This is an introduction. It is part one of three instalments on three seldom acknowledged leadership handicaps that I observe. These inclinations are dishonest, naivety and tedium. In the next instalment, I will talk in more detail about the three. I will then conclude by discussing how to identify and incorporate these thinking and behavioural patterns into effective leader selection decisions and point out questions for research.
Have you had a situation where you had a leadership selection candidate who was appointable and was expected to perform satisfactorily in an envisaged role yet you were left with a feeling that you were missing something? A selection situation when a candidate presented qualifications, experience and objective assessments that all recommended the appointment, yet you had some niggling doubt? A useful final check is to consider possible hamstrings that you were intuitively picking up; the not-so-obvious patterns that can scamper an appointee's successful job performance? I refer to these as the red flag constructs.
A red flag is a signal that there is some concern(s) requiring attention. The lack of such a selection caution, if justifiable, can be assumed to be a good valuation of the candidate. Red flag constructs are troubling discernible thinking and behavioural co-variations that allow extrapolations to unobserved and or future behaviours. They are discrete, hardy and evident across varied contexts and situations. These are subtle patterns that require a close and deep examination to be made explicit.
Organisations that unwittingly appoint a candidate that is gifted (cursed) at being treacherous, or is blessed with gullibility, or is prone to be boring embark on a risky leadership journey. The wheels will come off, eventually. I observe that dishonesty, naivety and tedium respectively are often glossed over or unnoticed leadership selection red flags.
Each of these is a behavioural covariation theme that is material, significant and applicable in leadership selection decision making. Each is detectable and quantifiable using objective cognitive and behavioural assessments. Candidates will have more and some less of each pattern. The more distinct the pattern is, the more likely the predicted behaviour will come to pass; in other words, the less situational the candidate's responses are likely to be. Selection decision-makers must avoid leadership candidates that are likely to be treacherous, or that are prone to be exploitable or that are inclined to be tiresome.
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