OPUSBOB: Can a bad personality be fixed?
July 27, 2010 – 10:04 pmI want to talk with you today about whether or not a bad personality can be fixed. It’s an interesting concept and it’s something that we’re probably all familiar with at some level. I was in an Executive Suite for a number of years, and we had a receptionist who was a very sharp person, but also highly critical. If she liked you as a tenant, you got very good service. But if she decided, in her infinite wisdom, that you weren’t very capable in what you did, you got lousy service, and I watched this happen.
Of course I was on the side of getting very good service, so I was okay. But it clearly was not an okay situation. And really, the nature of this person was that she had a critical nature and you could say that she couldn’t help herself. Or of course she could. But it raises the point when you have someone that has a personality style that’s not fit for a particular role; can you as a leader fix that personality?
Well, to an extent you can, but you need to realize that there’s only so much elastic that you’re able to get out of somebody. So asking somebody to be so different from what their natural style is, is a very uncomfortable place to put people. In fact, our role as a leader is to be able to find the right fit for people.
Now maybe in this case, there wasn’t a right fit for this particular person in this organization and you need to look at that as reality as well. We only have a certain amount of flexibility and we all need it, because there isn’t any such thing as the perfect personality for a job. We all need to recognize there is a time and a place where we need to modify what our own nature is to accommodate the requirements of that position. In some ways, we all have bad personalities for what we do. Hopefully, it’s more good than bad and we can take advantage of the good and when we need to, adjust, so we could be effective in our role.
Thanks for your time.
Tags: Bob Kreisberg, candidate assessment, OPSUBOB, Performance, personality
One Response to “OPUSBOB: Can a bad personality be fixed?”
Hi Bob,
Interesting case study. In my experience, it is better to promptly terminate or reassign people with personality disorders that affect their work, rather than to take time and resources to rehabilitate them. But the problem typically arises that those who get good service argue against termination and give high marks when reviewing the employee. This creates a record that contradicts termination and can give rise to wrongful termination claims and, typically, exhorbitant settlement demands.
Firing someone who is both excellent and horrible requires both strength of character in the boss, as well as documentation of the perfomance factors that justify termination. Clearly, in today’s world, this requires at least 2-3 specific warnings, and citations to specific examples of poor job performance including names of offended parties, etc. It also may require in some states an effort to accommodate the employee in another position to see if the employment can be preserved. In today’s world where discrimination is on every terminated employee’s mind and lips, the paperwork has to be timely and substantively specific.
To avoid problems from weak paperwork, weak bosses frequently end up paying substantial severance packages and citing RIF in a “layoff notice” (enabling unemployment benefits) instead of firing the bad performer on the record. Thus, the employee is taught to game the system, that bad performance can pay nicely, and that there is no need to correct his/her behavior, etc.
Likewise, the next employer is not told the real reason for the termination, so the cycle begins anew, unless the next interviewer has the skill and experience to discern the personality disorder to the extent it may affect the next job’s requirements. And therein lies the secret of great personality matching to each job!
Many thanks for a great blog, Bob!
Ed Hunter
Attorney and Corporate Governance Expert
Irvine, California
By Ed Hunter on Jul 30, 2010