Recruiting an Organizational ‘Hero’, or ‘Anti-Hero’? —Be Sure You Know Which One You Are Hiring!
You’re impressed with how “individualistic” the candidate seems. He’s independent, self-assertive, forceful, even audacious, a non-conformist, charismatic, unconventional and very idiosyncratic, if not altogether eccentric. This bodes well for out-of-the-box thinking and decisiveness, or so you think.
You also expect he’ll be less of a “yes man” and more of a man’s man—a bold point-man pulling and leading, not trailing the pack, or at least able to accomplish as much as, and maybe more than, a flock of conventional grey-flannel organization sheep, like go-it-alone Rambo rescuing war camp hostages.
But, if you get it wrong, and hire a candidate with an anti-hero mindset and values, you may be letting a Wall Street or Main Street wolf into the hen house.
The problem is that given the broad, modern cultural influence of the anti-hero ideal, it’s gotten harder to distinguish heroes from anti-heroes at a time when there are more and more individuals out there who identify with the anti-hero. This is especially the case in highly individualistic cultures in which
- the fuzzy line between individualism and narcissism is constantly crossed, redrawn, ignored and exploited
- anti-hero means are legitimized by heroic ends—with the latter often serving as a pretext and justification for the former.
- the primary mission is renunciation of any ends, other than renunciation, rejection and outlaw cultural resistance as valued ends in themselves, e.g., nihilism.
Clearly, the ideal of the chivalrous knight-hero has, over the decades, degenerated into the cult of the outlaw, rebel, nihilist, vengeful antagonist, as part of a decline facilitated by Hollywood anti-hero[ine] films, such asThe Wolf of Wall Street, Wall StreetPart I, Natural-Born Killer, Bonnie and Clyde, Rebel Without a Cause and Godfather 2’sMichael Corleone.
All of these have ratcheted up the fascination with and cachet of the American Billy the Kid Wild West anti-hero more notches than could ever be carved into his rifle butt.
Hiring for Movie Roles vs. Hiring for Organizations
Hiring a highly individualistic, independent loner is like casting one in a movie: Do you go for the classic good-guy loner protagonist script or that of the modern anti-hero [not always self-redeeming or endearing] loner antagonist?
The difference between casting/scripting and other hiring is that, in movie-making, the choice of anti-hero is deliberate, not accidental or woefully mistaken.
Spotting the Wolf Street Anti-Hero
Distinguishing the organizational hero from anti-hero is a 2-step process:
1. Identify and contrast the traits and behaviors of hero and anti-hero
2. Screen for them during the hiring process or, failing that, after hiring.
The following table can help with the first task. Note categories that when presented abstractly, e.g., “bends rules”, may be pluses or minuses, depending on the details. Also, note how the details make it clear whether you’re dealing with an anti-hero wolf or not:
HERO | ANTI-HERO |
Bends rules to achieve your organizational objectives, even possibly at his or her own expense | Bends rules to achieve his private objectives, possibly at your expense |
Thinks outside the box,but within your mission | Thinks outside the box and outside or against your mission |
Expresses “out of the box”opinions, proposals and concepts in order to enlighten and help you | Expresses “out of the box”opinions, proposals and concepts in order to shock or control |
Effective: Persuasive | Effective: Manipulative |
Innovatestactics for approved organizational strategies or proposes new strategies | Innovates personal strategies and tactics to further private agenda |
Leadership: Creates strong, positive organizational alliances | Leadership: Grooms pawns and “useful idiots” |
Careful about “collateral damage” | Open to or, worse, Indifferent to |
Means and ends fit: Believes the means must be ethical | Means and ends fit: Believes the ends justify the means |
Prizes cooperation | Prizes resistance |
Transparent | Secretive |
Can accept being told what to do | Objects to being told what to do |
Respected more than feared | Feared as much as or more than respected |
Forced to sacrifice himself or your organization, sacrifices himself | Forced to sacrifice himself or your organization, may sacrifice you [through “moral ambiguity” of character, or worse] |
Vetting in Real Time
So how can you, in real time and not just theoretically, distinguish a hero from an anti-hero job candidate or employee without having to sort sheep from wolves and choose one or the other? After all, it’s one thing to understand the differences between organizational hero and anti-hero, but quite another to detect them.
It’s also one thing to reject an anti-hero and quite another to recruit a hero. Clearly, you want to be able to identify and secure talent for heroic leadership, innovation, independence, adaptability, etc., without throwing that baby out with the anti-hero bathwater in the interview or employee review processes.
Of course, your well-honed professional intuition will count and serve you well, up to a point. In any case, even if you don’t trust your gut, alert it—during the candidate vetting process, or after hiring, if you are the employer.
Here are a few diagnostic tips, allowing that these, in specific instances, can be crude or unreliable gauges and that these should be applied as tools, not as stereotypes:
1. Look for anti-hero icons, e.g., specifically anti-hero mottoes, credos or tattoos, such as “Born to Be Bad”, SS runic lightning, bad-boy pop-icon images, or “James Dean Rules!” Asking what pop-culture icons, or even those personally known, the candidate admires may tease out this kind of information, as asking about favorite movie genres, celebrities and music may.
2. Listen for and to the ratio of positive to critical comments, paying particular attention to whether critical comments offered represent constructive criticism or destructive criticism, and whether solutions are at all identified when one or more problems are.
3. Note whether the interview tone, body language, etc., suggest collegiality or competitiveness, individualism or narcissism. Concretely, these may be manifested by a candidate tendency to make the interview all about himself or herself, to be argumentative, to
4. Watch for signs of “passive aggressiveness”, e.g., comments legitimizing past resistance or inaction on the job.
5. Note any presumptuous behavior or comments suggesting a strong sense of self-entitlement or exemption from “the rules”.
6. Ask yourself whether any of the candidate’s idiosyncrasies in dress, speech, manner, etc., suggest “pro” individuality or “anti” something else.
If you pay attention to the signs and hints, you may avoid the blunder of hiring an “antagonistic individualist” instead of a “protagonist individualist”—i.e., hiring an organizational anti-hero, instead of an organizational hero.
This advice offered, it has to be qualified, to allow at least one exception: It may, on balance, pay off to hire an organizational anti-hero in at least one case.
When you are recruiting for the Hell’s Angels and can control the candidate’s talents.
____________________
Image: William H. Bonney, a.k.a, “Billy the Kid”