The Science of Personality Podcast
The Science of Personality Podcast
Developing Technical Experts into Leaders
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In the latest episode of The Science of Personality, Ryne and Blake are joined by Kevin Mitchell, PhD, the Talent and Organizational Development Manager at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, to talk about developing technical experts into leaders. In theory, any high performer regardless of their area of expertise should at some point be rewarded with a leadership position. But sometimes what makes someone a great software developer or network engineer might not translate to success once they ascend to a managerial role. In this episode, Kevin, who has a wealth of experience in this area, talks about how to successfully develop these high performers into effective and strategic leaders.
People are the most consequential and dangerous forces on earth. Well, personality psychology is about the nature of human nature. It's about people. And wouldn't that be useful to know? It seems to me. I can't I can't think of a more important problem.
SPEAKER_00You're listening to the Science of Personality Podcast, brought to you by Hogan Assessments, the global leader in personality and leadership. Guided by your hosts, Hogan Chief Science Officer and world-renowned personality psychologist, Dr. Brian Sherman. Alongside Hogan's PR manager and resident storyteller, Blake Lepp, this podcast explores the impact of personality on life, leadership, and the nature of human nature.
SPEAKER_04Hello, everybody, and welcome to the Science of Personality Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Sherman, along with my co-host, as always, Blake Lepp. Say hello, Blake.
SPEAKER_02Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Science of Personality Podcast episode 142. Today, Ryan and I are joined by Dr. Kevin Mitchell, the talent and organizational development manager at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory to talk about developing technical experts into leaders. In theory, any high performer, regardless of their area of expertise, should at some point be rewarded with a leadership position. But sometimes, what makes someone a great software developer or network engineer might not translate to success once they ascend to a managerial role. In this episode, we will hear from Kevin, who has a wealth of experience in this area, about how to successfully develop these high performers into effective and strategic leaders. But before we get to our conversation with Kevin, if you wish to give us any ideas for upcoming episodes or you want to ask Ryan or me a question, shoot us an email at hello at the science of personality.com or follow the science of personality on LinkedIn. Now, let's get to it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, hello. Uh thank you, Blake. Thank you, Ryan, for um uh you know inviting me on for this conversation. Outside of just uh what you shared in terms of title uh and what I did, my background is in industrial organizational psychology and uh got my degree from University of Nebraska at Omaha, and so excited to share just some of the uh you know experiences that I've had largely as an internal consultant uh across the variety of industries, and um we'll bring in you know maybe some of the outside experiences of being a teacher or healthcare consultant that shaped some of that aspect there.
SPEAKER_04Well, Kevin, I just want to say thanks so much for joining us on this episode. I mean, this is a really important topic. Uh you know, as Blake said in the intro, uh, we we run into this in many, many fields where people have technical expertise and are often considered maybe the best employee on their team and are looking for promotions and the challenges that can come with promoting someone to a managerial role. So super excited to have you on here, given your your background uh uh at uh MIT and Lincoln Laboratory and able to share with us some of the experiences that you've had, some of the learnings that you've had, and of course uh some of the research insights you have for us as well. So thanks for joining us today.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Yeah, for those who uh attend Psyop, um I I Kevin, I think I think that's the first place I met you maybe two years ago in Chicago. Um I I think. And then um, you know, we you know, you get to know that community, uh even though I'm not a psychologist, just kind of getting to go and actually see and meet all these people. Uh it's really been a lot of fun. And and of course you're one of those that uh it's always a pleasure to run into you each year. And uh if if I'm not mistaken, Kevin, uh isn't your better half, doesn't you work for Hogan?
SPEAKER_03Yes. Uh you may have heard us on the, I guess that would have been the Denver Live PsyOP uh edition. Correct. Uh yes, my better half is an a also a uh Iop psychologist and and works with Hogan. Um and yeah, we met we met at the APA conference in Denver 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_02Well, for our listeners, uh he's referring to Nadine Molly Akal, who uh joined us a few episodes back uh to discuss Hogan and sports. So uh if you get a chance, go back, listen to that episode if you haven't already. But with that, Kevin, let's let's kick this thing off. You know, with today's topic centered around developing technical experts into leaders, I'm gonna kick this off like we do with most of our episodes. What got you interested in this topic in the first place?
SPEAKER_03To be frank, uh, some of this was uh I found my way into it. Um, you know, I don't think that I set out when I was in kindergarten to say, I want to grow up and be an IO psychologist working on developing technical experts. The uh really, if I take a step back in my career, it's it's been focused on developing individuals. It started with working in the school systems in New Orleans. It uh translated into working with patient experience uh teams across the nation. And then when I got into grad school, uh it really started to bring these two interests together of leadership in in one regard and this heavy strain of developing and really seeing people grow in their career, whatever they're focusing on. And I was lucky enough to have mentors and have opportunities to consult laws in grad school with with areas, as well as then um you know go into talent management teams and learn and hone and build systems around that. And so really what got me into the technical expert aspect was I I have about a decade of you know time in the healthcare space. And I always really appreciated the healthcare space because of what it does, you know, healing people, healing their communities, delivering care. The stories that you hear from hospitals are just uh frankly, they're like mind-blowing in the types of technologies that they do. And at the same time, being an IO psychologist, it was okay, you know, we spend all of this time and energy at work and in the environment with these coworkers and with our leaders, and really just taking the time to understand how and where the leaders can better impact and best impact the teams and the organizations. And as part of that, really then feeling like they're growing, they're being challenged, they're advancing as well, they're having that positive impact. And so it was kind of this, you know, conglomeration in grad school of finding an interest in leadership, matching it with a heavy interest in developing others, and then the expert, expert leader aspect was really funneled through that domain knowledge and the domain work in the healthcare field.
SPEAKER_04Kevin, I I know we're gonna talk a little bit more about you know some of your experience and some of the work you do, but can you tell us a little bit about uh MIT Lincoln Lab? What what you know what what are you guys after there? What and what is your particular role there? What are you doing there? Just so we have some broader context for your experience.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So um I've been at Lincoln for now two years. And so it's a it's a more recent shift um in terms of industry, but not as recent in terms of the type of work that I do. And so um my responsibility being in the talent and organizational development team is uh really spearheading, building out and enhancing the leadership development system that we have here at Lincoln. And so it's a small but mighty team, really focused on not just the programs in terms of you know classroom time and development activities, but also how we consider and think about succession and talent reviews, how we think about what we want our leaders to look like for the future from uh, you know, for lack of a better term, from a job description. And then what does it look like in terms of our selection and transition into those roles? And so um that that's really the work that I do now is I I've been you know, I partner with our leaders, I partner with the organization, and my team really focuses and works on putting the pieces together, offering programs, coaching leaders, all with the goal of you know enhancing their performance and effectiveness, because ultimately what we're after as an organization is we're a research and development firm and a prototyping firm that works on technology for national security. And so it's really important work, it's very impactful work. Uh, and our leaders have a, as many other organizations, our leaders have a very, very big impact on the types of technology and research that happens and the teams that are working on them. So that's really the role at Lincoln. And that that is largely aligned with the type of work I did at Nebraska Medicine as well. Um, is really focused on not just delivering programs, but really thinking about how do we build a leadership system in an organization that is sustainable and that elevates our leaders from uh performance, from effectiveness, from outcomes to really drive their teams forward and drive themselves forward and therefore driving the organization forward.
SPEAKER_02Well, Kevin, as you mentioned, you worked in healthcare, and we also talked about you know you being at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, both highly technical environments, I would imagine. Um, what do you see as the core mindset shift technical experts maybe need to make when they move into these leadership roles?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's an interesting question in terms of uh when I think of leadership development, especially in this technical space, there are some there are some specific aspects that come into play. And so if I if I set the context for what we're talking about when we talk about a technical expert or a technical leader that transitions into this managerial or this leadership position, oftentimes we're talking about someone who has ex you know very deep knowledge in a given area. Typically, at least if we look at our economy, these individuals tend to have a certain level of education, a certain level of advanced education, they have a reputation and a repertoire of work where they're the expert that people go to to problem solve, to lead technical work, to um, you know, solve maybe a thorny issue in terms of if something can't be solved. And so, you know, when we think of the mindset shift when it comes to this type of space, and there's really some components that fall into it. There's the individual component. So has the leader been developing? Have they realized the assignments? Have we told them the assignments of what they're really supposed to be learning to grow and to expand just beyond their very, you know, potentially narrow domain expertise? There's this organizational component of did the organization set a system in place for individuals who are growing that technical expertise to be prepared for that mindset shift and understand what that mindset shift would look like going into leadership. And then there's really a peer and leadership kind of community component there in terms of what are the supporting structures from a mentoring and coaching perspective of really sharing practices and building a leadership community that's self-sustaining. Um and not only self-sustaining, but really challenges itself to grow in meaningful ways. And so, you know, to get to the core of your question about like, well, what is the core mindset shift? If we extract some of what I just said there, is that the big one for me when I see a technical expert is um that shift from problem solver up into, you know, whatever you want to call it, problem facilitator or you know, problem coach. Oftentimes these technical experts are so used to being the expert, the person who answers the questions. And it is a big shift to move from I have to provide the answer to, well, now my role is to coach others to solve problems, to build the capability to for them to solve those problems. And my role now is to not only do that, but to be more strategic and visionary so I can increase my impact for the organization and for myself. So that's probably a big core one is really moving away from leveraging a lot of their expertise to a completely different skill set for themselves. And sometimes, you know, what I'll just call out is a lot of times these technical experts, they're leading, they're doing leading types of things. Whether that's a technical lead, whether that's a project manager, a program manager, a nursing lead. I think one of the myths that I hear a lot of times is, well, you're already doing the job. And you might be doing aspects of the job, but that jump at times is where we see, oh, there's still vestiges of diving into problem solving, of always answering questions, of not building the capacity and the capability of those underneath you or around you so that you can focus on really that next level of impact. And so that is kind of the aspect of making that transition over. And I would say like the last piece there is really it's okay, I think, to uh recognize, and this is something I often tell the leaders when I'm coaching with them into my development programs of you're learning a new skill. You're learning a new set of skills, a new set of competencies. Let's recognize that. And you're doing it in a way that is very visible. So it's not like a, you know, you're learning a new equation, you're learning, you know, a new way of building something where maybe it's in a classroom, maybe it's, you know, private. You're learning oftentimes some of these skills and some of these approaches in real time. You're learning them in front of people, and people are relying on you to do them well. So I think there's there's oftentimes a trap there with the leaders of, well, I have to have the answers. I have to know the answers. They come to me because I always was able to provide answers. And having them kind of shift off of that and the vulnerability that comes with that can be really, really challenging. Of, hey, you know what, it's okay that you know a conflict resolution did not go well. It's okay that a coaching conversation didn't lead to some amazing breakthrough. It's okay that you had a tough feedback conversation. There will be more of them, and you will have iterations and you'll have cycles where you'll have the practice and the capability and ability to start to string successes together.
SPEAKER_04Kevin, Kevin, I'm kind of curious about the size and the base rate or just the sort of scope of this problem. How often is this an occurrence for technical organizations where they they struggle with this? Is it, you know, all leaders have these kind of struggles, or is it you know half of the leaders, or is it, you know, I'm sure it varies to a certain degree, but I mean, how how many leaders would you say, or what percentage of people coming from technical backgrounds would you say really struggle with the transition to a leadership role?
SPEAKER_03Ooh, that's a great question, Ryan. And it'd be completely speculating at this point.
SPEAKER_04Uh we're good at that. That's okay. Yeah, okay. That's uh based on your experience, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, you know, one way that it this is a kind of a crude metric or measure, you could, you know, I know there's uh it's pretty polluted, but you could look essentially at some turnover rates if you really want to get at uh in the frontline leader rank in terms of you know where some of that struggle might be. I wouldn't say that's a perfect number or metric, but you know, in some of my experiences, I've seen where you can have anywhere between, you know, 10 and 30 kind of percent of individuals step out of those frontline leader roles. But what I would say is that percentage is probably much higher for individuals who might quote unquote struggle in in the um kind of transition. And I think that's honestly natural. If if I'm being you know completely upfront here, is that a lot of times what I've seen in organizations is um is it goes back to something I said earlier of we don't always do a good job of setting up the individual of saying, hey, you know what, you're an individual contributor right now. Here's the types of things that you need to be learning if you're gonna be going towards a leadership track. Um and and here's the types of experiences that you will learn. And then what happens is we have then this self-perpetuation of, okay, I get into leadership, I might struggle, but I might get to at least some base rate of effectiveness on the skills. And then maybe I move up, but it's still largely because of technical expertise or technical knowledge, and then now I'm training the leader below me in those kind of same scar tissue or learning through experience. And I'm not I'm like painting a dire picture, I know, right now, but I would say is there's a lot of great leaders that figure it out, and it's you know, it's kind of a flip of coin in some organizations. Um, and in other organizations, there's a much larger struggle. I'd say that's where professionals and internal consultants like our teams and the teams I've been on can really help because it reduces the failure rate. I'm not saying it goes away, but reduces some of that failure rate. And on the other side of that, it increases and accelerates the speed to success. So, you know, so a great leader doesn't have to go through maybe you know three, four years of learning through kind of hard knocks and can maybe get to their highest effectiveness much quicker.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I assume then, you know, following on that, that the the costs uh for the organization are pretty high when you know when there is a failure. And so, you know, I assuming that you know that means that this work has a significant impact on the organization's uh bottom line, their ROI, things like uh employee satisfaction, engagement, all of those kinds of things are probably impacted by the ability of leaders to to make this transition. Would you say that's true?
SPEAKER_03100%. I mean it it's and I would say one thing that I hear a lot in you know LinkedIn popular press is uh it's one aspect to talk about the the cost. There's a certain cost for every person that turns over, there's a certain cost for decreased productivity. Um a lot of that comes, you know, can be influenced by that leader there. One of the one of the things though is that when you put that leader in, it's the cost of the organization, the cost of the team. There is a very real cost to the person as well, um, the leader themselves. And I think sometimes we lose, lose sight of that. Uh of, you know, for better or for worse, we don't always do a great job of explaining here's what leadership is, here's what management is in this organization, here's the expectations, here's what we would like you to do. Um and, you know, here's the type of development that you need to be doing. A lot of times it's congratulations, you're the best. You get put in a leadership position. Oh, you're smart, you're good at your job, you'll figure it out. And then what that does is it can really tear the person up because they're now facing something that maybe isn't as natural, maybe they're not as good at when they've found success in the technical domain. That can start to demotivate, can start a cycle then. And there's a very pernicious cycle that that I've seen. I know some of my colleagues have seen in terms of you know getting that leader kind of either pulled out of that or in a role that is better suited for them.
SPEAKER_04You know, Kevin, that reminds me I was working with one client who I was a part, a particular individual actually, at this client who they were considering for a managerial role. And he was just sort of talking to me casually and he said, Well, you know, I think I'm about to get promoted to this managerial role. And I said, Oh, yeah, did they tell you that you're gonna promote you? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I said, Well, is that something you're interested in? Is that something you want to do, you know, to to lead people? And he said, Well, I don't really care as long as they pay me more money. And I thought, I don't know if this is the if this is the right right approach you want to have for that. Uh I mean, do you ever get that kind of thing in this work as as well?
SPEAKER_03Oh, all the time. All the time. I I'll share a story here to like to illustrate. Early on in my time at one of one of my roles, we uh we implemented a new level of leadership below the manager. The manager just had way too big spans of control to reasonably manage their people. So we said, okay, we're gonna put a new level of leadership underneath that layer and get down to hopefully a 25 to 1 span, which is still very large, but it was better than what we were at. And we said, okay, that level of leader is going to be coaching and doing. Engagement and growing their people and retaining the people and doing all the people side of the house. And they were our technical leaders as well. And so they'd still have some technical work and direction in there. And Ryan, to your point, we we had all of these conversations with both the hiring managers and the individuals that are going in really dissecting, okay, well, why do you want to be in this position? And we we heard a lot of different aspects. Well, I was a nurse lead, and you know, I want to uh, and this is the the position that's next in line. I've been in this position for a while. So like kind of a tenure reason. There's the pay reason. Well, there's a huge bump in pay. Um, and then you know, we had obviously uh quite a few people said, Well, I love leading and I love um, you know, I want to be able to make change. I want to be able to drive the unit forward. And what really was interesting was all of those got surfaced because we put, we actually put a pre-hire assessment into place. Um and we were getting all of these interesting results that kept saying, Oh, this person might find a leadership position really difficult. And when we went back to the hiring managers with these assessments, we wouldn't even show the assessments. We would just say, okay, tell me about what you want to get out of this new position. And they would describe it and they would, you know, tell us about it. And then we would put the assessments down and we'd say, okay, here is what these assessments are telling us about your pool of candidates. And just a look of shock on their face. Oh, I know, that's my person. And you're saying that they scored, you know, the lowest on this assessment. And we said, okay, well, tell us a little bit more why they're your favorite. And the descriptions almost to a T were they're the best technical expert on the team. And that was just like a light bulb moment for a lot of the hiring managers and what we were trying to do as a team of really stepping in and saying, like, this is different. This role is different, and we need to be intentional around the motivations and the ability and the potential of who's going into that role. So that was an example that came to mind as you were asking.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think this is a good segue into our next question, because you know, after reading through some of the literature that you've authored or co-authored on this topic, you you've noted that technical leaders often rely on their expert power. That's kind of really what got them into that leadership position in the first place. But also, in your experience, when do you think that expert power actually becomes more of a liability rather than an asset? And how do you help how do you help communicate that to these leaders? Um, you know, once you once you realize that this is an issue.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it it's a great question. And what I what I'd just like to start with is a lot of times the expert power is the foundation, uh, it's like what got them to the table, right? They got noticed because they can solve problems and they're they're experts. And what comes along with that is a certain level of respect from their teammates, from their peers, that that person understands like what I'm doing as a technical person who's doing research or doing, you know, um uh you know, delivering healthcare, delivering um treatment, things of that nature. And so the you know, going back to that mindset shift, the the trap or the liability that comes into place is not shedding the crutch of leaning on the technical expertise. And so where it becomes a liability is is in a couple of areas. I think one big one that comes to mind right away is the lack of delegation. So how this can look or how this can sound kind of in practice is okay, you know what? I know how to do this better, or I know how to do this, and no one else can do it better than I can. So I'm just gonna do it. And what that does then is you're in a leadership role and you're not allowing kind of that capability building underneath you in terms of growing the next generation, growing or expanding the skills of those around you. And it's burdening you as the leader because you are not, you're spending time and effort away really from where your impact needs to be in that more strategic, more visionary, that next layer up aspect. The other kind of derailing aspects of where it can come up is um potentially hogging the spotlight in terms of, you know, I am the expert, so I am going to be the voice. Whereas, you know, the higher that you move oftentimes, that spotlight should be shifting to the other folks of how do I build not only, you know, we've been spending a lot of time of talking about from individual contributor to first-time leader, but this really can translate to going from a leader to a leader of leaders as well. So, how do I stop, you know, taking the spotlight? Because that's how I got noticed. That's how I got kind of that seat at the table. And then some of the other aspects that, you know, come out in my mind in terms of the aspect of when does it become a liability? Um, going back to the delegation aspect is also coaching, you know, we talk in coaching around coaching the um person, not the problem. Well, it can almost be reversed when we over-rely on some of that technical expertise. We end up coaching the problem and not the person. And so what that looks like is we're actually undercutting folks of building their own knowledge, their own skills, your own problem-solving ability. Because the bet is there is that you could have three coaching sessions where you're really figuring out and empowering that person to own the problem and solution, or you could have eight sessions where you're dictating and solving the problem for them, and uh which one from a time perspective is more efficient. And it's the first, not the latter. And so I would say that's another liability area is falling prey back into some of that problem solving. And really the last aspect is um the narrowing or the continued to narrow. And so, you know, I use the language of widening or you know, breaking out of that domain expertise if we continue to be the technical expert and don't take the step of broadening out across the organization, broadening those managerial skills, the leadership skills. Sometimes what can happen is we stay very narrow in that uh that domain. And what can happen then is that doesn't form the connective tissue, oftentimes, that's needed across the organization to get more strategic and more visionary projects and work done.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, Kevin, one of the things that you mentioned a second ago struck me as psychologically a very important aspect uh the that happens when we're transitioning from whether it's an individual control, uh contributor role to a manager role, or whether it's contributing from uh or moving from a manager role to a manager or a leader of leaders kind of role uh is this uh is this value proposition that we're offering, right? So one thing that that can happen to us as individuals is our identity can get tied up in the value that we provide, right? So we're working in an organization, we are uh an individual contributor, we are really productive, we're seen as a highly productive member of the team, and the things that we do, whether whatever our technical expertise is in, can feel like the value that I'm bringing. And so when I get put in a new role, it can be hard to let go of that previous aspect because little thoughts might creep into our heads, like if they don't need me to do this, then maybe they'll realize they don't need me at all, right? Things like that. I wonder to what extent there's sort of this ego defense, or that it's really this identity protection that's going on when people hold on to those kinds of things. What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's a great point. And you know, it's uh we see it, we hear it, and so you're absolutely correct in terms of um it's it's fascinating to see in the technical space, Ryan, because that identity aspect is pretty entrenched. You know, I am an engineer, I am a nurse, and you know, part of that is the professionalization of those types of roles and those types of areas that you do have this entangling. And then all of a sudden you you essentially, for lack of a better term, lose that when you move up. And the further you move up, kind of the further you get away from the work that brought you into the field, that got you success, that got you noticed. And I think it's a fair point to say, yeah, what is, you know, what's my value? And I think I think that is where a lot of um, you know, the the leaders who are overseeing those transitions in the organization really play a critical part in shaping that new identity and moving from that individual contributor to leader, from leader to leader of leaders, and so on and so forth. Uh, because without that, you you're really setting up for you know some psychological baggage that gets pulled forward um kind of from level to level.
SPEAKER_02You know, Kevin, oftentimes, and this is probably depending on the organization, because not all organizations are really created equal when it comes to the amount of time, effort, and resources they devote to the development of leaders. So what I'm saying is, you know, there's probably a lot of places and and oftentimes that technical leaders don't necessarily receive development of any kind until years into the role. So, what are some of the risks involved in waiting too long to begin the development process with these individuals?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it you know, if you're if you're waiting to do leadership development once they hit formal leadership, it's it's oftentimes too late. Um and then what happens, and again, this is through no fault of the organization uh or the individuals that are in it, it's it's a very natural trend. And I think we see it in a large part outside of the technical ranks. I think it's there's certain aspects that we've talked about that are making it a little bit more entrenched in the technical ranks. But what you get if you don't spend the time, the energy and effort is what can happen is you perpetuate, well, technical expertise is incentivized, so I have to be a technical expert. And then I'm put into management and really, again, like we said, flip a coin, whether they're going to be effective or not, and when they're going to be effective or not, in terms of how fast that happens. And then that cycle perpetuates because those individuals go up in level, up in rank, and become broader and broader leaders. And so what you end up having is, you know, this system oftentimes, it's always interesting to me. I've been in a number of organizations where they say, oh, well, we don't, we don't have leadership development. We don't do leadership development. And the reality is, is that's like saying we don't have a culture. Um, you know, we don't have organizational culture. And the reality is we know that we have culture. You're doing leadership development. Whether you're doing it intentionally or not, and whether you're doing it systematically or not is a different story. And so what could happen is uh you end up with these apprenticeship style development systems where you know the pipeline of leaders is really dependent upon the leader above them and the leader above that and the and the tree in history organizationally of who is developing those leaders. And that is where sometimes that works out really, really well. And you have a great leader who develops other great leaders. Other times it breeds some very toxic areas where you have a very toxic leader that can, you know, select and put into place and really put other toxic leaders forward. The real kind of takeaway that I would say is investing early in leadership development in an intentional way from an organizational standpoint, will pay dividends down the line. With that said, that's not always the starting point of many leadership development programs. Many leadership development programs will start in the middle or will start at the top to set the context and the environment so that we can set up a pipeline. And so what I'd say is if you're a leadership development expert or you're a technical leader that might be listening to this, there's no right or wrong way to start. What I would say is being intentional about it is the more important piece of really understanding, well, what are the development practices that are happening in my area already? And then what are some ways that we can get more intentional around the type of paths and pathing to set leaders up from the individual contributor ranks so we have better leaders in the future?
SPEAKER_04Kevin, would you say I mean you started by saying that when a program might say, uh, okay, let's start developing our leaders now, but they're already in a leadership position. You you mentioned that that's too late. By too late there, you don't mean that there's no hope. I I think I think you mean that that you're gonna regret that you didn't start sooner. Is that what you mean by that?
SPEAKER_03Right. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Yes, there is, I am, I am a fur, I'm not like the great man theorist over here. Uh I firmly believe that um, and and and that is that is oftentimes I I find like with myself and with other internal colleagues, there's always this this tension of, well, where do we start? Like where do we start the efforts in terms of leaders building a leadership development system? And to your point, Ryan, um one of the ways, and and maybe we'll get to it in a different question, but one of the ways in which um you know you might come in and say, okay, you know what? We have we have some fundamental leadership things that are pretty variable across an organization. So we're gonna come in and we're gonna match the leaders where they're at. You know, you might not know what coaching is, you might not be familiar with how to coach, you might not have good models of coaching, and you might be really experienced. And being really clear and intentional around, hey, we're not here to tell you that you're an awful leader or that you're a bad leader. What we are here is to show you some ways, some rigorous ways in which you could approach this differently. Fully realizing that you might be doing some of these things already, here's some here's some refinement to that. And even that, I would say, is such a win in a development standpoint of um you know, matching and finding a leader who's experienced, but giving them something new, giving them that refinement, and then you're gonna see the impact of that. And so, no, I would say, you know, longer term, if you think of your development system and you're really only focused on the formal leaders, you're missing a chunk of basically the culture and the development arena that's feeding that system in a very important way.
SPEAKER_02You know, Kevin, earlier you mentioned um an example of maybe how you would use assessments. Um I uh you you you brought that up earlier whenever you were going to, you know, uh like kind of lay off the candidates, talk to the talk to the person and who their favorite was and all that. But let's get in a little bit deeper about the assessment side of things. What role do they play in your leadership development work?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I love assessments. Um I've used many different types of assessments and different programs. I would say um they fall in into some broad categories, though, and and they're probably categories that might be familiar to the listeners, might not be, but a big proponent of tying in 360s in some form or fashion, especially with leaders, and especially um and I would say matching the 360 with the level of leader. And what I mean by that is that at certain levels, leaders are gonna be paying attention to different things. There's gonna be kind of different requirements and stressors and pressures on them at different levels. It's different leading a, you know, a frontline team than leading a you know a team of leaders to leading an entire area. Um, so really pattern matching the 360 for the types of either behaviors or mindsets that they need to be having at that level is really important in terms of giving them the insight that they need to take action. Have you used behaviorally based assessments, have you used personality-based assessments? Um, you know, the big thing with all of the development work and the assessments is it's always geared towards taking it and turning it into some sort of action. Whether that's housed in a development program, so you know, a couple of the development programs that I've built over my career really intentional around upfront assessments, and then they're pulled through in terms of, hey, we're talking about strategic thinking. How, you know, does your understanding of your personality or how does the feedback from your 360 impact this topic for you? Okay, now go do some homework or some field work, we call it, no, come back, and we'll talk as a group in terms of, okay, well, what'd you learn? What insights did you gain? You know, what did you get from your assessments that helped or hindered you in your effort to practice X skill? And so that's that's the way to really gear it towards the individual, to coach them to seed it into the program, to really form the connective tissue between what they're getting from a feedback source and then how it's translating into the things that they're learning in the classroom and what they're practicing out in their role. And so that's a really important piece that you see successful programs are able to string that together in a very meaningful way. That's kind of the individual aspect of using assessments that that I have experience with. There's also an organizational component here is that once you hit a certain mass of people being assessed in an organization, that is that's that's data for you as a professional, as a team, to be able to talk to leaders in a different way. And so when you have a certain amount of leaders who have gone through a personality assessment and you get a sense of, well, here's some of their strengths, here's some of their derailers, here's some of their values, you start to be able to see some of the incentive programs in the organization, what they're you know, prizing, what they're looking for in leaders, and it changes the conversation with the organization of saying, hey, here's what we're seeing pattern-wise, here's what this means from a communication standpoint, here's what it means from a development standpoint, here's what it means from a leadership as a practice and community in this organization, what it looks like. So those are kind of the two aspects that I'm always on the lookout for is not only using it very tactically in the programs with the people, whether that's coaching or practice or what have you, and more strategically at the organization level of being able to talk to the leaders, the organization, in a very, you know, structured way, in a very driven way. And a lot of that comes back to you know, using tools that have the science and rigor underneath them. Um, I think, especially when you're in spaces that prize science and prize theory and rigor, being able to match that with assessments that you can say, yes, here's the theory underlying it, here's the rigor that goes into that, here's how and where it can be used. It's maybe not what I lead with, but it's always something that I'm on the lookout for, no matter the type of assessment I'm using, is that I have to have a good, good faith in it that I'm I'm able to defend it, basically, in a in a very meaningful way to scientists.
SPEAKER_04Kevin, that's what I would like to explore a little bit more with you, is just about what what what exactly, you know, how exactly do you run your program? And this partly uh ties in with the previous question as well, which was you know, you know, about how how you do the development there, right? So I mean, most of what you've talked to us about today is sort of based on your experiences in multiple organizations, but also just based on research and what the data suggests. But I'm sort of curious, what do you do in your program at MIT Lincoln Labs now to help develop leaders? I mean, does it involve assessments? At what point do you bring assessments in? Sort of operationally, how does it work?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's a great question. We um, you know, we we have some programs that um we have a you know a program that's focused on three. It's a 360 plus coaching program. So that's that's its own program in terms of it's a long-standing program that we've had. And I think that was something that was very attractive when I came to MIT is that they had some they had some really great foundational pieces already built here. And this was a program that was very well regarded and very well used. And so that one, it really is about uh an upfront 360 based on the needs of the individual, based on the level of the individual. There's a lot of, I would say, consultation that happens between our team and the leader and the leader's leader of what they're hoping to achieve. And then what happens, you know, once they have the 360 is um uh they are paired with a coach for a certain amount of time where they execute a leadership development plan based on the feedback that they got from the 360. And so that was a that was a longstanding program. We've used behavioral-based assessments in some of our um you know more episodic leadership development programs. Uh so like a class will have an assessment component to it, and then they anchor it. And then recently we're piloting more of a cohort-based program where we we really went all out in terms of, and it was upfront. They go through a 360, they go through a personality assessment, they go through a behavioral assessment. And really what this what this was intended to do was to give them as full of a picture as possible, both from here's the behaviors that other people are seeing, here's your you know, self-ascribed behavioral tendencies, here's that really deep level of the you know, the reputational personality underneath that. And, you know, the assessments were one aspect, but we spent one-on-one time with them debriefing, walking through their assessments, connecting the dots for them, pointing to where there was connection pieces, and then from that, we asked them in terms of to start to identify development areas. And what that did then was it set the stage for coming into monthly sessions where they are interacting with their peers, they're sharing these types of results, they're using these types of results in the um in the topics that they're they're focused on. And again, what it does then is you'll see programs where they do the assessments up front or they just do assessments, and then leaders will go through it and they say, Oh, well, that's interesting. Where the magic happens is really coming back to it of saying, okay, like, no, you're not gonna just put the assessments away. We're gonna pull them back out, we're gonna talk about them, we're gonna reflect on it. And there's a lot of specific practices that go into that to create one, the awareness around the assessments, and then taking that awareness and putting it into practice, whether it's, hey, you know what? Um, I need to go have this really tough conversation or resolve this conflict between two team members. And yeah, sure, in class we talked about the skills and we talked about the the ways in which we could do it, but what more broadly, or how do I approach conflict? What do I think about conflict? How might I react under stress? And by pairing kind of this practice and this reflection and with the deep assessment data there, you start to hone in on really seeing some strong growth in the leader because you have this cycle of you know, reflect and do and reflect and do. Um, and that's built into the structure itself and supported by the assessment results.
SPEAKER_02Well, Kevin, now let's talk about some of what we we I guess we briefly touched on it earlier in the episode, but I want to dig in a little bit further because this is what the C-suite or whatever the senior level leadership might be at XYZ organization is really looking at, and that's ROI. So, how do you measure the impact and effectiveness of these programs? I mean, I I'm I'm sure that at the end of the day, the bottom line is what matters to a lot of these people, and they might not necessarily be seeing the work that's going on. So, so can you can you walk us through that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Uh I think this is always the grail of uh leadership development, learning and development teams is uh what is the ROI? Uh you God, we spend I want I recently saw some some statistic or some article out there of the many billions of dollars that we spend on development in organizations. And okay, well, what do we what do we get for it? What I would say is I would love to have you know single measures of here's here's the return that you're getting. What I'd say is for leadership development professionals, this is always going to be be dependent on the strategy that the C-suite is trying to achieve. I have been in a in an interesting place, you know, Blake, you had said the bottom line. Um, I've almost exclusively worked in nonprofit types of organizations. And it's not that the bottom line doesn't matter, uh, but it isn't, I would say, as front and center from, you know, there's no shareholders, uh, the dollars, the way they talk about dollars is somewhat different. Um and that is that's an interesting wrinkle when you're interacting with a very mission-driven, nonprofit type of organization, because the metrics and what's you know concerning can sometimes look a little bit different. And so I would say like the big thing when it comes to leadership development, and and we did this in many of my stops, is having that needs assessment is so critical for whatever program you're driving. So, like, I, you know, the the program I was just speaking to, we spent three or four months running very in-depth interviews and focus groups with leaders across the levels. And and what that did was it allowed us to tie here's the topics that we're hearing that are important. And they're important because they're directly matched to things that are in the strategy from the C-suite. And so I know that's like a little bit fuzzy in terms of that aspect. What I would say then is as those types of things emerge, the topics and and and what's important, I would say the metrics that come along with that, um, you know, that followed, I've seen and we've used this in previous programs, things like turnover rates, engagement. Um, we've uh used certain safety metrics in the past. We've used uh leader effectiveness in the past, in terms of increasing or decreasing. And those are all good for the C-suite to know and see. Um, but I would say that's that's kind of the pollution of the data in terms of if you're not running experiments or things of that nature, sometimes it can be it can be challenging to point to this program influenced this. But I would say is you can largely start to say, this is influencing this, though. The this increase in skill, this increase here is boosting, you know, lowering turnover or boosting engagement. And here's the dollar amount that comes along with that. You know, for example, we found, you know, every nurse is $40,000 in terms of cost of turnover. Well, if you reduce turnover turnover by a small percentage due to leadership practices, you're then talking about a cost reduction, you know, irrespective of the people, you know, the people impact as well that comes along with that. And so in a very roundabout way, I'm saying is it depends on the strategy of the C-suite, taking the time to align and not just deliver something off the shelf, not just pull in someone to deliver something, but truly to understand what's the organization trying to achieve, tying the practices to that, and then figure, you know, aligning that then well, well, what measurements are going to show that? Is it an increased partnership with an agency? Is it more money coming in? Is it lower turnover? Is it increased engagement scores that would lead to more X output, whether that's you know, research, patient outcomes, what have you? I think that's kind of the the pattern that we typically, or I typically, or our teams typically go after.
SPEAKER_04Well, you know, Kevin, and and thinking about this ROI kind of question, um you know, I I mean, while I I do see why why that's important in in the kind of respects that you know that Blake was asking about and you were talking about how you know it's a little bit different in your organization versus other organizations. I I do think that we see, at least this is what they tell us, the organizations that we work with tell us that that they that they get the most effect out of those individualized kind of programs, right? The kinds that you were just mentioning there towards the end. Um and those are ones that are sort of tailored towards that individual person uh versus you know, sort of out-of-the-box uh leadership development programs. Now, uh on the other hand, I sort of feel like uh sort of those off-the-shelf, you know, open-the-box leadership development programs are probably useful uh some of the time as well, but they might be better for certain individuals. That is, instead of applying that program to all individuals, maybe that program is right for these six or seven individuals, but another program is the right program for these other individuals, depending on their individual um development needs. Do you do anything like that? Or do you I mean what is your reaction to that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, we do. And and you know, they the reality there's a couple realities that you're surfacing there, Ryan, is um the individual very hyper, you know, you call it like the white glove development, if you will. Um, that isn't always scalable. And not every organization will or can have the luxury of doing those types of things. And so what I'd say is what I've found a lot of success with is having a mix of both um, you know, shelf stable, if you will, or vendor-provided courses to set foundations, to set um, you know, to scale it out very wide to the types of behaviors, the types of capabilities that you're trying to build in the organization, and using that as the foundation. So if you think, you know, we we've been talking about this, but I don't think I've explicitly said, if you think of that pipeline of leadership from individual contributor up through the organization, where I see a lot of value is aligning some of those off-the-shelf things, out-of-the-box things to offer and to build, you know, structured development programs around, structured development opportunities. And then as they advance up, and my guess would be is the organizations you're working with, you're when you're talking to a certain level of leader, those foundations oftentimes they've either learned through experience, they've gone through development programs, they've they've interacted. You know, you start to individualize them more and more kind of as they advance up into their careers. And so there's absolutely a place and a purpose and a partnership. And what I've found kind of in in my programs, in my career, and the teams that I've had the opportunity to work with is a lot of times those out-of-the-box or you know, kind of set types of programs can spur a really interesting and good customization for your other levels of leadership. So if you have vendor partners that you're working with or consultants that you're working with, of you know, taking some of that foundation and starting to link and build that connective tissue in and around the organization across the leadership levels. So it might feel individualized, it might be very specialized, and it's predicated on this much broader, you know, what you consider more standardized development practice or approach.
SPEAKER_02You know, for a lot of these new leaders who are technical experts and and you know, ascended into this leadership role, one of the or a few of the things that they might have issues with are things like coaching, listening, and conflict management. These this might be actually foreign to these technical experts. So, what strategies have you found to be most effective in helping these leaders maybe build some confidence in these areas?
SPEAKER_03Great question in terms of uh this coaching and the listening and the conflict management, it's it's something that I would say doesn't always come natural to many of us. And when you're in kind of that high technical problem solving aspect or space, I think it's especially pronounced there. And what I'd say in in terms of um strategies and helping build the confidence, don't underestimate things like modeled scenarios that are true to the organization, um, role plays, coaching, um, mentoring circles. These types of environments, what they share is that they all share a container, basically, a safe container that the leader can explore the topic, that they can maybe see the topic and practice, and then they can you know either try it out in a low, you know, or reputationally less risky environment for themselves. Um, and so you know, I'll just take one of them for example, modeled scenarios. I I've found in my practice in terms of trying to figure out okay, what what problems or what reality are the leaders facing? Like what conflicts are they facing? You know, what coaching conversations are they having? So if we want to build the confidence of basically being able to translate, here's what coaching is, here's what coaching, you know, maybe isn't as much the science behind that, here's what it looks like in our organization. And then being having that translational modeled scenario for them to see and anchor, oh, well, you know, these two development professionals were showcasing or modeling, or even better, if you can get two leaders in the organization to do it, are modeling what this looks like in good practice. Okay, well, now I I kind of see it. But then the other aspect there is, okay, well, then have them do it in the room, have them role play itself, get them talking to one another. Uh, because it's one thing to think through. Oh, yeah, I would say this in the situation, I would say this in the situation, but actually having them do it and practice in ways that are real to their role is really important. And so I'd say that's those are those are both tactics that I use pretty heavily in the development programs to translate good practice and whatever skill, coaching, listening, conflict management, to get out into the their role, to get out onto the factory floor. And so the other aspect to this is that if you have the opportunity where you have either you're building a community with the leaders or you have them in a cohort program or some some program basically that you're bringing them back after a certain amount of time, taking the time for reflection at the start of that session, um, and then have asking them explicitly to do something between the sessions. And so, for example, like in our program, we call it field work. Uh, and and really the whole point is you're doing something out in your role. And what we do then is, you know, we maybe talk about coaching, tell them to go coach, and then when we get back together, we say, okay, we're gonna spend the first X amount of minutes talking about what you tried over the past month, what worked, what didn't work. Let's share with one another as peers to really uh pull, pull up what practices are working, where are the success stories, and where are some of those hurdles? And then using that to springboard then into further refinement, further practice in the space before kicking them back out into their role. And so I think offering them those contained spaces helps the kind of confidence building, if you will. So it doesn't feel like, oh, I went to this class, they told me about coaching. Maybe I practiced it, maybe you know, I saw it a little bit, but now I have to go like really, really practice in front of my the my people. And that can be somewhat challenging at times and somewhat nerve-wracking. And so, really, if you if you take a step back and look at this, we're easing that ramp of arming them with as much feedback and observation and modeling and practice before they ever have to deploy it in real time, if you will. And then once they do deploy it, of trying to get them back together to talk through it, to share, to support one another. Um, and that way you kind of build that community and you see, like, oh, well, I'm not alone and uh, you know, I'm not alone and having these types of conflicts. I'm not alone and having these challenges around coaching. And here's some examples or some some tactics that I can steal, steal, mimic or borrow from other leaders in the organization.
SPEAKER_04You know, Kevin, I'm just still going back to the sort of the psychology of the individual who is is in this citizen area, right? Some technical expert and they're being promoted to a leadership role. And just thinking about why they might have resistance to things like coaching or working on some of these other skills. And it occurs to me that many people who are technical experts have backgrounds, degrees, and technical programs. And probably, given what we know about personality, given what we know about interests, they've long been interested in those kind of technical things. And one of the interests that drives people towards technical things is the sort of well, what we might call thing orientation versus say person orientation, right? And people with those interests tend to go into fields like mathematics. I mean, not surprisingly, people uh mathematics, engineering, physics, a lot of fields where um you just you get problems, right? I think about the typical math class, right? The typical math class from elementary school on, you get your given problems, you go solve them on your own, right? You need to go solve them as an individual. Whereas in other courses and other fields, you may be given problems that you need to work together to solve, right? And it occurs to me that maybe, right, there's this whole line of interest, this whole line of training and experiences around sort of being autonomous, being self-reliant that creates a sort of resistance to coaching. Well, you know, or you can even have this attitude like, well, you know, nobody really coached me. Um why do I spend my time coaching other people? These people need to be self-reliant, they need to be uh individuals like I am. Right? I mean, do you run into that sort of that sort of approach? Because it occurs to me that that would be a really common response.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, in short, yes. Uh you know, Ryan, to your point, that that autonomy is so fascinating in this space. Um and and especially especially when you're implementing enterprise-wide systems, enterprise-wide development efforts, things of that nature, uh the change management that comes along with that oftentimes is something I I know, at least, you know, I can speak to my own experience of um you don't necessarily realize or understand when you're going through grad school that the type of change management. And I would say, to your point, like that autonomy factor can show up very heavily weighted. And what can happen culturally when you see that is, oh man, hey, you know, we're gonna try these coaching practices, and it can be met with ambivalence, indifference, resistance, you know, um, at its worst, hostility even, in terms of, well, why are you forcing me? Why are you being prescriptive about something you know that doesn't necessarily matter to me? Um, and and so we do see that in terms of, and I think recognizing that and being able to speak to it as you know, an internal consultant or a leadership development consultant is important. Um, it's not always an easy message to talk to, but pointing to some of the optionality that can come along with that, some of the um, you know, behaviors that can come along with that that you observe in the classroom, that you observe when you're interacting with these leaders is really, really important. I think um as not just an I.O. but anyone who's working really to level up or to transition technical experts into leadership. And again, I don't I don't think that there's any malintent or maliciousness to your point. It's um I don't know if it's always been seen as valuable. Uh, you know, to you the the the point that you made, well, I I succeeded, you know, I I got through this. And so um there's a lot uh at times there is a lot of that. Well, you're smart, you'll figure it out. You did well as a technical lead, what's different? Uh and there's a there's a downplaying, well, there's a lot different. Um and when we don't say that there's a lot different and we don't spend the time, we we end up, you know, kind of suppressing it or hiding it. Well, there must be something wrong if I don't figure this out, because that's the opposite of it. Uh, you know, is there something wrong with me? And that is, you know, talking about the psychological effects there, that that can be very, very challenging when you have these cultures of high autonomy, um, when in reality, it's often it can be the system that's at fault or at play there as well.
SPEAKER_02Well, Kevin, this has been an awesome conversation, but I do have one last question, one that I would consider kind of the million-dollar question uh for for our listeners. And you know, if you could give one piece of advice to IO psychologists or technical leaders who are tasked with developing experts into leaders, what would it be and why?
SPEAKER_03The the one I'm only limited to one Blake. You can do more. We'll allow. Um, no, I it the one the big one is is don't don't forget your science. Um I think that has always been something that I can rely on, uh that I can lean back on. Is that as an IO, as a technical leader, maybe that's you know working in this area, um you have a hundred plus years of research uh that you know we've talked about a number of the psychological constructs on here today, but that is something that in a technical space can often be a great differentiator. There's a lot of things out there in terms of how to develop leaders, what to develop, the best way to develop, the five things you know that are gonna be the most impactful. None of that can really trump a mindset and an approach from a scientist, is what I would say. And so lean on the research, lean on the academics who and the practitioners who are continuing to produce translational research, produce basic research. And what I'm saying is don't, you know, necessarily come in and say, well, according to this theory, X, Y, and Z, but have that translational piece in the back of your mind of, well, here's what the science is saying, here's what the results are saying, you know, in this arena, and here's how I can apply it in my organization, in this situation. Because what it does then is it can lend a great deal of credibility. Because when people then come forward and ask, well, why are you making this decision? Because that's that's a question you will get if you're implementing and building a leadership development system. Well, why why this decision, or why this topic, or why, why are you doing this? You then have kind of the groundedness of saying, Well, I did this because of X, Y, and Z. And this is the theory behind it, this is the evidence that we have behind it, and this is the choice that we made. And I think that has always been something that has been impactful from for my own career, and I've seen it in other IOs who are in the space of um, you know, being able to have that scientific grounding tends to go a long way in these spaces.
SPEAKER_04Well, I couldn't agree more with that at all, Kevin. So uh thank you so much for coming on today and sharing with us your experiences, your knowledge, and your expertise uh around building technical uh experts into today's uh today's leaders. So uh really glad to have you on the episode uh on this uh podcast and for this episode. So thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_03Well, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for the conversation. Um and if you know if there are any follow-up questions, I'm always happy to connect um and share resources with other professionals in the space.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Kevin, really appreciate it. Our audience is gonna love this one, and uh yeah, we'll have to bring you on in the future. We had a I think you had another proposed topic that we might have to entertain down the road sometime. It's only if Ryan will allow it. We'll talk about it in New Orleans itself. Sounds good. And that does it for the Science of Personality Podcast, episode 142. Be sure to join us in two weeks for another fun and informative episode. Cheers, everybody.
SPEAKER_00This has been the Science of Personality Podcast, brought to you by Hogan Assessments. You can access all episodes on our website, the science of personality dot com, or on the streaming service of your choice. See you next time.