Customer Reviews

Personality and the Fate of Organizations

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Robert Hogan very quickly makes you feel you are in good hands as he distills a long career as personality researcher and organizational consultant into this very accessible volume. His "rules of the road" are simple: Is the principle useful in the real world of leadership and organizational development? and, Is the principle rooted in solid data?

My guess is that Hogan made a practice of underselling--and then overdelivering to his clients. And this is exactly what this book does. It could probably replace a shelf full of business and organizational psychology books. Instead of a cold academic or a irrationally exuberant treatment of the importance of personality in leadership and team building, Hogan takes a refreshingly direct, honest and conversational approach. In the spirit Jim Collin's "level 5 leadership," he is more interested in being helpful than in shining a light on himself.

While reading the book I kept thinking that I was being guided by a favorite Uncle whose interest in teaching me was driven by a deeper level of caring than is found in the typical relationship of teacher/student or writer/reader.

You can tell that Mr. Hogan is interested in helping his reader get results through a singularly no-nonsense approach. While never mean-spirited, he has very little tolerance for practices and theories that do not follow his two "rules of the road". For example, Hogan is quick to dismiss Jung's model of personality as reflected in the Myers-Briggs typology.

Personally, I believe that Emotional Intelligence, Maslow, and Jungian typologies (which don't quite meet Hogan's rules of the road) continue to have large popular followings because they offer real insights in a warmer and less reductionistic way than the Big Five model (which has in fact been a great boon to personality research). Matter of fact and practical is good--but so are texture, nuance, introspection, and non-reductionistic models of personality.

Some of the greatest models of personality have come from novelists and poets--e.g. Shakespeare on the anatomy of dangers of hubris. Great leadership has an element of artistry--as well as other qualities that don't fit neatly in the Big Five or other lexical taxonomies. So science is a great way of knowing--but we have to recognize that it is a way of knowing that is firmly seated in the brain's left hemisphere--and does not have the symphonic or synergistic qualities of ways of knowing grounded in the right hemisphere. There is essential truth in these ways of knowing that should not be dismissed--but integrated into a greater explanatory whole.

This is a surprisingly good book. My only regret is that I didn't have an Uncle Robert Hogan when I was struggling to learn the ropes of organizational behavior :)

Once, when scholars were certain that personality did not exist, Robert Hogan led the charge against ignorance. The current revival of personality in organizational studies is in no small part due to Hogan's tireless research, writing, and professional presentations. All along his point has simply been that personality matters--as Freud put it, "Character is fate."

In this fabulous and briskly written book, the master marshals data, theory, and clear-headed thinking to present the most persuasive account ever presented on how and why personality determines the success and failure of business, political, and religious organizations. This is no small feat. However, it is topped by how plainly accessible Hogan renders his argument. You will not find any hedging or hawing, no mealy-mouthed consultant-speak trying to have it both ways. Instead, you get a no-holds-barred statement on such important lessons as how one bad apple really can spoil the bunch (personality and teams), who you are is how you lead (personality and leadership), why one jerk at the top can cause misery and losses for many (dark side of leadership), how self-actualization theory is Marxism-lite for Dummies (human nature), and how the individual search for power is the primary force animating all human activity (the secret life of organizations).

While firmly rooted in science, Personality and the Fate of Organizations is an essential guide for the thinking navigator of corporate politics, hierarchies, and realities. As Hogan put it in the context of human evolution, the most dangerous aspect of the environment is other people. This penetrating and fun-to-read treatise provides practical insight into that most powerful--and dangerous--force on the planet. The reader is rewarded with a roadmap for getting along, getting ahead, and finding some measure of meaning and purpose in it all.

Not for the faint of heart or ideologically inclined.

Personality and the Fate of Organizations by Robert Hogan, Ph.D., is a small book with a big message: the personalities of leaders have a dramatic role in the course of human affairs. While the average person might find this an obvious conclusion, academics and researchers have debated one question contentiously: Are leaders more-or-less average people who "rise to the occasion" or is their personality a unique factor in the outcome of their leadership?. Hogan is the author of the Hogan Personality Inventory, one of the few personality tests written and validated for the workplace. He comes down firmly on the side of personality as a key factor in the outcome of an individual's leadership.

"In a tradition extending from Freud and Weber to me," says Hogan, "people argue that leadership is a function of the characteristics of individuals. This means that some people have more talent for leadership than others." In seven chapters, Hogan examines the nature of that talent and its antithesis. He goes through a definition of personality, gives a history of personality psychology, examines leadership, team performance, organizational theory, managerial incompetence, and how to fix the latter. The main text is only 151 pages, but it encompasses topics no less than "The Psychology of Managerial Incompetence" and "The Secret Life of Organizations." Hogan has dedicated his career to understanding the role of personality in the workplace; this book may be his capstone explanation of all he has learned.

Robert Hogan, the brains behind a variety of personality and performance assessment tools for the workplace, shares his thoughts on personality and leadership, the importance of personality to team performance, organizational success, and managerial incompetence. In this concise volume, Hogan provides a comprehensive history of personality theory, particularly as it impacts business organizations. Hogan makes a strong argument that selecting individuals with the right personality for leadership roles is essential for building effective teams, and ultimately, determining the success of an organization.

Hogan's theories are based primarily on the five factor model of personality. Hogan posits that the term personality has two meanings -- identity, which is one's view of self, and reputation, others' views of an individual. Identity explains behavior, whereas reputation predicts behavior. Personality is based largely on temperament, which is 50% genetic, and includes tendencies toward sociability, emotionality, and impulsivity. Hogan also says that our identities are created by the roles we play roles in public. Without our roles, we have little to say to one another. As social beings, we need to have something so say, and therefore, we need to have roles in teams, groups, families and communities for psychological and physical survival.

Hogan then uses his understanding of personality to discuss organizational leadership. He explains how personality contributes to effective team performance and organizational success, and how elements of personality can undermine group performance and success. Most leaders will fail because they are unable to build teams as a function "of certain dysfunctional interpersonal tendencies that are hard to detect during job interviews or assessment center exercises." This is why pre-assignment personality assessment is so critical.

Throughout the book, in defending his own model, Hogan is quick to dismiss other recognized models and theories related to personality. For example:

On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:
"Most personality psychologists regard the MBTI as little more than an elaborate Chinese fortune cookie -- each of the 16 MBTI types is described in a chirpy and upbeat fashion . . . ." Hogan scoffs at the business community's "endless appetite for MBTI-based feedback."

On Maslow's theory of self-actualization:
"Maslow, a Marxist from the 1930's, believed that the proper goal of the state is to help each citizen develop his or her potential to the maximum. . .." Maslow's concept of self-actualization "is an element of Marxist ideology, and economic perspective that has bee n lartegly discredited on the world historical stage." Moreover, the conce;t of self-actualization "makes no sense in evolutionary terms, except as an excuse for selfishness." Further, no one has been able to measure differences in self-actualization, raising "the suspiciion that it does not exist."

On Total Quality Management:
TQM "is inherently hostile to personality." It is widely accepted in the uS, "but there is little empirical support for the many practices that stem from it."

On sociology:
Sociologists regard people as "essentially fungible" showing an ignorance of personality theory.

On team-building exercises:
Typically, team-building interventions such as ropes courses or outdoor learning "lave little long-term impact on conflict because the conflict will often be a symptom of underlying issues, such as poorly defined goals . . . "

On executive coaching:
"much of what goes on under the rubric of executive coaching is in essence psychotherapy." "The goal is not to improve the person's leadership skills but to make the person feel bettter about himself or herself."

And although its not a comment on other personality theorities, Hogan's take on university leadership is right in line:
"[T]he fact that colleges and universities are typically led by failed academics partially explains their problems with faculty morale."

In contrast, and not surprising, the negativity is replaced by unswerving chirpiness when Hogan discusses various Hogan instruments -- namely the HPI and HDS. HPI, a measure of normal personality, and the HDS, a measure of derailment tendencies are widely used to assess employees, particularly those being considered for leadership positions. The HPI "is an exceptionally well-validated measure of individual differences in occupational performance."

Overall, Hogan makes an interesting and well-reasoned argument in support of the use of personality assessments in selecting and developing strong leaders and creating effective teams and organizations. I don't know that his dismissive attitude toward other scholars and personality theorists necessarily enhances his own case, but it does make for interesting reading. I would recommend this text for anyone interested in leadership development, succession planning, or just better understanding how effective organizations function.

Great book, supported with an abundance of research, about how personality impacts leadership. Hogan's thesis: "Who you are determines how you lead." The book includes a history of social-organizational systems from the time of small hunter-gatherer societies to the emergence of agrarianism and industrialism. How have leaders, and our concepts of leadership, changed? Hogan's study indicates the best CEOs are humble seek no special favors. They are like tribal leaders of hunter-gatherer societies, who gain their positions through rare combinations of technical and social skill. The best leaders organize teams with a shared sense of purpose. They are not the charismatic "bad boys" we pretend to revere. They lead through example and vision, not orders. Bad leaders are consistently ousted by the community, which is sensitive to arrangements that do not meet its needs.