Misusing Personality Assessments in the Workplace Can Damage Inclusion and Diversity Efforts

I have been using many different types of assessments for several decades with a broad spectrum of global organizations. I have also watched the popularity of personality assessments grow as more firms use these for teambuilding, recruiting, development and other purposes. Well-designed assessments based on rigorous validation can be highly beneficial in helping people, teams, and organizations improve their self-awareness and leadership effectiveness. Unfortunately many employees – from senior executives on down – misuse popular personality instruments. This can increase workplace bias and damage inclusion and diversity efforts.

Two recent articles in the New York Times highlight some important issues in how organizations use personality profile assessments in the workplace. Emma Goldberg, in her September 17 piece entitled “Personality Tests Are the Astrology of the Office” discusses how widespread the use of personality assessments has become. She writes that personality assessments “appeal… because it’s fun to divide people into categories.” Quinisha Jackson-Wright, in her thoughtful August 22nd article entitled “To Promote Inclusivity, Stay Away from Personality Assessments” provides some excellent examples of how assessments are often misused to the detriment of broader inclusion and diversity goals. 

You need an “inclusive mindset” to use assessments responsibly

From my perspective many people do not have a mindset inclusive enough to use personality assessments responsibly. To explain I first need a definition for "inclusive mindset." Milton Bennett’s Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity outlines a six-stage pathway for evolving from an ethnocentric to a multicultural (inclusive) mindset. I have spent over two decades applying an assessment based on this model, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) developed by Dr. Bennett and Dr. Mitch Hammer, to help people develop more inclusive mindsets. It takes years of experience and coaching for individuals to achieve a consistent level of truly inclusive thinking and behaving. People using personality assessments in organizations who are not yet at a development stage of “acceptance” or "adaptation" (to use Dr. Bennett’s and Dr. Hammer's terminology) often will use comparative personality assessments to put colleagues, partners, and others in “boxes." This can lead those in less popular “boxes” to feel excluded.

Many popular assessments have a Western - often an American - bias

The authors of the two articles referenced above highlight issues within an American organizational context. When applied at the global level the potential negative impact on inclusion can be greatly amplified. I believe that many personality assessments are unintentionally biased because most are designed by Westerners, written originally in English and are “normed” within U.S./European populations or within global employee populations who work for Western-based firms. Concepts like “extraversion” and “introversion,” for example, can work differently in the U.S. compared with Brazil, Korea or India.

Most MNCs have corporate cultures that are biased towards their home-market’s social norms. To me this need not be a problem. In fact, having an organizational culture that is distinctly American, Danish, or Japanese (for example) can be positive, respectful and appropriate: many global firms garner market success by proudly incorporating the best aspects of their cultural heritage into their global operations and branding. When this bias, however, is "unconscious" and extends into organization-wide talent management processes and evaluation systems it can become exclusionary and damaging to diversity goals. Ultimately this will hurt business performance because such organizations will be unable to harness the full potential of their global talent pool.

In summary, I strongly believe in the benefit of using scientifically-validated assessments to help people build awareness and understanding of different personality types and cultural norms, but the use of these tools needs proper policy guidance from organizations, responsible advocacy from leaders, and respectful facilitation from qualified coaches and mentors.

[NOTE on one of my own "conscious" biases: I use American spelling, punctuation, and grammar in my postings because most of my contacts speak, read and write American-English. Apologies to my many British-English speaking friends, colleagues, and contacts who may find this distracting!]

To discuss these viewpoints or to explore how to develop an inclusive mindset in individuals, teams, or organizations please email David Everhart directly at [email protected]. David is an experienced executive, keynote speaker, consultant, facilitator, and coach. He has lived on three continents and works to develop respectful, inclusive, effective leaders able to inspire and deliver results across boundaries of all kinds.