A Clinical Method for Predicting Leadership: Part 3
A Structural Psychological Approach
We take what psychologists call a structural look at personality. We examine relations among different levels and functions of the individual’s self, including motives, coping, interpersonal style, values, and integrity. Such a view allows us to begin to frame where instabilities in the individual’s psychological make-up can translate into adaptive problems at work.
Our assessment strategy uses a combination of objective and projective techniques. Objective techniques refer to self-report statements classified using psychometric procedures. Projective tests reflect more indirect, symbolic, and more covert ways of self-expression that frequently are beyond the range of a person’s understanding. By using a combination of objective and projective techniques, we can observe how consistently the same conceptual variable (e.g., coping, motivation) appears across different levels of an individual’s consciousness.
We characterize levels of consciousness in terms of the degree of awareness the individual possesses of personality strivings and functioning, ranging from overt and consciously controlled to covert and less consciously controlled. Behaviors which appear one way at levels subject to the individual’s conscious control often operate differently at deeper levels, where the individual has less (or no) control over their expression. Such discrepancies indicate that the individual is in a state of intrapsychic conflict or personality disequilibrium. Strivings beyond the range of the individual’s awareness may influence conscious feelings, cognitions, and actions. This appreciation of personality structure and dynamics is important to understand when making predictions about an executive’s future performance. We describe our assessment in depth elsewhere (e.g., Pratch & Jacobowitz, 2004; Pratch, 2001; Pratch & Jacobowitz, 1998; Pratch & Jacobowitz, 1996).
To assess the structural dimensions of the self, we use three instruments:
(1) a self-report objective personality test to measure motivational tendencies at a surface level of personality functioning;
(2) a semi-projective sentence completion technique, which elicits a more spontaneous presentation of self; and
(3) a projective story telling technique, which taps covert, indirect, and less conscious revelations of self.
Information gathered using these three instruments taken together allows us to determine the congruency or stability of an individual’s personality. Are the individual’s coping abilities, manifest either behaviorally or in a self reported way, congruent with other motives or drives — or are they in conflict? Knowing this is important because if the personality system is in conflict, the individual’s behavioral style may break down over time and cause instability in his or her leadership.
About the Author
Leslie S. Pratch is the founder and CEO of Pratch & Company. A clinical psychologist and MBA, she advises private equity investors, management committees and Boards of Directors of public and privately held companies whether the executives being considered to lead companies possess the psychological resources and personality strengths needed to succeed. In her recently published book, Looks Good on Paper? (Columbia University Press, 2014), she shares insights from more than twenty years of executive evaluations and offers an empirically based approach to identify executives who will be effective within organisations — and to flag those who will ultimately very likely fail — by evaluating aspects of personality and character that are hidden beneath the surface.
