Leadership Talent Selection

1. Leadership Talent Selection

2. Uses of Assessment Centers • Evaluation of people for promotion or succession • Formulation of training plan for strengths & weaknesses • Evaluation for selection of final candidates

3. Leadership Assessment Centers • Over 3,000 organizations have used assessment centers • Evaluate for promotion, succession, strengths/weaknesses training, final selection • Predictive validity for leadership talent; may lack job relatedness • 3-5 evaluators for 10-15 candidates over 1-5 days • 1-5 days for cost of $2,000-$30,000 each candidate (average $3,500) • Expensive-- only .5 – 2% of internal employees can do it • May be assessed only once in career while market opportunities change constantly

4. Sample assessment centers • Center for leadership Assessment • Office of Personnel Management Talent Search • Sample Leadership Assessment Report

5. What are the kinds of behaviors that should be assessed & what do you think they would indicate? How can they best be measured?

6. The “Talent” approach • What are distinguishing characteristics of people who excel at what they do? • Sports (hockey, baseball, etc.) • Sales

7. Assume you are on a search committee for identifying leadership potential in a business organization: • How would you start to define the talents required? • Make a list of 6-10 talents & prioritize them • How would you identify and measure the top three talents? (be VERY behavioral)

8. Predictors of Leadership Performance • High Predictors • Biodata (high fiscal, 7%) • Personality (5-factor) • Critical incidents (immediate job) • Moderate Predictors • IQ, cognitive ability • Career Path Appreciation (conceptual skills & promotability) • Low Predictors • Graphology (85%) • Interviews (81%) • References (67%)

9. Leadership Assessment Centers • Behaviors evaluated • Decision making • Leadership style • Interpersonal skills • Management control • Delegation • Planning & prioritizing • Risk taking • Creativity • Oral & written communication • Assertiveness • Stress tolerance • Typical Evaluation Methods • Biographical inventories • Vocational, aptitude, personality tests • In-basket exercises • Leaderless group discussion • Role-play • Case analyses

10. Sample stages of leader identification from DDI Co. http://www.ddiworld.com/pdf/ddi_identifyingpotentials_fs.pdf

11. Orientation & group formation Business game Interviews & psychological testing Leaderless group discussions Day 1 In-basket exercise Individual role playing Group role playing Day 2 Individual case analysis Peer ratings Day 3 Feedback Counseling Further development discussions Day 4 Sample Assessment Center Agenda

14. Sources of Rater Bias • Halo effect– rate high or low due to irrelevant feature or global impression • Leniency error– tendency to give everyone higher ratings • Severity error– tendency to give everyone lower ratings • Central tendency– avoid extreme ratings for specific or on all dimensions • Contrast effect– rating of one person is affected by rating of another • Hawthorne effect– rating distortion (usually high) due to being attended to in a study • Self-fulfilling prophecy (experimenter effect)– selective attention given to what is expected or desired • Misplaced precision error– faults in the rating, design, or treatment may invalidate the precision of the other • Law of the instrument– a favorite instrument will probably find only what it’s designed to find • Number magic– the use of numbers carries the impression of greater precision than may be present