One of the attributes organizations look for in leaders is the ability to ‘keep your head while everyone else is losing theirs’. As business has become increasingly volatile and uncertain with compounding risk and complexity, the ability to stay calm, cool, and collected in times of immense pressure and stress has become increasingly sought after. Leaders with higher levels of Driver personality traits function well in these situations – they seem to have a natural immunity to fear and worry. They are the leaders you need to make the tough decisions others are unable to make. However, when this personality is poorly moderated by the right virtues and motivations, they can create more problems than they solve.
Leaders with higher levels of Driver traits are best described as ‘Ruthless Risktakers’ who can be highly effective in ‘getting stuff done’ yet create risk for themselves, their teams, and the business due to their win at all costs mentality and detachment from people. They have an ability to operate in extreme, high stress environments where people and relationships can become collateral damage, like the submarine captain with crew trapped in a flooded compartment – they won’t hesitate to sacrifice the few to save the many. If large numbers of people need to go to save the entire business, then ruthless decision making has its advantages.
And with any personality trait, more isn’t necessarily better because context matters. Often businesses need leaders who create a performance culture through deep care and connection to people - leaders who inspire people to follow them because their followers know they genuinely have their best interests at heart. Leaders with lower levels of Driver traits are the ‘Connected Caregivers’ who are strongly connected to their team, understand the pressure points of people, and are finely tuned to how to how far they can push their team without breaking them.
Driver personality traits are anchored in two things – attachment to people ranging from detachment to deep connections, and risk tolerance ranging from careless to conscientious. The psychology underpinning the Driver leader is linked to psychopathy, which has its origins in the ability to turn fearful situations into exciting opportunities. Leaders with high Driver attributes are the ‘Ruthless Risktakers’ who have the cognitive ability to turn fearful situations into exciting challenges and are detached from people. Whereas leaders with low Driver attributes are the ‘Connected Caregivers’ who are energized by the opportunity to care for people when danger presents, and this genuine connection with people underpins a culture of high performance.
Unpacking the Performance Personality of ‘The Ruthless Risktaker’
The most common misperception of the leader with high Driver traits is the belief that they lack empathy. To the contrary, they typically have incredibly high levels of intellectual empathy - the power to appreciate, understand and predict how others think. This is what enables them to be incredibly charismatic and charm people even in situations while they are taking actions that might harm those same people. The ability to say the right thing at the right time requires recognizing how people are feeling, even if they aren’t genuinely affected by these emotions. And these low levels of emotional contagion allow them to embrace fearful situations and keep a cool head while everyone else is losing theirs. While this is useful in situations requiring ruthless decisions, these personalities can create more problems than they solve if they are not well contained by high levels of morality, fairness and healthy relationship attachment.
Their ability to not just survive, but thrive, in disruptive, volatile, and complex operating environments makes them incredibly valuable to businesses that need leaders to make tough decisions that sometimes involve sacrificing the few to preserve the many. However, this behaviour can become toxic if it is not well contained by the right virtues and attachments. Risktakers that can drive for results while looking after people not only have the personality for decisive action, but they also have high levels of morality and fairness and are less detached in their relationships with people. When these ‘winning combinations’ of personality and containment factors come together, the leader is likely to have an incredible impact on both people and business performance.
Their impact on the psychosocial safety of their team depends on their attachment to people. Leaders with high Driver traits have a positive impact on ambiguity, as they are very clear on what they want as the outcome. They know what success should look like – what the production time should be, which products to promote, and what an acceptable level of returns will be - and they aren’t overly concerned with the vagaries of how the achievement of these outcomes will impact people. Ambiguity is reduced because everyone is crystal clear about what needs to be achieved.
The naturally calm and focused style of the Risktaker also lowers stimulation. Because they don’t process fear in the same way as other people, they don’t show signs of being afraid and they are less likely to exhibit fearful behaviours others pick up on as cues and clues. If people think “the boss isn’t worried, then I don’t need to be”, this has a calming effect on the team, allowing them to focus and perform better. However, if the leader has low levels of morality, fairness, and poor attachment to people they can create more problems than they solve.
While they have an innate ability to make the tough decisions others fear making, their lack of emotional empathy can drive higher levels of conformity and anxiety, which can impair the function and performance of the team. This is where fairness, morality, and healthy attachment to people is essential for leaders with high Driver traits. If their natural view that ‘fear is exciting’ leads them to make unilateral decisions they know the team isn’t aligned to, and they adopt high-risk behaviours and break rules and relationships, then there can be serious consequences for the leader, their team, and the business.
Unpacking the Performance Personality of ‘The Connected Caregiver’
Leaders with lower levels of Driver personality traits – the ‘Connected Caregivers’ – tend to be excellent in challenging situations because they focus on supporting their people and being connected so they understand not just ‘what’ people are doing or not doing, but ‘why’. They are highly effective when people are the key to understanding and solving the problem, and when their team need positive motivation and support to perform. The Caregiver’s strong connection to people gives them an advantage in understanding how their team, customers, and stakeholders are likely to think, feel, and behave in challenging situations, which enables them to anticipate and mitigate risks.
The leader with low levels of Driver traits is excellent at connecting with their people to manage stimulation – ensuring they avoid boredom and burnout. They have a strong handle on their teams’ operating temperature, both intellectually and emotionally, which enables them to adjust the volume and difficulty of tasks to suit the energy level of their team. If the team is operating closer to boredom and under stimulated the Caregiver is likely to pick up on this and increase the intellectual and emotional stimulation. If the team is overly stimulated and ‘burning out’ they will actively lower the team’s energy levels. This level of awareness gives the Connected Caregiver the unique ability to modify the situation and stimulus, so their team functions at optimal levels.
Leaders with lower levels of Driver traits will also lower ambiguity because they have a clear view of what the team environment should look like. A leader who is highly connected with the team is aware of how the team should operate and this clarity comes through in their communication with the team. They are also acutely aware that ambiguity creates more concerns, fears, and action paralysis that makes team members feel worse and perform poorly, so they naturally communicate clearly and calmly to reduce stimulation by minimizing ambiguity. However, you can have too much of a good thing.
While the Connected Caregivers create calm, empathetic workplaces where people are genuinely cared for, they can unintentionally create anxiety and conformity, which can impair the function and performance of their team. If individuals, teams, or departments are dragging the ship down and tough decisions need to be made to save the entire operation, then Connected Caregivers may struggle to sacrifice people to keep the business afloat. If they aren’t acting the team may begin to worry, but their strong relationship with the leader may limit their willingness to challenge the leader even if they can clearly see the ship is going down. So while Caregivers can deliver extraordinary cultural impact in one situation, they may create significant business risks in others. This is why organizations must ensure leaders are playing to their strengths – context must compliment capability.
Identifying and leveraging the Risktakers and Caregivers
So how do you know if you have the Risktakers to ruthlessly drive results, or the Caregivers to care for the people you rely on for performance? As business becomes more complex and challenging organizations can no longer rely on assessments that measure a leader’s ‘identity’ - their self-perception and the view others have of them. As things get tougher, measurements and data related to a leader’s actual capability must get better. Organizations need scientific, reliable data on the true personality of their leaders.
The Greyscale is the only commercial leadership test that uses science and psychology to measure what type of Driver a leader is - are they the Risktaker who excels at making sacrifices to get things done, or the Caregiver who reads people and anticipates how people will perform under pressure? To test your leaders and learn more check out The Greyscale Assessment at http://tgsleadership.com.
