I’ve been meaning to respond to Dr. Matt Reed’s question about how to avoid hiring jerks.
He’s spot on in this inquiry for two reasons: First, it’s far more important to avoid hiring a bad leader/employee than it is to hire an exceptional one. “Good” leaders (I'll use “leaders” from this point forward since that’s my primary academic domain, but these ideas apply to any position) are within range of one another in terms of the impact they’ll have on the overall org. Those shades of difference aren’t really all that important, in the grand scheme (sorry to disappoint!).
Minor and Housman say that the cost of hiring a jerk is at least $12,500 compared to the $5,300 gain of hiring a high performer.
But the jerks can do immeasurable damage even beyond the dollars and cents. And here’s the most challenging part of the entire equation, the second reason this inquiry is important. Brace for scandal:
The very things Western cultures consider “good leadership” are often quite dangerous to organizations. The “dark side” of what appears to be good leadership is narcissism, and we want to avoid bringing narcissists into the org at all costs.
Often, orgs hire what we call “prototypical leaders,” confident people who are extroverted, conscientious, intellectually curious (sometimes called “open to new experiences”), emotionally stable (sometimes called “low neuroticism”), and agreeable. These are Goldberg’s Big Five1, sometimes just called the Big-Five or the Five-Factor Model of Personality.
To ensure that we’re hiring the for good stuff and not the jerky bits, we need to sort “confidence” from “arrogance.” We need to determine whether someone has “ego strength” or “shamelessness.” We need to know if “intellectually curious” means “open to changing course based on new data” or “doggedly pursuing a vision they insist works despite clear evidence to the contrary” (hello, Theranos).
Matt’s on the right page with his tactics: He listens for “I” vs. “we” in candidates’ descriptions of their past or current work, which is a perfect approach. The dark siders often love the glory and will regale us with their tales of solo success.
He investigates how people treat others, especially those of lower ranks or positions, when they visit. This step is important because knowing how people behave when power is imbalanced is important in avoiding a narcissist: The dark siders use “power over,” not “power with.”
And finally, he sits candidates with a variety of people in the org. That idea is especially important: Those of us with personal experiences with narcissists can sniff it out in about two seconds flat, and the more people candidates see, the more likely it is someone will pick it up.
(We just need people to listen when we tell them. Maybe the hiring manager can’t see it, but those who have been on the receiving end of narcissism certainly do and can predict exactly how things will shake out.)
Another good strategy is to dig into someone’s work background because narcissists almost always leave a wake of relationship damage behind them. The problem with narcissists isn’t typically about productivity or outcomes; it’s very often about relationships.
Part of the relationship damage occurs because dangerous narcissists are people who need excessive admiration and who demand loyalty or fealty WHILE ALSO typically lacking empathy.
And in a field like higher ed with long institutional memory, that damage is extraordinarily difficult to undo. It’s unfair to the community, of course, and also unfair to every leader who will come next: Every future leader will need to navigate around the scars left by a narcissist.
Healing a community from the damage of a narcissist is very hard work. The scars remain. Thus, finding out about organizational history beyond just three references is important.
I like Campbell and Crist on this topic, so here are some resources:
I also like O’Reilly and Chatman on how narcissists can destroy an org: Some of their work is included in this piece, and a full discussion is here. They pull no punches:
What we see initially as visionary, self-confident, strong-willed, charming, and challenging may—in the extreme—be grandiose, entitled, arrogant, exploitative, impulsive, and aggressive. A failure to understand these differences can be dangerous, putting people and institutions at risk.
Go forth and hire well!
In my view, there’s both a gendered and racial thread that weaves through this discussion, but I’ll put it aside for a moment because otherwise my tendency toward overwriting for the sake of conceptual clarity will render this post way longer than I want it to be. What are we actually measuring in studies of the Big-Five?
Great piece today. Totally agree on asking the admin to comment on the intangibles. Another good source is, of course, your students who participate in the search process. I’m fortunate to work at an institution where we place a student on every faculty and staff search committee.
Waking up to that title in my inbox was quite interesting. Thanks for giving us some good stuff to ponder. I was just talking with someone about how narcissistic tendencies may show up in certain occupations more than others.