Psychometrics also good for assessing leadership, says expert
PSYCHOMETRIC TESTING can be useful in deepening shared understanding and collaboration among leadership teams within organisations. It can facilitate the nourishment organisations need to develop and thrive, one expert has demonstrated.
Although often used as a tool by human resources management experts in hiring employees, Lisandra Rickards, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of Soul Career, has highlighted that the tool can be adapted to also provide insight into leadership styles and improve team performance. She was speaking to leaders of The Jamaica National Group recently.
Rickards, who is a former CEO of the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, Caribbean, shared with the group’s senior leaders how the Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness (DISC) leadership profiling method can help companies to improve dependability. The principle of dependability is one of four values upheld by the JN Group. The others are authenticity, respect and transparency.
“Dependability engenders trust and so we say that as leaders, what we do and how we live out that dependability value has everything to do with the extent to which our customers will not just trust us individually, but also trust the JN brand,” shared Leesa Kow, JN Bank managing director, as she introduced Rickards as the session’s guest speaker.
Explaining each category in t he DISC tool, t he Soul Career CEO pointed out that dominance summarises the qualities of leaders who place most emphasis on accomplishing results, while influence describes those who are more charismatic and focused on persuading and building relationships with others. Steadiness describes leaders who seek cooperation, sincerity, and support above all else, while conscientiousness leaders focus on analysis and accuracy.
Rickards said an understanding of this psychometric method can help team leads and their employees become more selfaware, improve communication, and focus on areas for development.
“It’s all about learning how to read the persons across the table from you, whether it is up at the board (level) or your colleagues and being able to adapt your style and understand what dependability and l eadership looks like to these different styles, so that you can be more effective with styles that are different from yours,” she said.
“DISC helps us to treat others how they wish to be treated,” she added.
Psychometric assessments are used extensively in business organisations, such as for recruitment, per formance evaluation, employee engagement and employee training and development. The Soul Career CEO said companies can use DISC assessments to match a project to a leader.
She stressed that it’s important to have teams with a mix of all the styles to ensure cohesion and harmony. She also said no one style is better than another, and that there are strengths and opportunities for improvement in each style.
“If we have a heavy compliance department, we’re going to have a lot of analytical styles on [that team], but we want to inject some additional styles; some dominance, some people orientation, in order for that team to function effectively and cohesively. And similarly, if we have a business development or sales team, we’re going to see more ‘I’ styles and ‘D’ styles on that team, but a lot of potential clients also want that nurturing support of the ‘S’, or they want someone to really explain the complications of a very complex project, which may be a ‘C’ style,” she explained.
She noted that an individual can display more than one style and will usually revert to their default styles when under pressure. She therefore urged leaders to be aware of their default styles so as to be able to manage them in a high-stress environment.
“If I look at your chart, it will show if you have one, two or three bars above the line, no one has four. That can show you if one is mitigating the other, if one is supporting the other, or if you are a chameleon and adapting based on which environment you are in. All of those scenarios can happen,” she said.
Commenting on the presentation by Rickards, Earl Jarrett, chief executive officer of The Jamaica National Group, agreed that the DISC tool can help companies achieve better results.
“It’s so interesting that dependability is influenced by the psychological profiles of the persons around us. We therefore have to be adaptable to the needs of our society, our staff, colleagues and leaders,” he said.
Jarrett also suggested training workers in basic psychology as a means of helping more persons to achieve the appropriate level of emotional intelligence and other social skills required to work in an organisation.
“We have to work with people; we have to communicate well with people; and to understand people, we need to adjust our approaches to get the best out of each person,” he remarked.
‘It’s all about learning how to read the persons across the table from you, whether it is up at the board (level) or your colleagues and being able to adapt your style and understand what dependability and leadership looks like to these different styles.’