instance, a mid-sized tech company leveraged HDS insights to address issues like perfectionism and over-confidence. This intervention reduced employee turnover by 15% and boosted engagement.

These derailers are grouped into three behavioural categories:

• Moving Away Behaviours: Leaders may withdraw or avoid team interactions when under pressure.
• Moving Against Behaviours: Excessive confidence or domineering tendencies can emerge.
• Moving Toward Behaviours: Stress may lead to over-compliance or an eagerness to please others excessively.

MVPI: Core Values and Motivations

The Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) explores what drives leaders at their core. Available in over 40 languages, this tool predicts job satisfaction and alignment with workplace culture by uncovering unconscious biases.

The MVPI measures ten core values, each shaping leadership style:

What Works and What Doesn't in Hogan Tests

Benefits: Data-Driven Results

Hogan Assessments stand out for their solid foundation in research and their ability to evaluate leadership effectively. With over 9 million leaders having completed these assessments, they offer a broad and detailed view of how personality influences leadership.

Their validation process highlights their reliability:

These assessments provide valuable insights into workplace behaviours, personal values, and the risks of potential derailers - areas often overlooked by traditional skill-based evaluations. Such insights are particularly useful for succession planning and leadership development. However, while their strengths are undeniable, there are practical challenges that organisations must consider, such as costs and the complexity of interpretation.

Drawbacks: Price and Interpretation

Despite the many advantages of Hogan Assessments, there are some notable challenges. The assessments deliver detailed insights, but their cost and complexity can make them less accessible for widespread use.

A single comprehensive personality assessment costs approximately £320.

Some of the key challenges include:

• Interpretation Complexity: Understanding the reports requires specialised training, which not all organisations have access to.
• Time Investment: The assessment process can be time-consuming, and feedback is not always immediate.
• Integration Issues: Some organisations struggle to align the results with their existing corporate culture.

To navigate these challenges, organisations can adopt targeted strategies:

"When considering personality assessments, we urge any potential user to review the research on which they are based and to become fully educated on their appropriate use."

• Hogan Assessments

One important consideration is the assumption that personality traits remain stable over time. This consistency is helpful for long-term planning but may not fully account for individuals' ability to adapt or grow over time.

Making the Most of Hogan Assessments

Hogan Assessments offer a deep dive into personality traits, providing valuable insights for strategic talent management. When used thoughtfully, they can help leaders thrive, but their effectiveness often depends on the context in which they’re applied.

Where Hogan Shines

Hogan Assessments are particularly effective in environments where understanding personality is key to leadership success. Organisations focused on leadership development report up to 20× better talent retention when leveraging Hogan's tools.

These assessments work well in the following areas:

Executive Development
Take the example of a global tech firm that utilised Hogan Assessments to identify leaders who could adapt to rapid changes. This approach strengthened team cohesion and improved decision-making.

Succession Planning
Hogan data plays a crucial role in developing leadership pipelines. Here's how organisations use it:

Crisis Leadership
In one example, a healthcare organisation used Hogan Assessments to identify leaders who were both empathetic and resilient. This resulted in better patient care and increased staff satisfaction.

"Despite billions of dollars of well-intentioned investment in leaders, two-thirds of leaders are at best ineffective and at worst failing." – Jackie Sahm, MS, Vice President of Integrated Solutions, Hogan Assessments

While Hogan provides deep insights, it’s worth noting that these tools are not always suited for every type of recruitment scenario.

When Other Tools Might Be a Better Fit

Although Hogan Assessments are powerful, there are situations where alternative methods may be more practical:

Entry-Level Roles
For junior positions where technical skills are more critical than personality insights, task-specific or skills-based assessments may be more appropriate.

Time-Sensitive Hiring
In fast-paced hiring scenarios, simpler screening methods can save time without compromising on quality.

Best Practices for Success

To maximise the benefits of Hogan Assessments, organisations should consider the following:

• Work with Certified Experts
  Proper certification ensures accurate interpretation of assessment results. For instance, a financial services company successfully transitioned mid-level managers by integrating Hogan findings into their development plans.
• Develop Clear Implementation Plans
  Structured programmes that align assessment results with actionable development strategies are key to success.
• Establish Feedback Mechanisms
  Regularly monitor and adjust development plans to ensure the insights from assessments are effectively applied.

"If the coach asks the participant what they need to work on, it's like a doctor asking a patient for the diagnosis! This highlights the importance of having that external perspective on our reputations." – Trish Kellett, MBA, Director of the Hogan Coaching Network

Conclusion: Using Hogan for Better Leadership

Key Takeaways

Hogan Assessments highlight that poor team-building is a major factor in leadership failures. Studies show that leadership decisions can influence between 14% and 45% of an organisation’s financial performance. By using Hogan’s three-lens framework, leaders can better understand personality traits and make decisions that positively affect outcomes.

These insights provide a foundation for practical leadership development strategies.

Next Steps

To truly benefit from these insights, leaders need to turn awareness into actionable steps.

Managing Yourself
Great leaders actively work on self-regulation, using mindfulness and stress management techniques to keep their dark side traits in check during high-pressure moments.

Strengthening Teams
Given that many employees report stress stemming from poor management, applying Hogan’s insights to team dynamics is crucial. Successful leaders:

✓ Identify team members’ complementary traits
✓ Delegate tasks that align with individual strengths
✓ Build environments where team values align with organisational goals

Focusing on Growth
Leadership improvement involves:

• Recognising personal triggers
• Developing support systems to counteract weaknesses
• Creating accountability structures to ensure ongoing progress

By applying Hogan’s principles, leaders can adapt their approach to fit each situation. Regular feedback and coaching are key to fostering long-term leadership success.

"Leadership is consequential, measurable and improvable".

FAQs

How can organisations use Hogan Assessments to enhance leadership development?

Organisations can utilise Hogan Assessments to support leadership development by drawing on the insights offered by three key tools: the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI). These assessments shed light on leaders' strengths, potential challenges, and underlying values, enabling the creation of personalised development plans that address their specific needs while aligning with broader organisational objectives.

By integrating Hogan results with 360-degree feedback, organisations gain a fuller picture of a leader's performance and how they interact with others. This combined approach ensures that development strategies are focused, measurable, and impactful, fostering both personal growth for leaders and progress towards organisational goals.

What challenges might arise when using Hogan Assessments, and how can they be addressed?

Hogan Assessments come with a few challenges, including substantial costs, difficult interpretation, and the requirement for specialised training to analyse results effectively. These aspects can limit accessibility for some organisations and add layers of complexity to their use.

To navigate these hurdles, organisations could prioritise training HR professionals to interpret the results accurately, ensuring they gain the most from the assessments. Pairing Hogan Assessments with other evaluation methods - such as 360-degree feedback or structured interviews - can also offer a broader view of an individual's leadership potential, helping to avoid over-reliance on a single tool.

When might other assessment tools be more suitable than Hogan Assessments?

When keeping things simple and staying within budget are top priorities, other assessment tools might be a better choice. Hogan Assessments, though backed by extensive research and offering in-depth insights, can be pricey and often need skilled professionals to interpret the results. This can make them less practical for smaller organisations or those operating on tighter budgets.

For teams looking for quick, general insights into personality or group dynamics, tools like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) or the Big Five personality model might be more suitable. These options tend to be more affordable, user-friendly, and don’t demand specialised training, making them ideal for straightforward, practical use.

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