Can You Improve Your Personality? Yes, and...

I am often asked about the nature of personality. What is it? Am I stuck with it? Can I change it if I want to? By association, can leaders and managers make improvements in their personalities? That is, can a terrible boss become a wonderful boss? Well, that might be asking for too much unless the boss has an epiphany…and…there is some wiggle room for improvement.

I like Manfred Kets de Vries take on personality in his book, The Leader on the Couch:

Personality is the same as character, the sum of deeply engrained patterns of behavior. It’s the stamp impressed on us by nature and nurture, a composite of habits we choose and develop and that gradually drive us. It is central to the way we perceive and present ourselves. Personality (character) shapes ideals, values, beliefs, patterns of information-processing, moral compass and leadership style.

Whew! Rather all-encompassing. This is going to take some work to change.

De Vries is quite optimistic in this regard. You can de-script the unhelpful parts of your “inner theatre”. You can change your perceptions and habits from both your genetic inheritance and early experiences. You can liberate yourself somewhat from the confines of your “programmed” personality, if you wish to.

Twin studies confirm de Vries research. You can seize the opportunity for personal growth because personality has a large “nurture” component. Although how smart you are is significantly determined by the genes from your parents, personality is only about 45% heritable, according to Robert Plomin, Professor of Behavioural Genetics at King’s College, London. You can become smarter in your relationships, beliefs, how you assess information, your ethics and your habits overall. In short, you tweak your personality in good ways.

You can become more conscious. That’s the really good news. Just takes some work at thinking about your thinking and then practicing new habits until they stick.

Be Interested. Works Wonders

A long time ago I took a pile of personal growth courses. Most of what I learned is a blur to this day but a few ideas stuck. One of them is to be interested rather than interesting. Now many moons later, the phrase keeps cropping up in various articles, books and videos as one antidote to the dangers of narcissism, rugged individualism, self-delusion and poor decision-making.


In the context of leadership, it’s a no-brainer. Bill Taylor in a June 6, 2011 Harvard Business Review blog quoting Randy Nelson, former dean of Pixar University, puts it this way:

It’s no trick for talented people to be interesting. But, it’s a gift to be interested – interested in big problems, interested in the talents and struggles of your colleagues, interested in the enduring mission of an enterprise and in new ways of bringing that mission to life.

But how many bosses and team-mates are this way? It takes a lot of work to get outside of our own concerns and achievements to focus on another.

If you manage to be interested it’s a sign of respect for the value of another human being. Respect is something we all want. I hear this over and over again from people at the front line and up no matter what the business of an organization. When I ask people what they mean by “respect”, they invariably describe it as others listening to them, helping them with their problems and showing they care in some way.

Maybe “caring” is the message of “being interested”. It affirms us. It levels the playing field across titles and roles. It says: “You count”. Powerful.

While Rory McIlroy Had "Stack Attack", I Washed Floors

The father of the 2011 Masters winner Charl Schwartzel usually takes a pill and goes to sleep instead of watching his son battle it out in the last round of a tournament. “Wake me up when it’s over” he tells his wife who has no problem with the uncertainty and the tension. I can identify with the father. I felt so badly for 21 year-old McIlroy at the tenth hole and thereafter that I had to channel my emotions elsewhere (washing floors).


After a brilliant three rounds and being atop the leaderboard each day, to topple to a final round 80 to a tie for 15th is excruciating. Young McIlroy must have felt the weight of Northern Ireland on his shoulders when the wheels started to fall off.

Sports psychologists understand the phenomenon and how to treat it. The unpredictable event (which most athletes fear) triggers a chain of events because the athlete gets distracted with negative thoughts. That, in turn, causes loss of confidence, shallow breathing, emotional anxiety and a tightening of all the muscles. Not ideal for a fluid golf swing. The good news is that the “yips”, “meltdown” or “paralysis” can be prevented at best and managed before a “death spiral” ensues. No doubt, Rory will become a keen learner of avoiding this scary phenomenon and will be better for it.

But, this can happen to anyone in the workplace too when the pressure is on to perform and the situation is not totally controllable. That is, it depends on many variables and sound decision-making along the way.

What are some of the tips for working through situations when you are thrown a curve?

1. Prepare for each inevitability. Have a game plan;

2. Practice deep breathing and meditate daily (even for 10 minutes a day) as they develop frontal lobe resilience in the face of adversity;

3. Turn a negative thought about the situation into “what is the silver lining here?” thought. Optimism generates mindfulness (and clarity about the next action) whereas pessimism causes mindlessness (and confusion).

4. Use the time gaps in-between having to perform to stay in the present and not dwell on what just happened. For example, if we simply tune into our surroundings (sights, smells, sounds), we automatically remain in the present. Better still to view nature as it calms all of us down.

Positive psychology researchers have a mantra: emotions drive thoughts and thoughts drive motion. What we can control is our thoughts: what we think when an event is not to our liking occurs. It takes practice but eventually becomes ingrained (to change our thoughts into more positive and productive ideas).

Neuroscientists also have a mantra: What we pay attention to grows (more connections in our brains) with the corollary that our brains know how to start something (a new neural network), not stop (untangle a dense network). That means, we can change the automatic pathways in our brains (eventually) in reaction to challenges: when we work on starting something new (or improving a thought process), the new grows and the old wastes away.

Ironically, the military understands this as men and women subjected to their boot camps and who make it through the various stages typically become “mentally tougher”. I’ve been reading about the Green Berets’ training in Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces by Linda Robinson. The grueling conditions under which men and women are subjected and the practice for any imagined possibility builds confidence and adaptability.

In ordinary life, anything that makes us stretch has a similar effect: marathons, tri-athlons, iron mans, meditation, yoga, goal-setting, journaling, learning a new language, etc.

“Educating our emotions” is a life-long process. Rory found that out the hard way, very publically at the 75th Masters tournament. He has the money and the maturity to obtain good coaching and practice new ways. But, money is not needed to toughen a mind nor is it necessary to join the military or run marathons. The basis requirement is the resolve to do so and the belief that it works.

The Upside to Tiger's Legacy

Good judgment comes from experience.

Experience comes from bad judgment.

---Oscar Wilde

The rich and powerful have an extra burden to bear: resisting the temptations that easily come their way and in so doing demonstrating to others strength of character. If fame comes early in life, such as in the case of Tiger Woods, the test of character is even more difficult. It’s easy to get “messed up” if the normal process of growing up is interrupted. If parents and significant others around a young person get caught up in the “not normal” environment, checks and balances becomes endangered species. The same applies in an organization. If a boss’s “bad” behaviour is allowed to run amok wreaking emotional havoc among employees, “good” character takes a back seat to “anything goes”. The collateral damage is considerable.

In the early days of my career in the health field debate raged about who was responsible for personal health. The individual? The system? A combination? Stop “blaming the victim” loomed large among the proponents that it’s the system that does it. Other more hard-nosed pundits and researchers said flat out that when push comes to shove the individual is responsible. In the end, the consensus is that both matter. Which is more important depends on the situation.

With Tiger, something went awry in the development of his value-system. He joined a burgeoning group of sports celebrities, politicians and CEOs who have lost their way and been found out. The system of support that Tiger had, whatever it was, was insufficient to help him self-correct.

The upside to Tiger’s downfall is the lesson for the younger generation of golfers. Although his ex-wife Elin Nordegren professes to have been totally unaware of his infidelities, you can bet that within the golf community the guys knew but kept their counsel. That the most famous athlete in the world who happens to be a pro golfer can be caught and fall from grace leaves a strong message for all up and coming young pro golfers and athletes in general: watch your values and habits. They could come back to haunt you.

Thoughts and habits do define one’s character. We all have a choice and it helps to have a few stern friends along the way.

A Prodigy's Mid-Life Crisis: The Tiger Effect Re-Visited

Imagine growing up as a child prodigy where everyone “Oohs and awes” around you? Then, unlike many child prodigies, you grow up and become one as an adult. Through your eyes you look out into the world and what do you see? Lesser mortals? Fawning adults? Beautiful women falling all over you? Fearful competitors? The next mountain to climb? I can do it better?

Whatever you see, that’s what you believe whether it’s true or not. Then, you shape and conduct your life accordingly. While “can-do” optimism in principle is good, it can be downright dangerous if you have not walked over hot coals like most mere mortals along the way. With the ability to recognize red flags underdeveloped and a big well of confidence over-riding danger zones, you risk falling into traps.

And into a trap Tiger Woods fell. Somewhere along the line, Tiger made certain decisions that have come back to haunt him. He has no roadmap for dealing with significant personal failure. Failure has never been an option as he has until his fateful middle of the night car accident controlled the avoidance of it superbly. But, this time, with his father who was his guidepost gone, Tiger lost his bearings. Opportunity to repair the damage lurks but it’s going to be Tiger’s most difficult “tournament”.

We have seen this often in business: Martha Stewart, Conrad Black, the Enron, Eatons and Nortel folks, the 2008 financial melt-down and so on. Adult-onset prodigy development can be more dangerous than in childhood. Especially if wealth and power are added to the mix.

We mere mortals are subject to this too. Our judgment can become skewed if we are not on the alert to challenge our assumptions, debate and discuss them with others and send out some trial balloons. That’s the value of real team work in this all too complex society in which we live.

Much has been written about the challenge of good judgment and strategic decision-making of late. For example, Michael Roberto in Why Great Leaders Don’t Take Yes for an Answer asserts that “differences in mental horsepower seldom distinguish success from failure” in smart decision-making amidst complexity. Adding to the “why” of this conundrum, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton in Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense conclude that managers routinely ignore or reject solid evidence” that “damage careers and companies over and over again”. Our brains, that is, our minds, are both friends and foes.

Where was Tiger’s team? Who challenged his judgment? Some likely did. It appears from the current fall-out that Tiger paid little heed. Child prodigies are according to the literature “extreme specialists” who are finely attuned to a particular field of knowledge and who demonstrate “effortless mastery”. The caveat is that such mastery is not demonstrated “across the board”. Aye, here’s the rub for Tiger. What a shock for him and his entire ecosystem.

This is a character challenge for Tiger and for those who support him. Character, according to Manfred Kets de Vries in The Leader on the Couch, is the “sum of deeply ingrained patterns of behaviour that define an individual” from the Greek word meaning “engraving”. How will Tiger re-engrave all that goes into shaping his behaviour? What behaviours (driven by values) will his supporters from the “Tiger they knew before the downfall” use to either help Tiger or set him loose to fend for himself?

The way ahead like so much of life these days is not clear. In the months ahead, we will either be inspired or dismayed by Tiger’s and others’ actions.

As the Accenture ad featuring Tiger intoned, “It’s what you do next that counts”.