Being A Warm Person

Popularity vs competence? From Forbes:

What effect do warmth and competence have on your career? Historically, being considered a warm person hasn’t been an attribute that senior leaders strove to develop. More emphasis was placed on being competent. Books and articles published in past decades that have described effective management have emphasized the importance of business acumen, technical knowledge, being results driven, taking initiative, and strategic thinking. However, competence alone is career limiting.

In a previous article, I shared Zenger Folkman’s research on how these two competencies effect women and senior leadership. In this article, I will share our research on how warmth and competence influence high potential ratings and employee engagement. Our data for this analysis comes from 360-degree assessments with feedback from managers, peers, direct reports, and others with whom the person has had extensive contact. We utilized a global database of over 70,000 leaders and performed a factor analysis that forced the data into two factors. (Read more.)