Are leaders born or made? Is leadership personality—or skill-based? Is leadership innate, or can it be learned? These age-old questions remain hotly debated to this day but are based on very little scientific evidence until now. Over the last four years, The Grey Scale’s research department has assessed 315 C-suite leaders globally, and our findings clearly indicate leaders are ‘born’—their innate personality matters.
Our research focused on five personalities that exist in everyone and are often viewed negatively but are also widely accepted as necessary for leaders to lead. These are the Borderline, Machiavellian, Narcissistic, Psychopathic, and Sociopathic personalities. These personalities' strong presence and combination make leaders different and enable them to function well in fear-inducing and stressful environments.
However, our research also highlighted that while leaders are ‘born,’ many are not as effective as possible because they don’t spend enough time playing to their strengths. Worse, some leaders have uncontained toxic personality traits, so they create more problems than they solve.
Interestingly, the research showed effective leaders are ‘made.’ Effective leaders are self-aware of their strengths and weaknesses and consciously develop other leadership skills and behaviors to complement their innate leadership talents over time. This means they can thrive effectively in difficult and stressful leadership environments as they have developed and practiced the right mindset and skills for success. An effective leader creates a workplace environment that is psychologically safe, positive, and high-performance.
Some people say leadership is a contact sport – you need relationship and interpersonal skills to build trust, engage, and inspire people to perform. What gets less attention is that leadership is also a ‘context’ sport. If a leader is in the right role, where their personality and skills align with the context, commercial and workplace cultural risk is minimized. Conversely, the commercial and cultural risk is amplified if the leader is misaligned. The definition of an effective leader is one operating in a context that suits one's innate strengths and skills.
Organizations often select and promote people seen as ‘natural born leaders’ who thrive in stressful situations, deal well with complexity and ambiguity, and cope effortlessly with internal and market volatility. The upside of this approach is many of these ‘natural-born leaders’ are highly effective and lead their teams well. However, the downside is some of these ‘natural born leaders’ are toxic, amplifying anxiety and impairing the psychological safety of their people; yet businesses will often tolerate (and even reward) these toxic leaders, who in the short term appear to function well and deliver.
Organizations invest substantial time, money, and internal and external resources in recruiting and developing their leaders, but very few understand the danger and cost of ‘leadership risk.’ Most organizations fail to assess whether their leaders have the right innate personality for the context they are asked to lead. Worse, there is a lack of available tools to help organizations identify toxic personalities and mitigate psychological risk, reputational damage, and legal liabilities.
The GreyScale™ can help organizations understand how to ensure that their current and future leaders (whether promoted or recruited) are in the right role based on their personality and identify any uncontained toxic personality traits. This understanding is critical for businesses to mitigate leadership risk.
