{"id":33658,"date":"2022-02-22T13:48:16","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T13:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hoozoocomm.co.za\/cognadev\/?p=33658"},"modified":"2026-06-29T09:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T09:35:08","slug":"leadership-and-the-dark-side-an-unresolved-paradox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoozoocomm.co.za\/cognadev\/2022\/02\/22\/leadership-and-the-dark-side-an-unresolved-paradox\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership and the Dark Side: An unresolved paradox"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_custom_heading text=”Leadership and the Dark Side:
\nAn unresolved paradox” font_container=”tag:h1|font_size:35pt|text_align:left|color:%23049EB3″ google_fonts=”font_family:Arvo%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” css=””][vc_custom_heading text=”” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20px|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Lato%3A100%2C100italic%2C300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”10px”][vc_custom_heading text=”By Paul Barrett & Maretha Prinsloo” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:20px|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Lato%3A100%2C100italic%2C300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic%2C900%2C900italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” css=””][vc_empty_space height=”10px”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

The Dark Side<\/h3>\n

For recruitment and selection of individuals for leadership roles in organizations, whether as leadership-role entrants through to chief executives, the majority will use some variant of a \u201cDark Side\u201d<\/b> personality assessment along with one assessing more neutral or positive personality attributes.<\/p>\n

A recent paper by Robert Hogan and colleagues <\/b><\/a>entitled: \u201cTwenty years on the Dark Side: Six lessons about bad leadership\u201d<\/b> defines the concept first identified and presented to HR and workplace recruiters over 20 years ago by Robert and Joyce Hogan and operationalised as an assessment in the now famous Hogan Development Survey (HDS).[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1780478567914{border-left-width: 3px !important;padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-color: #049EB3 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]\u201cThe first lesson, and the major thrust of the original article (Hogan & Hogan, 2001)<\/b><\/a>, is the need to distinguish between the bright and dark sides of personality.1 The bright side<\/b> refers to peoples\u2019 behavior when they are paying attention to how they impact their audience. The FFM is a taxonomy of bright-side tendencies and subsumes the characteristics assessed by most common inventories. Bright-side tendencies concern desirable social performance\u2014being poised, interpersonally effective, creative, trustworthy, or organized\u2014characteristics that facilitate an individual\u2019s ability to get along and get ahead. <\/em><\/p>\n

In contrast, the dark side<\/b> of personality concerns counterproductive tendencies that emerge when people are stressed, distracted, or simply unconcerned about the impression they are making\u2014for example, when managers interact with their subordinates as opposed to upper management. These tendencies differ from bright-side tendencies in that they are less frequently observed yet are both more extreme and more complicated in their implications for performance.\u201d (p. 201-202)<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]Almost every major self-report psychometrics questionnaire vendor now has a \u2018Dark Side\u2019 questionnaire in their product line. Podium365<\/b><\/a> being the latest, launching their \u201cDerailers\u201d questionnaire.<\/p>\n

The Dirty Dozen<\/h3>\n

In 2010, Peter Jonason and Gregory Webster introduced the Dirty Dozen<\/b><\/a> self-report questionnaire, as a concise, 12-item assessment of what Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams in 2002 had earlier defined as the Dark Triad<\/b><\/a>; a term used to describe a constellation of three socially undesirable personality traits: Narcissism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. The 12 items can be viewed in an online mindtools.com article<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The Paradox Explained<\/h3>\n

The concept of a Dark Side is so very appealing. It made sense in 2002 and still does. The attribute names alone, let alone behaviours of those scoring \u2018high\u2019 on these dark side personality attributes say it all. It\u2019s why the term \u2018derailer\u2019 was used extensively to characterise such people.<\/p>\n

These are the people whose behaviours will sabotage an organization as their dysfunctional behaviours negatively impact organizational goals and ultimately disrupt its workforce. Hence, organizations worldwide reached for an HDS or an equivalent from their favourite assessment provider or slipped in a 12-item Dark Triad questionnaire to use as a \u2018screen-out\u2019 assessment. They might even have used the test scores as a guide to assist in their subjective appraisal of the risk involved in employing high-scorers.<\/p>\n

The problem is none of this has worked as we have been led to expect.<\/p>\n

In fact, little has changed over the years in terms of the qualities and behaviours of those appointed to leadership positions around the world. Psychologists, HR, management consultants and recruiters have tried to promote a \u2018you know it makes sense\u2019 message with all kinds of \u201cwarning: derailer at work\u2019 examples to buttress their reasoning. But, as the abstract of a recent paper states:[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1780478442307{border-left-width: 3px !important;padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-color: #049EB3 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]\u201cRecently there has been a burgeoning literature on leaders who exhibit grandiose narcissism, Machiavellianism, and manifestations of psychopathology. Two important findings are that these \u201cdark-triad\u201d leaders are reasonably common because the traits predict leader emergence, and that the traits are associated with harm for organizations and their members. The juxtaposition of commonality and harm seemingly challenges assumptions about performance-enhancing organizational adaptations and begs the obvious question of why and how psychologically toxic individuals can rise to and remain in powerful positions. I argue that labels applied to leaders implying darkness or dysfunction divert attention in unproductive ways from the benefits of these traits and bias research findings. I present arguments as to why many people readily choose what research suggests are psychologically problematic people to follow. Fixing the many leadership crises besetting modern societies requires more attention to why people rise to positions of power and, more controversially, teaching people to embrace, rather than shun, behaviors and tactics that actually create power and career success. If power is to be used for good, good people need to know and willingly use the tools of power, even if, or possibly particularly if, such tactics are also used by their opposites.\u201d (Jeffrey Pfeffer, 2021)<\/b><\/a><\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]This is the \u2018thinking person\u2019, evidence-based antidote to all those who promote the simplistic message that the Dark Side of personality is dysfunctional and ultimately pathological. The logic, empirical evidence<\/b>, and reasoning in this article is crystal clear.<\/p>\n

The Dark Side attributes used to screen-out candidates are also screening out the very attributes which contribute to successful leadership. It\u2019s a serious paradox caused in part by psychologists and consultants making value judgements about attribute magnitudes in isolation of circumstances, time-perspectives, and the attributes people need to succeed in any competitive business, organizational, institutional, or political environment.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1780478718528{border-left-width: 3px !important;padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-color: #049EB3 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]As Pfeffer concludes:<\/b><\/p>\n

“Most fundamentally, traits that are putatively deviant or maladaptive turn out to be reasonably common among leaders and predictive of career success as assessed along multiple dimensions. Second, because many of the so-called dark triad traits and behaviors either signal or create power \u2013 or both \u2013 and because people are attracted to power and status and want to be close to it for many reasons, it turns out that many individuals will willingly, voluntarily sign up to work for and by lead by \u201cbad\u201d leaders. What seems \u201cbad\u201d or \u201cdark\u201d to some social scientists, therefore, is common, sometimes produces success, and often attracts numerous followers in the organizational and political world … <\/em><\/p>\n

It is far from clear to me that either leadership science or practice has been well-served by dark terminology and value-laden research, both of which have tended to cloud the observation of empirical regularities and to expending enormous effort to find what the values dictate as desirable. As I have previously noted (Pfeffer, 2016), the field of leadership is too much filled with lay preaching. This fact may explain why decades of research has failed to improve leaders, leadership practice, or to remediate leadership shortages. Nor is there much if any evidence that focusing on the dark triad or its constituent elements has caused them to be less prevalent in the world or to attract fewer followers. When a particular approach fails to work for a long time, maybe it is time to change the approach, alter judgments, and reconceptualize labels, research, and teaching.” (p. 548)<\/b><\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

A Question Arises<\/h3>\n

If many are now using a self-report questionnaire to help screen out \u2018undesirable high-scoring Dark Side candidates\u2019 as part of any recruitment-selection process, how can it be that little of any obvious consequence has changed?<\/p>\n

Apart from the subjectivity likely being applied in the use of any such assessment scores, another reason is ATIC \u2013 a candidate\u2019s A<\/b>bility T<\/b>o I<\/b>dentify C<\/b>riteria. As the authors (Kleinman at al, 2011)<\/a> state in the abstract to their article:[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1780478725831{border-left-width: 3px !important;padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-color: #049EB3 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]\u201cPersonnel selection procedures such as assessment centers, structured interviews, and personality inventories are useful predictors of candidates\u2019 job performance. In addition to existing explanations for their criterion-related validity, we suggest that candidates\u2019 ability to identify the criteria used to evaluate their performance during a selection procedure contributes to the criterion-related validity of these procedures. Conceptually, the ability to identify criteria can be framed in the broader literature on peoples\u2019 ability to read situational cues. We draw on both theory and empirical research to outline the potential this ability has to account for selection results and job performance outcomes.\u201d<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]So, perceptive and manipulative leadership candidates can interpret self-report assessment items in the context of the criteria of the job-role (and the organization itself) and produce the kinds of responses that are adjudged \u2018reasonable\u2019 and are likely to pass scrutiny by algorithm or assessor; and when questioned post-assessment, might well invoke some of their other Dark Side attributes to enhance their image of confidence and \u2018leadership potential\u2019.<\/p>\n

We have got this all wrong by focusing on the assessment psychometrics rather than the psychosocial realities of what\u2019s being assessed, even though some authors (Tett & Simonet (2021)<\/a> for example) still keep arguing that this is purely a \u2018psychometrics\u2019 problem.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

So how might we look at this issue afresh?<\/h3>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1780478698515{border-left-width: 3px !important;padding-right: 5px !important;padding-left: 5px !important;border-left-style: solid !important;border-color: #049EB3 !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]Let\u2019s start with Pfeffer\u2019s closing sentence to his article:<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a particular approach fails to work for a long time, maybe it is time to change the approach, alter judgments, and reconceptualize labels, research, and teaching\u201d (p.548)<\/em>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

\n

Therefore, as human resources and organisational development professionals, are we on-target in trying to focus our attention on \u201cwho are the bad guys\u201d or can our lenses be widened?<\/p>\n

It may make more sense to calibrate current psychometric practices in terms of the professional purposes of HR and OD practitioners. We might describe this calibration as:<\/p>\n