Dr. Randall P. White: "It's a good time to be an 'ambiguity leader.'"

We’re crossing the globe—in the last 30 days, India, England, South Africa, France…Upstate New York, Ohio and Texas—and can attest, there is a world-wide glut of talent.

One client tells us there has never had so much good talent to recruit from. The short list of candidates for top management positions looks like a C-level all-star team. Clients who have been searching for months for high level specialists are suddenly discovering ideal candidates eager to move almost anywhere.

On the other side of the desk, organizations are struggling to retain their top talent through bonuses and incentives.

Dr. Sandra L. Shullman: "It's a good time to be a recruiter."

And it’s one of those ambiguity leadership moments…no one has ever been in this position before, so the entire script of talent development is being written right now.

Training-wise, open enrollment executive education is moribund. And it may never return. At least, not as we knew it. Remember, if we can be without you for a week, we can be without you!

Focusing solely on strengths is inherently elitist, expensive and wasteful. Research informs us that all organizations, strong or weak, have big gaps in talent. Everyone needs to be well-rounded and capable of working well with other people. When individuals are allowed to follow their strengths with no attention to improving weaknesses, these talent gaps grow wider. Business becomes less productive because other executives have to “pick up the slack” left by the “top performers” who are permitted to flex their strengths. Inevitably, somebody has to do the hard work!

The Gallup Organization has given us much, but there is chasm in their strengths-based school of thought, now promoted by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie in their latest title, Strengths-based Leadership.

We maintain that strengths-based leadership is a mistake an especially ill-advised in our current economy. Talent management, coaching and executive education professionals need to bring this tough love message to the C-suite. Thankfully, we’re seeing the realization spread through electronic and print media…

Coert Visser, passing along some thoughts from David Creelman along with his own “critical examination of the strengths perspective”…

“I fear this might be too individualistic and we’d do well to move into a more interactive, dynamic and situationalist perspective.” Mr. Visser goes on to challenge the research that supports strengths-based leadership. Read more here: Solution Focused Change.

Colleagues Robert B. Kaiser and Robert E. Kaplan warn us, among other things, of “lopsided leadership”: “Once you overplay a strength, you’re at risk of diminished capacity on the opposite pole. For example, a leader who is good at getting people involved in decisions, and has been encouraged to build on that strength, may not realize that in engaging so many others he is taking too long to move into action. Among the senior managers we studied, 97% who overdo forceful leadership in some respect also underdo enabling leadership, according to coworkers. And 94% who overdo operational leadership in some way also underdo strategic leadership. Marked lopsidedness can limit your personal cachet and career prospects.” Read more here: Harvard Business Review.

Dr. Robert Hogan draws a line in the sand about the self-centered nature of positive psychology:
“…high level effectiveness is not the same thing as “flourishing”, a key term for Positive Psychology. IPAR data, for example, clearly show that many if not most talented and accomplished people are driven by private demons. And finally, it is not at all clear what “flourishing” means. If it means being able to live with oneself, then it is clearly only one aspect of psychological health, and it is an aspect that is closely related to narcissism. As such, it is likely to increase the ability to live with oneself at the expense of the ability to live with others, which in turn, will decrease the probability of occupational success (Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006). If flourishing means self-actualization in a Maslowian sense, then it is simply wrong-headed.”
From “The Science of Personality.”

Where are you on this debate? Pass it on!

Right now, leadership development is too important for gurus and self-help bromides. Oprah Winfrey does a great job with her book club, but inviting Marcus Buckingham to cajole us with one-liners like, “stop your weaknesses,” is tantamount to talent management malpractice.

We’re excited to write that The Perils of Accentuating the Positive is now available for pre-orders from Hogan Press. Perils takes on the strength-based leadership movement with proven social science research, experience and the work of 15 authors.

Executive Development Group partner Randy White contributed the capstone chapter.