Nightmare Careers
Selection
From an organizational perspective, trait activation is the most important mechanism in the personnel selection phase. In this phase, organizations provide candidates with situations (e.g., questions in interviews and selection assessments) that activate traits and skills that are deemed relevant by the organization. With respect to the TNT, there is convincing evidence that especially carelessness (i.e., low conscientiousness), but also dishonesty (low honesty-humility) are associated with higher counterproductive behaviors and lower job performance. Although there is no evidence for the negative effects of disagreeableness from personnel selection studies, team studies seem to suggest that one disagreeable team member can have a strong negative effect on team cohesion, which may be exacerbated when the team leader is disagreeable. Apart from the TNT, extraversion has been found to be related to career success and leadership position, in part because of its relation with perceptions of charisma. As argued above, although organizations might like to select on extraversion to recruit potential leaders, especially the combination of extraversion with the TNT may have negative consequences for an organization. Both narcissism (indicative of leader dishonesty and extraversion) and Machiavellianism have been found to be associated with positive career outcomes for the employee him-/herself, such as higher salary (narcissism) and higher leadership position (Machiavellianism), but mostly negative outcomes for the organization. Consequently, doing a thorough background check and making sure that the selection procedure allows the measurable expression of the TNT through (reliable and valid) structured interviews, questionnaires, or assessment tools, seems to be important to select non-TNT leadership candidates and, consequently, to prevent potential toxic organizational consequences.