SO, how do you clamber to the top of your professional tree? According to all the clichés, you have to be egotistical, pushy and cavalier to elbow your way to the front of the throng. Professional knowledge and skills come a poor second. Now a big study of human-resources staff has discovered that all these hoary old clichés are true.
The study, claimed to be the biggest of its type yet conducted, turned HR professionals’ own guns on themselves by subjecting them to those pesky psychometric tests designed to slot your soul into ever more sophisticated boxes. More than 200 personnel directors and staff were asked to complete personality questionnaires, which were then evaluated by the chartered psychologists Alex Pearce and Dr George Sik.
They compared the responses given by human resources directors with those of their underlings and found that directors managed to tick all the boxes beloved of high-flyer job ads: their thinking was “creative, radical and strategic”. But what were they thinking about? It was seldom anything based on mundane stuff such as hard facts. The study found they were more likely to steer by guesswork (sorry, “instinct”) than the reports and data their juniors are kept so busy compiling.
As for those other modern management shibboleths, empowerment and teamwork . . . well, er, perhaps the bosses were too busy having visions and ignoring facts to do any of that. The top dogs scored far worse than their middle-managers in these areas. Where they did best, however, was in risk-taking. Chucking caution to the wind seems to be a great way of getting control over other, less daring, people’s livelihoods.
The report concludes that you do indeed have to sacrifice a bit of niceness to get to the top. But it seems that you also have to be the sort who is more than eager to pull up the ladder behind you the moment you get there.
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JOHN NAISH