http://www.kaplandevries.com/ Through customized solutions for individual leaders and management teams, Kaplan DeVries helps leaders, however effective, take their play to the next level. en 2012-02-06T21:43:23+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/research/research-development/ 2004-10-18T21:08:26+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/does-the-strengths-based-approach-to-leadership-development-work/ Along with the rise of the Positive Psychology movement, an approach to leadership development that emphasizes strengths has gained popularity. This method encourages leaders to identify their areas of natural talent and focus on building them to their fullest potential. Compared to the traditional focus on fixing weaknesses, the strengths-based approach has great appeal. 2012-02-06T21:43:23+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/theory-driven-personality-based-leadership-development/ This session includes four presentations that collectively demonstrate how Robert Hogan’s Socioanalytic theory of personality can inform the development of managers into better leaders. It features an overview of the theory, empirical research support, application models for helping managers cultivate strategic self-awareness, and a case study of a large-scale project to develop airport managers around the world. 2012-02-06T21:40:15+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/the-how-and-the-what-of-leadership/ Psychological theories view leadership as a social influence process, where leaders use interpersonal behaviors to motivate followers to contribute to group goals. On the other hand, business-oriented models emphasize the leadership of organizational functions such as strategy, structure, staffing, and work systems. In this paper, this distinction is considered as representing the interpersonal how and the organizational what, respectively, and the two perspectives are viewed as complementary ways that leaders can impact organizational performance. A study is presented to test relationships between behaviors indicative of the how and the what and measures of leadership effectiveness. Based on ratings of 421 senior managers from 4,670 superiors, peers, and subordinates, the results demonstrate the significant contributions for both the interpersonal how and the organizational what in predicting perceived leader effectiveness and the unique routes through which they affect team performance. 2012-02-06T21:36:26+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/employability-and-career-success/ Dramatic changes in the nature of work since World War II and current levels of persistent unemployment make employability an important public policy issue. Employability is defined as the capacity to gain and retain formal employment, or find new employment if necessary.  Much unemployment is caused by structural factors in the economy, but psychological factors also contribute significantly to the problem.  This review begins by considering what existing research tells us about employability; it focuses on the most common psychological approach to employability—the study of career success—as determined by cognitive abilities, personality, and educational achievement. Next, we review the literature concerning what employers actually want. This section highlights the importance of social skills (being rewarding to deal with) as a key determinant of employability. 2012-02-06T21:33:18+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/an-evolutionary-view-of-climate-and-culture/ This chapter provides an account of how our evolutionary history as group-living and culture-using animals might have shaped our general expectations about how we should be treated when acting as members of a group.  These expectations, rooted in millions of years of group-living where cohesion and group performance were critical to survival, also shape the way employees evaluate the culture of their organizations today—evaluations that impact their motivation and engagement. Our argument suggests that there is one right way and many wrong ways to manage employees, and the right way involves attending to certain themes that characterized adaptive human tribes in our ancestral past. 2012-02-06T21:29:18+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/destructive-leadership-in-and-of-organizations/ This chapter provides a refined and integrative definition of destructive leadership that establishes the construct as a broad category containing narrower facets at the intersection of leadership and counterproductive work behavior. We then review the nascent, but growing, research literature on destructive leadership in terms of studies that focus on destructive leaders and those that focus on situational factors associated with destructive leadership. Our review considers the implications of research on destructive leadership for organizational outcomes, highlights key themes regarding what is known about this phenomenon, identifies gaps in our knowledge, and discusses needed future research. 2012-02-06T21:23:32+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/news/kaplan-devries-20th-anniversary/ January 1, 2012, our firm’s 20th anniversary of innovative leadership-consulting to senior managers. 2011-09-06T14:55:05+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/personality-leader-behavior-and-overdoing-it/ This study tested theory-based predictions about relationships between an expanded representation of the Five Factor Model of personality and interpersonal-, task-, and change-oriented leader behaviors. The assumption that strengths can become weaknesses was also examined by determining the level of personality dimensions that is associated with ratings of “the right amount” versus “too much” of various leader behaviors. Correlation and regression analyses in a sample of 126 managers and executives rated by 1,512 coworkers supported 79% and 82%, respectively, of the predicted patterns of personality-behavior linkages, with an average multivariate effect size of R = .51. Distinct personality profiles were associated with each of the leadership behaviors, and complementary behaviors were predicted by opposing personality profiles. Additionally, the levels at which personality scores were associated with doing too much of the leadership behaviors were not as extreme as predicted. The findings indicate patterns of leader behavior associated with a broad range of personality dimensions and have implications for future research as well as the selection and development of managers. 2011-07-03T20:18:14+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/strengths-strengths-overused-and-lopsided-leadership/ Riding the growth of positive psychology, strengths-based development has become a popular approach to helping managers become better leaders. This school of thought advises managers to maximize their natural talents rather than try to correct weaknesses. This article takes issue with this advice and considers how it can, ironically, lead managers to turn their strengths into weaknesses through overuse as well as cause them to neglect shortcomings that can degrade the performance of employees, teams, and organizations. Hypotheses are developed about the relationship between specific personal strengths and leadership behaviors as well as the joint tendencies to overdo behaviors related to one’s strengths while underdoing opposing but complementary behaviors. Strong support was found for the tendency of managers to do too much of the behaviors related to their strengths and more modest support was found for the tendency of managers to do too little of opposing but complementary behaviors. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of future research needs and how to apply the strengths approach in a way that minimizes downside risk in developmental applications. 2011-07-02T20:13:58+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/the-leadership-pipeline-fad-fashion-or-empirical-fact1/ The leadership pipeline concept has had an enormous impact on leadership development and talent management over the past decade. This model assumes that what it takes for managers to succeed differs for jobs at different levels in the organizational hierarchy. However, the research basis behind popular books on the topic is thin. This special issue of The Psychologist-Manager Journal features a summary of relevant empirical research and two direct tests of whether and how the behaviors related to effectiveness are different at the bottom, middle, and top. The issue concludes with practical commentary by one of the original thinkers who articulated the psychological challenges that managers face as they transition to higher level jobs. 2011-07-01T19:54:33+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/testing-the-leadership-pipeline/ It has become popular in the practices of leadership development and talent management to segment managers at different organizational levels in order to focus on the unique requirements thought to characterize jobs at each level. This movement has been spurred by popular books that emphasize differences in the nature of managerial work at different hierarchical levels. Seemingly independent of popular work in this area has been scientific research to describe differences in managerial jobs across organizational levels. The present article summarizes the extensive research literature on level differences in managerial jobs in terms of three broad generalizations: The number of distinct management levels, five different ways to characterize work at each level, and how radical differences in work at each level pose adaptive challenges to managers who transition into positions of greater authority and responsibility. The article closes with commentary on the current state of theory and research and offers suggestions for future research needed to guide and support practice. 2011-06-30T23:46:43+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/do-the-behaviors-related-to-managerial-effectiveness-really-change-with-org/ Past research on how the requirements of managerial jobs differ across organizational levels has mostly been descriptive. No previously published study has directly tested whether the behaviors that predict effectiveness are different at different levels. The authors tested whether organizational level moderated the relationships between subordinate ratings on seven dimensions of managerial behavior and superior evaluations of overall effectiveness using a set of identical measures in a sample of 2,175 supervisors, middle managers, and executives representing 15 different industries and dozens of organizations in the United States. Multivariate analyses revealed significant differences in the pattern of behaviors associated with effectiveness across levels. Many differences were discontinuous (e.g., positive predictors of effectiveness at one level were negative predictors at another) and generally consistent with the dominant themes in the descriptive literature characterizing the unique requirements of managerial jobs at different organizational levels. 2011-06-30T20:28:18+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/publications/going-sour-in-the-suite-the-root-causes-of-executive-failure/ Much has been written about spectacular business blunders and the press love to create a must-read story around big personalities which they see as “of interest to the public” rather than “in the public interest.” But much less known than sensational media stories are the history and lessons from 30 years of research on how successful executives run aground. This presentation traces the story of research on executive derailment from its quiet beginnings in the 1970s to a large and consistent body of findings that hold up across organizations, industries, cultures, and eras as well as across the gender and age range of the fallen. The findings point to two root causes of executive derailment: failure to adapt to change and troubled relationships. The presentation will close with solutions for minimizing the rate of executive failure through better selection, development, and management of upward transitions. 2011-06-08T20:42:22+00:00 http://www.kaplandevries.com/index.php/news/kaiser-overfield-on-filling-your-leadership-pipeline-one-manager-at-a-time/ “Filling your leadership pipeline, one manager at a time” KDI Partner, Rob Kaiser, and Senior Consultant, Darren Overfield, were invited by Human Resources Executive magazine to present their research and application models for understanding the challenge managers face as they navigate upward transitions on the career path. Starting where Kaiser’s 2005 book, Filling the Leadership Pipeline, left off, the presenters shared findings to be published in the June 2011 special issue of The Psychologist-Manager Journal, guest edited by Kaiser, and entitled, ”The Leadership Pipeline: Fad, Fashion, or Fact?” Based on the updated research, the presenters also shared a concise model for HR/OD/Talent managers to implement when helping managers make a successful leap to the next level of leadership. Date: May 12, 2011 Time: 2:30-3:30 p.m. ET Red Auerbach, the nine-time NBA champion basketball coach, was once asked how to motivate a team. “One player at a time,” he replied. The same is true for filling your leadership pipeline, be it through internal or external candidates: You fill it one manager at a time. Of course, you need a robust system and scalable process, but you also must have strategies and practices that address the specific needs of each individual manager as he or she navigates the tricky transition into a larger role. This Webinar summarized recent research that shows too many executives lead more like middle managers—which disengages their people, compromises their teams and lowers company performance. The presenters, Robert Kaiser and Darren Overfield of Kaplan DeVries Inc., will reviewed what’s required to lead effectively at both the manager and executive level—and why it’s so difficult for managers to reinvent their leadership to suit higher-level job demands. Also presented was a scalable methodology for helping managers make a successful upward transition. More details here… 2011-05-27T16:31:24+00:00