Measuring and managing career derailment

Strategic HR Review

ISSN: 1475-4398

Article publication date: 9 October 2009

317

Citation

McGee, L. (2009), "Measuring and managing career derailment", Strategic HR Review, Vol. 8 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/shr.2009.37208fab.002

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Measuring and managing career derailment

Article Type: Metrics From: Strategic HR Review, Volume 8, Issue 6

The latest ideas on how to approach measurement and evaluation of HR activities

Lucy McGeeHead of Sales and Marketing at business psychologists, OPP.

The business world is littered with once-promising executives now languishing in professional mediocrity. These derailed careers have long been accepted as a natural outcome of a kind of organizational “natural selection.” As the recession bites, the pressure can only increase, and with it the number of previously successful careers that hit the rocks. Organizations need to manage this risk in their top talent.

So what can be done to prevent this happening? One approach lies in identifying the personality factors that can lead to career derailment. With that in mind, we set out to put a metric around career derailment in the hope of plotting a preventative course of action for rising leaders.

The research

Research conducted by OPP in conjunction with The Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL) revealed some concrete factors that force careers off-track. Derailment characteristics and behaviors consistently identified over the past twenty-five years include leaders being authoritarian, being unable to handle conflict, being unable to think strategically and lacking follow-through.

Using this information, we set out to identify the personality traits that are shared by managers who also display these behaviors. In that way, we hoped to understand the personality traits that drive derailment. Data were collected from 279 managers who attended five-day leadership development programs at CCL over the course of seven months. As part of the program, managers rated themselves, and asked others to rate them, on their performance using a 360-degree benchmark instrument. Towards the end, managers also completed the 16 personality factors (PF) questionnaire.

The results

Our analysis revealed that the following traits were all significant factors in derailment potential:

  • Vigilance: the tendency not to trust others, believing that most people have hidden agendas and ulterior motives. This was positively associated with derailment potential in both peer and boss ratings.

  • Abstractedness: the tendency to take a conceptual approach to things. In its extreme form it can look like absent-mindedness. This was positively associated with derailment potential in both peer and boss ratings.

  • Privateness: the tendency to keep personal information to oneself. This was negatively associated with derailment potential in both peer and boss ratings.

When put together, these three personality factors explained the variance in derailment potential among a significant portion of the managers in the study, suggesting that these personality traits are important drivers of career derailment.

What can be done?

The starting point for any company in managing the risk of good people “losing their way” is understanding them. This doesn’t mean making a judgment about whether or not someone “ticks certain boxes.” It means using tried and tested tools to analyze personality in-depth.

Once vigilance, abstractedness and privateness are identified in a manager, the “risk” is in the open. To avoid potential derailment, particularly at times of change, stress and transition, energies need to be focused on developing compensatory behaviors. Following are some suggestions:

  • Vigilance tends to create issues for leaders around trust. Since they bestow so little on their peers and subordinates, they receive less in return. Such leaders could identify situations where they are more likely to feel on their guard and understand that these may be triggers for them. They could also look to learn from someone who takes a more collaborative approach, or commit to managing through trust in a particular situation, and evaluate the results.

  • Abstractedness in a leader is likely to frustrate subordinates as it can manifest, in the extreme, in an inability to engage with detail or commit to action. Such leaders could get into the habit of using a spreadsheet application to plot and commit to concrete milestones and deliverables. They could also place themselves in a situation where they have to implement their new idea to completion.

  • Privateness is negatively correlated with derailment potential. It’s not hard to imagine that unwarranted insights into the personal life of bosses, or inappropriate sharing of work matters and their views on them, might place these leaders in an embarrassing position. Such leaders could reflect on times when they have regretted personal disclosure. They could also consciously choose and engage others outside the organization as confidantes, or resolve to draw a boundary around all but a select few details of personal information as they step across the office threshold.

In leadership development, self-knowledge is the sure rock on which high performance is built. It is also, in these difficult times, the best armor a leader has against derailment under pressure and in the face of potentially menacing change. Knowing where your “stress vulnerabilities” lie should be an asset organizations give to every leader.

About the author

Before joining OPP, Lucy McGee was European Marketing Director at DDI, a global HR consultancy. She also held a variety of marketing management and senior sales positions at Dun & Bradstreet, Logica and BT. She is a certified assessor and facilitator, has a first-class honors degree from Southampton University and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Lucy McGee can be contacted at: lucy.mcgee@opp.eu.com

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