Personality and the Fate of Organizations

Robert Hogan

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351554497
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Organisational Behaviour
• Index: Business

Personality and performance are intricately linked, and personality has proven to have a direct influence on an individual's leadership ability and style, team performance, and overall organizational effectiveness. In Personality and the Fate of Organizations, author Robert Hogan offers a systematic account of the nature of personality, showing how to use personality to understand organizations and to understand, evaluate, select, deselect, and train people.This book brings insights from a leading industrial organizational psychologist who asserts that personality is real, and that it determines the careers of individuals and the fate of organizations. The author's goal is to increase the reader's ability to understand other people—how they are alike, how they are different, and why they do what they do. Armed with this understanding, readers will be able to pursue their personal, social, and organizational goals more efficiently.A practical reference, this text is extremely useful for MBA students and for all those studying organizational psychology and leadership.

1

What Is Personality Psychology? Defining the Key Issues and Concepts

Personality psychology concerns the nature of human nature. It answers three general questions: (a) How and in what ways are we all alike; (b) how and in what ways are we all different; and (c) why do we (as individuals) do what we do? Why should anyone be interested in personality psychology? There are three reasons. The first is pragmatic: Because other people are the most consequential, helpful, and dangerous parts of the environment in which we live, it seems sensible to have some understanding of these (often) dark forces. Second, without a theory of some sort, it is difficult to make sense out of the world. All of us have more or less well articulated theories of human nature, but these theories are almost surely in need of some maintenance and even repair. We need to understand personality to make sense of the personal, business, and political worlds in which we live. Third, true change depends on understanding how the world works. If we want to improve our lives, relationships, careers, business organizations, or societies, we need as accurate a view of human nature as we can devise.

This volume has two overarching goals. The first is to present a relatively systematic perspective on personality, based on many years of reading, research, and reflection. The second is to use this perspective to understand managers and business organizations. In my view, the success or failure of organizations, ranging in complexity from the family to the multinational corporation and the modern nation-state, depend crucially on the personalities of the persons in charge of the organizations. In a sense, then, this is a book about organizational theory from a blatantly reductionist perspective—I want to explain the dynamics of organizations in terms of the personalities of the key actors. Most people who work in and try to manage real organizations understand how important it is to have the right person in the right job, and this understanding is a tacit acknowledgment of the significance of personality.

This volume is intended for a literate audience. Although I hope psychologists will find it interesting, I am seeking a more general reader. The work probably falls in the category of a self-help book, but my goal is not to increase or enhance individual self-understanding. Rather, my goal is to increase the reader’s ability to understand other people—how they are all alike, how they are all different, and why they do what they do. Armed with this understanding, the reader should then be able to pursue his or her personal, social, and organizational goals more efficiently. This first chapter concerns definitions: I define the key issues in personality psychology, the core assumptions and claims on which the subsequent discussion depends. In the next chapter, I review the modern history of personality psychology—its emergence and early popularity, its rapid subsequent descent into neglect, and its modern renaissance. Chapter 2 is necessary to put the book’s key argument—that personality drives leadership, which then drives organizational performance—into context.

ORGANIZING ASSUMPTIONS

I believe in truth in advertising—I believe in alerting others to my key assumptions. My most fundamental assumption is that the methods of science are our most reliable guide to understanding reality. In that context, I think biology and evolutionary theory provide the necessary framework for understanding human nature.

I base my model of personality on four generalizations drawn from the vast and rapidly expanding literature on human origins. The first generalization is that we evolved as group-living animals, which means that we always live in groups, group living is our natural environment, and our natural tendency is to agglutinate. The second generalization is that every group has a status hierarchy. In some groups (e.g., Cistercian monks) the hierarchies may be hard to discern (for the monks, status is determined by individual differences in how strictly the rules of chastity, poverty, and silence are observed), but they are always there. Moreover, the hierarchies begin developing very early and they are quite powerful: A younger colleague complained recently about his 3-year-old daughter’s preschool group. Two 5-year-old girls “ruled” the group, and the mothers of the younger girls were pestered, every morning, by their daughters’ demands to wear that day what the 5-year-old rulers had worn the day before.

The third generalization is that every human group has a religion of some sort. Not only are religions a cultural universal, but religious observances also seem to be an ancient feature of human groups. Anthropologists have evidence of systematic burial practices 100,000 years ago. Such practices probably go back further, but hard data are difficult to obtain. Nested within the religious practices of each group are vast numbers of prescribed and proscribed behaviors (e.g., husbands should not look at their mother-in-laws, be careful not to allow others to obtain pieces of your fingernails, prepare foods in certain ways, etc.) that we moderns arrogantly deem superstitions, while treasuring our own strange rules and practices.

The final generalization concerns the fact that all hunter-gatherer societies—from tribesmen in the New Guinea highlands to the Inuits in Greenland to the !Kung Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa—live in egalitarian bands (Boehm, 1999). Anthropologists mostly agree that existing hunter-gatherer societies (which are rapidly disappearing) are the best model we have for estimating the structure of human society in prehistory. The living conditions of modern hunter-gatherers suggest that egalitarian living arrangements are a natural part of human psychology. Every hunter-gatherer group has a “head man,” but they become head men on the basis of (a) their moral qualities—they resolve disputes and generally work to keep the peace; (b) their good judgment—they make good decisions about where to find food, water, and shelter; and (c) their skill as hunters. These head men lead by example, and are rarely able to demand that the rest of the group obey them.

There are two additional points to be noted about hunter-gatherer societies. First, in most of these groups, from time to time, one member (almost always a male) will try to dominate the others (e.g., take extra food, not share his resources, bully others, and take other men’s wives). The subsequent history of these efforts to dominate others takes a predictable course. First the group warns the miscreant. If the bullying continues, the group shuns the offender. If the bullying continues, the group may physically isolate the bad boy. Finally, if the misbehavior continues, the group executes the bully, either in an ambush or by setting him up to be taken by a rival group. This suggests that hatred of domination is also part of the innate human cognitive apparatus, a point that has important implications for our later discussion of managerial performance.

My final point based on the study of human origins is that, when the world emerged from the last ice age about 13,000 years ago, all humans lived in hunter-gatherer societies. Agriculture was invented in the east end of the Mediterranean Sea about 11,000 years ago, and this invention brought about a profound change in the structure of human groups (Diamond, 1997). Groups began to stay in one geographical location, individuals began to accumulate resources (the accumulation of resources is verboten in egalitarian hunter-gatherer communities), and with resources, individuals with aspirations could recruit and pay others to support their efforts to dominate the local communities. Some time in the last 6,000 years we saw, for the first time, the emergence of the hierarchies, tyrannies, and kleptocracies that characterize the modern world. At the time of the rise of Rome 2,000 years ago, about half the world’s population lived in hunter-gatherer bands. The ancient Greeks are typically credited with inventing democracy, but in reality they merely rediscovered the social structure of their prehistorical ancestors. It is fairly easy to see the history of the modern world over the past 2,000 years in terms of the rise of various dictatorships, followed by a series of spontaneous attempts to overthrow these tyrannies and restore a measure of egalitarianism in everyday life.

To summarize the foregoing, I base my analysis of personality on these four generalizations: (a) people always live in groups, (b) every group has a status hierarchy, (c) every group has a religion and an assortment of prescribed and proscribed behaviors, and (d) people are adapted to live in groups that resemble hunter-gatherer societies. These generalizations allow us to draw some inferences about the nature of human motivation; that is, how we are all alike.

MOTIVATION

The fact that people evolved as group-living animals and continue to do so today suggests that, at a deep and perhaps unconscious level, people need social companionship, social feedback, and social interaction. People are preprogrammed to seek the company of others. It also suggests that people will find social isolation quite stressful, and the prospects of being shunned, rejected, and isolated are quite threatening. Data supporting this suggestion are found in Harlow’s research regarding the devastating impact of social isolation on baby rhesus monkeys—research so painful as to make it unthinkable to replicate it with human infants. More immediate data are to be found in research on attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969). This research demonstrates that infants find separation from their primary caretakers to be deeply traumatizing. Bowlby, the originator of attachment theory, noted that for a child to be separated from his or her caretakers is like being exposed to radiation: Any amount is harmful and it accumulates. Writers as different as Adam Smith and J. J. Rousseau have argued that humans are inherently social animals. As is the case with any generalization about people, there are individual differences: Some people are powerfully motivated by the prospects of social contact (extroverts), and some people prefer to remain by themselves (introverts). Moreover, there will be important individual differences in peoples’ ability to develop and maintain a network of social relationships. Finally, personality psychologists have developed good measures of individual differences in these affiliative desires and capabilities.

The fact that every human (and primate) group is organized in terms of a status hierarchy suggests that, at a deep and perhaps unconscious level, people need status and try to promote and advance their positions in their social groups when they can. It also suggests that people will find the loss of status deeply threatening and traumatic. Consider, for example, the seemingly illogical behavior of Saddam Hussein, the former dictator of Iraq, who by defying the world community risked bringing chaos and destruction to the people of his country. His behavior becomes interpretable and even logical when seen in terms of a powerful desire not to lose the status that he spent his life acquiring. Once again, however, there will be important individual differences in the degree to which people want status, with some people being obsessed with such aspirations and others being relatively indifferent to worldly rank. Among those who want to advance themselves, there will be important individual differences in abilities to do so. Finally, personality psychologists have developed good measures of individual differences in these desires and capabilities for status attainment.

The fact that every human culture has a religion and an associated network of rules designed to regulate conduct suggests that, at a deep and perhaps unconscious level, people need structure, order, predictability, and even meaning in their lives. People create myths, legends, religious systems, and moralities to provide themselves with structure, predictability, and meaning. There is a very interesting but somewhat overlooked literature on the experimental induction of neurosis in laboratory animals; this literature clearly demonstrates these needs in rats and dogs. In the first such experiment, Pavlov, the Nobel prize-winning Russian physiologist, strapped a dog in a harness, then required the dog to distinguish between a circle and an ellipse. If the dog correctly chose the circle, it received a meat powder; if it chose the ellipse, it received nothing. Pavlov varied the positions of the circle and ellipse, and made each ellipse closer to a circle. At some point, the dog experienced a severe nervous breakdown simply by being required to make choices in an increasingly ambiguous situation. Chimpanzees also become highly emotional when confronted with strange and ambiguous circumstances. As is always the case, there are important individual differences in the degree to which people can tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty, and personality psychologists have developed good measures of peoples’ ability to tolerate risk and uncertainty.

I end this discussion of motivation with three observations. First, there are other motives at play in everyday life. For example, we share with reptiles the needs for food, water, territory, sex, and the desire to protect our young. We share with chimpanzees the needs for social contact and status. The motivational model I have described here is, I believe, distinctly human. Second, the needs for social contact, status, and structure are principally resolved during social interaction. In an important sense, humans are compelled to interact, we are most distinctly human and ourselves during social interaction, and outside of our normal patterns of interaction, we have little to do except surf the Internet. Finally, I use as shorthand terms for these three motive patterns the phrases getting along, getting ahead, and making meaning. Our needs for acceptance and social contact lead to behaviors designed to get along; our needs for status result in behaviors designed to get ahead; and our needs for predictability, and order lead to behaviors designed to make meaning.

SOCIAL INTERACTION

All consequential human action takes place during social interaction. What we do in private, to a substantial degree, consists of reviewing past interactions and planning for future interactions. It is useful to reflect for a moment on the ingredients of interactions. All interactions have three essential components. The first is an agenda, a reason for the interaction. Agendas range from the trivial and informal (“Let’s get together and have a beer”) to the profound and formal (United Nations Security Council debates). Persons with power or social skill are often able to set the agenda for interactions. The second necessary component for an interaction is roles to play: We can only interact with others in the context of roles, which provide needed structure and predictability. Consider the children’s game of jump rope: The game can only take place if there is some agreement about playing the game, and if there are enough children to fill the required roles of rope turner and rope jumper. Roles range from informal (guest at a cocktail party) to formal (bride in a wedding ceremony). There are important individual differences in peoples’ abilities to define and play roles, and skillful players generally do better in the game of life.

The final ingredient needed for interactions is the rules for the game, ritual, or ceremony in which a person is involved. These rules are usually well understood by the participants prior to the interaction, although they are often subject to negotiation (e.g., the rules governing professional football games are periodically revised to enhance the crowd appeal of the games). The socialization process, which begins in infancy and continues thereafter, is largely about teaching people the requirements of various roles, and the rules that apply in various kinds of interaction. People who do not honor the requirements of their roles or who ignore the rules for the interaction put the integrity of the game at risk and are often asked to leave the interaction. Consider the formal interactions known as college lectures. The major agenda concerns students learning something from a lecturer. Persons in the role of the lecturer are supposed to look a certain way and be prepared to lecture; persons in the role of student are supposed to pretend to care about the lecture. Even small deviations from the norms (e.g., a male instructor wearing a red evening gown, a student talking quietly on a cell phone) will threaten to disrupt the proceedings. Again, this speaks to our needs for structure, predictability and order, and how we invent rituals to meet these needs.

PERSONALITY

In everyday language the word personality has two meanings. These meanings serve very different purposes, and for the sake of rational conversation, it is important to keep the two meanings distinct. On the one hand, there is the actor’s view of personality; this is personality from the inside and it concerns the you that you know—the person you think you are; your hopes, dreams, aspirations, values, fears, and theories about how to get along, get ahead, and find meaning (McAdams, 1993). On the other hand, there is the observer’s view of personality; this is personality from the outside and it concerns the you that we know—the person others think you are, based on your overt behavior.

There are several important points to be noted about these two aspects of personality. First, we refer to the actor’s view of personality as your identity, whereas the the observer’s view of personality is referred to as your reputation. Your identity is the story you tell yourself and others about you; it is the generic part that you play during social interaction. Your reputation is the summary evaluation of your past performances during interaction as shared by the members of your community. Second, the concepts of identity and reputation serve very different functions in everyday language. We use reputation to describe your past performances or to predict your future performance—reputations are used to describe or predict behavior. We use identity to explain your behavior. Reputation concerns what you do, and identity concerns why you do it.

Thoughtful nonpsychologists have always understood the point of distinguishing between personality from the inside and from the outside. For example, consider the following comments in a 2003 issue of The New York Times Review of Books regarding Browne’s (2002) magnificent biography of Darwin:

So, after a thousand pages, do we know the man? ... Browne ... speculates very little about [Darwin’s] interior life. There are few cases, probably, in which we can know much about a person’s inner being—biographers who purport to know about such matters are usually impertinent or fanciful or both .... Still, Browne gives us a vivid sense of what can be legitimately described: how he appeared to his family, his friends, and the public at large, (p. 31)

The point is that we can talk with knowledge about reputation, but our observations about another person’s identity are typically speculative at best.

A third point to remember about identity and reputation concerns their relative degrees of verifiability or truth value. Identity, once again, concerns the you that you know. Sigmund Freud, the Viennese psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis, would say that the you that you know is hardly worth knowing. This is because we invent ourselves; our identity is a story that we made up to give us a part to play in social interaction. It is empirically well established that peoples’ self-stories are only tangentially related to their past performances, and in many cases are radically discrepant with them. Identities are quite hard to study in a rigorous fashion largely because they are so subjective and even fanciful. In contrast, reputation is easy to study: We simply ask the peer community to describe an actor using a standardized reporting format. Such descriptions typically show a high degree of agreement across the persons who provide them, and such descriptions tend to be very stable over long periods of time. Moreover, because the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and because reputations reflect past behavior, reputations are the best single predictors of a person’s future behavior. Finally, extensive research over the past 100 years shows that there is a very stable and even un...