Managing Leadership^®

There has been a lot of talk lately about liberal and conservative personalities. A political analysis of the presidential race in the United States recently offered a map of the political cultures of whole states. How useful is that? And on what basis do they draw their conclusions – whether about individuals or states?

That’s an important question. We all think we know what a liberal or a conservative is. We don’t see anything controversial about the matter, so we don’t look more skeptically at it. But it might be worth wondering: if we’re so sure we know what the definition of a liberal or a conservative is, how sure are we that others share those definitions?

I recently read a book by a psychologist purporting to describe how he could assess personality – including things like political leanings and intellectual/creative abilities – on the basis of the general state of a person’s office space or home. It was hardly reassuring in this regard.

I began to develop some skepticism from his repeated and unnecessary references to himself, his students, and his colleagues as “scientists.” Moreover, they always seemed to be “doing science.” Many psychologists do indeed do good science, but the prominent and frequent episodes of “physics envy” encountered in this book do not bode well for the “research” and “findings” produced by this one.

For example, this psychologist tended to associate creativity, egalitarianism, and open-mindedness with liberalism. To take just one of these, he described open-minded people as likely to be found browsing the philosophy section of a book store. Really? Not the travel, science, literature – even the management – section?

Of course, you can see the other shoe falling: conservatives, according to this fellow, are more dogmatic, less interested than liberals in diversity, and resistant to – even fearful of – change. Does that seem right to you?

Are liberals – especially politically – more open to new ideas than conservatives, less dogmatic? Are conservatives really resistant to change – or is that even the issue for either group, rather than simple rational conformance with what each side perceives as reality?

Let’s just consider one example this psychologist provided as an especially illuminating example of the way he makes such assessments. He cautions against leaping to conclusions based on one clue alone. For example, if a job candidate presents herself with a firm handshake, you shouldn’t irrevocably conclude that she is creative or open-minded.

What if she mentions that she likes Garth Brooks and owns a lot of his albums? Or, perhaps she is wearing a “conventional GAP outfit.” You would – immediately, he specifies – have to alter your initial impression.

One has to wonder what sort of clothing, precisely, a young women must actually wear to a job interview to impress this particular scientist with her creativity and open-mindedness?

What sort of clothes are the people in the philosophy section wearing?

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Today’s tips: There is some very promising work being done of the kind that can actually be helpful in trying to manage leadership. Some of this involves trying to understand the dynamics of an organization by using location-reporting badges worn by employees, similar to RFID chips, to track the nature and pattern of interactions that take place within it. Admittedly, a little creepy – but it will be interesting to see where this goes.

The WSJ recently reported on another such effort to interpret what is really going on in organizations, using similar badges, called “sociometers,” which somehow measure the nonverbal activities of their wearers. The piece describes how the researcher has learned that we sometimes draw conclusions – even make important decisions – on the basis of body language that seems to convey something rather inconsistent with the nature or veracity of the overt messages being delivered.

While that is far, certainly, from a new insight, it might be interesting to observe just how extensive this sort of thing is in our organizations. It will also be worthwhile to maintain a healthy reality-check on the assumptions used as the basis of the essentially mechanical analyses methods like these use.

Speaking of politics, open-mindedness, and the US elections, please be sure to stop over to see Michael Wade‘s advice regarding the behavior we all will undoubtedly exhibit upon our selection of the next American President.

Also, please stop over for Miki Saxon‘s insightful observations about the dangers of developing “leaders” on the basis of their identification as such early in their careers – or their lives.

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