Leadership Lessons from Ajax the Seeing Eye Dog #4: Predicting Success

80% of success is showing up” 

Woody Allen

Ajax, our new guide dog puppy is learning how to lead.  It’s amazing how many people we meet (always with a smile, greeting and interesting questions–I often wonder what happened to those behaviors when you don’t have a guide dog you are raising??) typically ask two things:

1. How can you give him up after 12-18 months?
2. Do you think he will pass to become a guide dog

The last question is a great one because every organization I consult with asks this same question of high potential talent they are grooming for future leadership positions.  Do they really have the “right stuff” to become effective leaders?  How do you know if they have any “blind spots” that might potentially derail them?  How confident are we that they will be successful?  Is there any measure of future leadership success that we can use now to increase our confidence level?

I’ve published an earlier article on  approaches to selecting high performing talent that suggest we might actually consider calling it “human handicapping” as we might actually do a better job of predicting those who don’t succeed better than predicting those who do ((Nowack, K. M. (2007). Predicting the Future Success of Talent. Talent Management, 3 (2), p.14)).  We do have a number of assessments available that we could use to measure future leadership success–none are perfect but some are much better predictors than others.

Which approach to measuring key aspects of potential talent’s knowledge, experience and competence actually do a good job of predicting future success and performance? How should you go about making them legally defensible ((Nowack, K. M. (1988). Approaches to validating assessment centers. Performance and Instruction, 27, 14-16))?

Current research on personality ((Judge, T., Bono, J., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 765-780)), emotional intelligence ((Van Rooy, D.  & Viswesvaran, C.(2004). Emotional intelligence: A meta-analytic investigation of predictive validity and nomological net. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 65, 71-95)) and traditional techniques ((Schmidt, F. &  Hunter, J. (1998). The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 262-274)) provide some answers to these questions.

I’ve tried to summarize about 50+ years of research below and each time I look at the usefulness of various “human handicapping” approaches it is still surprising to me.

Don’t be fooled about some like cognitive ability (intelligence) testing as “it’s not how smart you are, but how you are smart that really matters!  Even the traditional interview (the mutual seduction) can be improved by making it job related, structured and focused more on behavioral questions.  Finally, just forget about using interests/values to make a prediction about future performance or success–they are pretty strongly associated with satisfaction but it is easy to get these two outcomes mixed up when you are assessing these in candidates!  Whenever prospective candidates tell me with great passion just how much they “like doing things” I always politely thank them for sharing this with me and then find a way for them to actually demonstrate they possess the skill or ability to perform what they have a passion for on the job.

RANKING OF ASSESSMENT APPROACHES TO SELECTION (VALIDITY COEFFICIENTS)

Work Sample Tests (.33 to .54)
Cognitive Ability/Intelligence Tests (.27 to .51)
Assessment Centers (.41 to .50)
Peer/Supervisory Ratings (.41 to .49)
Work History (.24 to .35)
Emotional Intelligence (.20 to .24)
Unstructured Interviews (.15 to .38)
Personality Inventories (.15 to .31)
Reference Checks (.14 to .26)
Training Ratings (.13 to .15)
Self-Ratings (.10 to .15)
Education/Grade Point Average (.00 to .10)
Interests/Values (.00 to .10)
Age (.-.01 to .00)

Ajax certainly has demonstrated desire to work harder when he is wearing his “work clothes” which at this time is his yellow bib identifying him as an official “Guide Dog Puppy in Training.”  He has a personality that might be described as curious, stubborn, risk taking, playful, challenging and sweet.  He demonstrates the ability to learn quickly but to “do things his way.”

Our “work sample” assessments suggest that at an early age he likely is to go on to become a successful leader.

You might want to hold onto this prediction–our first guide dog (Ernie) was an absolute “devil” that nobody believed would make it and he went on to have a wonderful leadership career.  And our latest puppy (Elmo) who was an “angel” was tauted early as the “perfect guide dog” but he made a career transition from special education to recreation and lived with us until we had to say goodbye to him late last year.  So, our rate of predicting leadership success is pretty bad so far…..It will be fun to see if our predictions improve a bit now that we are raising Ajax….Be well…..

tags]pre-employment selection, assessment, interviewing, behavioral interviewing, emotional intelligence, personality inventories, work history, validation, interests, assessment centers, intelligence tests, cognitive ability measures, reference checks, peer ratings, kenneth nowack, ken nowack, nowack[/tags]

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)