# The 'dark side' vs. the Hogan Development Survey

- **Episode:** [14](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/14.md) (2022-11-29)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** hds, dark side, leadership development
- **Time:** 14:47–18:09 (start 887s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/14?t=887](https://truthliesandwork.com/14?t=887)

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[14:47] Sandy McKenzie: I actually tend to call it more the Hogan Development Survey than the dark side, because I think the dark side has connotations of destruction and evil and bad. And in many ways, what the Hogan Development Survey is, is it's actually an indicator of people's strengths. But it's those strengths that at times of significant levels of pressure, frustration, emotional imbalance, which could be anything, it could do as simple as just having a bad night's sleep
[15:21] Leanne Elliott: Yeah
[15:22] Sandy McKenzie: Through to things that are going on in your private life, but the sorts of things that will just create blind spots in somebody's normative sort of psychological state that becomes the derailleur, in essence, to themselves, to their team, to their career, to the organization that they might work with. And it starts with an individual, but it—
[15:48] Al Elliott: Yeah
[15:48] Sandy McKenzie: It travels out and it relates to teams as well, where you end up with unifying HDS scale scores, in essence, which kind of make the problems and the challenges associated with the HDS that much more enormous. And that's when you get cultures forming within businesses that can be poisonous in some cases
[16:11] Al Elliott: So what we're saying here, if I've understood it, is that There is kind of a fine line behind or between the strengths and the weaknesses. And at times of like massive stress or challenge, we've talked about Twitter and Musk, then our biggest assets can suddenly become the traits that are going to derail us and in some extreme circumstances could potentially like destroy us
[16:33] Leanne Elliott: Absolutely. And I think it's why the HDS is such an interesting and powerful tool because it does work to identify these strengths, but also the associated risks ahead of time. And then through follow-up coaching, leaders can build that self-awareness to make sure that they remain strengths, and they remain strengths that enable performance. The dark side is not necessarily bad, and in fact, in some cases, it really could actually provide the competitive advantage that a business needs. So yeah, let's go Let's go back to Sandy and hear some more on that
[17:09] Sandy McKenzie: In our business, we're not looking to rule somebody out because they've got a high-risk score. In some ways, that's a good thing. It's a demonstration that when the chips are down and you need an extra boost of energy and extroversion to kind of move into 5th, 6th, and 7th gear to really change the status quo, you're going to get that from somebody who's scoring as a high risk. So, you know, the best leaders in the world are plastered in high-risk scores. But, you know, what makes them great, what makes them fantastic is their EQ. It's the ability to harness those dark side or development traits as opposed to let them roll out with complete disregard. And, you know, that's probably linked into some of the challenges with Elon Musk, Now, Sandy mentions the term EQ there
[18:02] Al Elliott: I know that it's become a lot more popular and people know what it is, but just in case someone's listening and thinking, I don't know what EQ is, could you maybe define that for some—
[18:09] Sandy McKenzie: for us?
[18:09] Leanne Elliott: Of course. So EQ, um, also known as emotional intelligence, um, so EQ is the ability to perceive, interpret, control, evaluate, use our emotions, um, both in terms of to, to communicate with others but also to relate to others effectively. Some experts actually suggest that emotional intelligence is now more important than IQ for success in work and life, given the VUCA world that we're living in. VUCA, another term for another day, sorry. But what Sandy is basically saying here is that EQ has the potential to moderate these dark side personality traits. Simply, simple case being, if we're better to understand and perceive and interpret the emotions, not only our emotions, but the emotions that trigger these destructive behaviours, then we're going to be more likely to moderate them and then reduce the risk of them impacting us, our performance, and also that of our teams