What Happened? They Were Such a Promising Hire!
How to avoid hiring a rotten egg
Have you ever learned, after the fact, that you blew it during the hiring process? Maybe you didn’t accurately assess the person’s qualifications or skills, or worse, you missed warning signs of a high-conflict, entitled, and vindictive person who is only out for themselves. These are traits of an employee who can do a lot of damage in an organization. So why would any of us hire this type of person in the first place?
Surprisingly, high-conflict people often make strong first impressions due to their charm, confidence, and charisma. We can easily get swept away in our excitement and make a job offer, as shown in this example:
“I went to a job interview heavily undereducated for the position but dressed like a million bucks and I got the job despite more qualified competitors that applied as well. People were mesmerized and the woman who interviewed me arranged a higher starting salary than normal. Of course my charisma that I’ve worked on for a few years helped as well but the visual surprise is what kicked things in the right direction.”
If you feel admiration for the person who wrote this post, you’re not alone. It received hundreds of likes and validating (I might say enabling) comments. While dressing well and making a strong first impression during a job interview is a good strategy for job seekers, what struck me was the poster’s sense of entitlement and pride in flouting educational requirements.
What also stood out was their need to brag about it rather than expressing humility or gratitude for landing a really great opportunity. Maybe there were valid reasons for making this hire that can’t be inferred from the post, or perhaps the poster exaggerated the details, but I see red flags.
How do we get into these situations?
One reason is that we conflate strong leadership with toxic and abusive leadership. This mistake seems especially common when hiring managers want to turn around an underperforming team or business unit.
Or we might be so dazzled by a candidate’s brilliance that we don’t notice that they push themselves up by pushing others down. We might simply admire them for looking so polished and put together.
Here’s what we can do to ensure that our candidates and employees can back up their style and charm with the substance they need to succeed in the role.
- We should examine our own beliefs about what makes a strong leader. Yes, strong vision, charm, and charisma are helpful traits in a leader. But so are honesty, ethical behavior, a genuine concern for employees, and the ability to admit mistakes and show vulnerability.
- A leader who quashes the voices and spirits of their employees is not a strong leader or a turn-around agent. They are a bully.
- Don’t mistake a group’s chaos and ongoing conflict as necessarily reflecting on team members. High-conflict leaders thrive on creating chaos and then deflecting blame onto others. Get curious about the leader who always has one or more employees in the scapegoat role — this can be a sign that they undermine their employees rather than set them up for success.
- Similarly, don’t assume that an individual’s mental health crisis absolves the high-conflict leader of blame. High-conflict leaders may verbally abuse and harass employees until the targeted employee experiences a mental health crisis. Sadly, organizations too often use these symptoms of abuse to discredit the victim, which allows the perpetrator to continue unchecked.
- On the other side of the coin, don’t eliminate psychologically safe environments where employees can safely fail in pursuit of accountability. Healthy employees use failure to learn and grow, while high-conflict leaders use second chances to take advantage of the people and systems around them. Learn to recognize the differences between these two patterns.
- Lastly, our employees are not our enemies. Yes, there are bad employees, and they can cause a lot of damage. But assuming that employees are our enemies is an effective way to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. High-performing leaders understand that their employees are their biggest boosters, brand ambassadors, and assets. They focus on bringing out the best in their employees by investing in their training and development.
How can we avoid hiring toxic employees?
If you’re currently hiring, take the time to identify valuable skills and best practices for assessing candidates, and then follow them. Here are a few top tips:
- Don’t mistake charm for competence.
- Develop competency-based hiring criteria before interviewing candidates, and then stick to them.
- Use behavior-based questions during interviews to better understand a candidate’s skillsets and competencies. Include questions to assess the candidate’s relational skills.
- Check references, and ask about both job competencies and relational skills. Listen for omissions or deflections that indicate the reference is not comfortable sharing relevant information.
- Verify employment dates, degrees conferred, and other relevant information.
The stakes are high when hiring, but by learning how we make mistakes, we can avoid these pitfalls and instead build strong hiring practices that will set us, our teams, and our employees up for long-term success.
Kai Stowers is a consultant, Professional Certified Coach (PCC), and has a master’s degree in Organizational Psychology and Change Leadership from Columbia University. He partners with organizations to help leaders build high-performing, engaged, and inclusive teams. Learn more at kaistowers.com.
Follow The Orange Journal so you don’t miss a post. Do you love to write about self-improvement and personal development? Learn how to be added as a writer here. 🍊
