ABSTRACT

Aimed at senior HRM and L&D specialists responsible for improving their organisation’s managerial talent, Improving Managerial Talent covers the core findings of the author’s and other published research. It provides a highly participative overview of personality and ability psychometrics, involving the opportunity for self-application. It reveals hard evidence of the extent to which such tests can add value to the prediction of managerial success and their link to requisite competencies. It shows how qualified testers, HR and line managers can each make a unique contribution to the selection process. The book goes on to show how management style is a product of personality and habit and how the acquisition and use of a complementary style can improve persuasiveness and the cultivation of interpersonal skill both for the manager and for those whom the manager might need to coach. It regards job-challenge as the primary engine of managerial growth, both for development in key result areas and for underlying personal competencies.

The book provides the reader with some self-insights and an appreciation of validated, powerful, often in-house, methods for selecting and developing better managers. The methods on offer have been validated on a population of over 400 directors of small to medium-sized business units. They include a generic psychometric algorithm for the selection of managers, some unique findings on styles of managing, coaching and persuading based upon close observation of over 200 senior managers and a distinctive and powerful approach to developing interpersonal skills by (1) practice, (2) demonstration of alternatives and (3) reflection.

chapter |3 pages

Introduction

part I|75 pages

Recognising and selecting managerial talent

chapter 2|3 pages

What type of evidence will be considered?

chapter 3|3 pages

Mental abilities and personality traits

chapter 4|3 pages

General mental ability

chapter 5|4 pages

Extraversion

chapter 6|4 pages

Agreeableness

chapter 8|4 pages

Conscientiousness

chapter 12|4 pages

Openness

chapter 16|4 pages

Leadership and personality

chapter 17|5 pages

Is personality stable or ‘plastic’?

chapter 18|3 pages

Moving on to personal competencies

chapter 20|4 pages

Drawing the threads together

chapter 21|3 pages

Performance in key result areas

part II|8 pages

Behaviours and styles

chapter 22|4 pages

Management behaviours

chapter 23|2 pages

Behavioural styles

part III|33 pages

Developing managerial talent

chapter 24|3 pages

Developing managerial talent

chapter 25|4 pages

Coaching around competencies

chapter 26|5 pages

Coaching for interpersonal competencies

Briefing

chapter 27|3 pages

Coaching for interpersonal competencies

Reviewing

chapter 28|4 pages

Developing line manager coaching skills

chapter 30|3 pages

Quick coaching

chapter 32|3 pages

The ‘win-win’ perspective

part IV|9 pages

Improving managerial talent