BSG From the Boardroom

This write-up was prepared by the Talent Sequencing team to highlight key insights from Hogan Assessments’ latest thinking on executive values alignment. If you’re seeking practical ways to maximize leadership success, the analysis below is essential reading. Visit Talent Sequencing for the original post and additional slides.

In today’s intensely competitive business landscape, hiring a new executive isn’t just about securing a proven leader—it’s about ensuring there’s a values-driven alignment between the person and the organization. Hogan Assessments, long recognized for their expertise in executive assessment and leadership coaching, recently dedicated an episode of their “Science of Personality” podcast to this very issue—penning what might be the most essential guide yet for private equity investors, boards, executive search partners, and human capital professionals.

Why “Fit” Isn’t Enough: The Culture-Values Connection

Traditional hiring processes tend to prize experience and skills. Yet, as Hogan’s Dr. Ryan Sherman stresses, success in one context doesn’t guarantee success in another:

“The more important question to ask is not ‘Has this person been successful in their prior company?’ but ‘Will this person successfully lead here?’”
—Dr. Ryan Sherman, Science of Personality Podcast, Episode 128

The pitfall of focusing solely on “fit”—a term that’s frequently invoked, but rarely defined with rigor—is that it tends to mask subjective judgments or gut instincts. Dr. Sherman observes that organizations often confuse personal comfort with values alignment, risking unconscious bias in the process:

“Fit is often used as a word to cover up personal biases...personal biases can be on grounds like race or gender, but other times personal biases can be on all kinds of other things that don’t really have any impact on the organization of a business, but they have a way of creeping in.”
—Science of Personality Podcast, Episode 128

The Rise of Objective Measurement: Hogan’s Values Assessment

Rather than relying on intuition, the best practice is to objectively assess and compare values—both of candidates and organizations. Hogan’s Motives, Values & Preferences Inventory (MVPI), launched in 1996 and continually refined, enables this. Dr. Sherman notes that values are the “key drivers” in our professional and personal lives, frequently operating on a subconscious level:

“One way to think about values is that these really motivate us in ways that we often aren’t even aware...We just think this is something I must do...but not everybody shares the same values, even though they feel to us like everybody must.”
—Science of Personality Podcast, Episode 128

Examples in Contrast: How Values Shape Organizations

The podcast provides a compelling, anonymized example of two very different apparel companies, underscoring how CEOs’ values steer not just culture but strategic focus:

• Company One: CEO scores high on Commerce and Altruism, but low on Power, Tradition, and Hedonism. This leader prioritizes functional, commercially successful products—think basics, efficiency, and accountability.
• Company Two: CEO scores high on Aesthetics, Power, and Affiliation, with much lower Commerce focus. This leader is driven by beauty, luxury, and relationships—mirroring brands that emphasize appeal and status over broad functionality or cost.

As Dr. Sherman explains, both companies achieve success, but through dramatically distinct values-based approaches:

“Just to give you some heads or some hint on this...company number one makes very basic kinds of apparel...[whereas] company number two is much more luxury oriented...They’re focused on how can we make things as luxurious, as beautiful, as appealing as possible and letting the money come in as it does.”
—Science of Personality Podcast, Episode 128

Industry Patterns: Dominant Values Across Sectors

Research consistently reveals how entire industries cluster around shared core values. Here’s a snapshot of key industries and the values that dominate executive mindsets:

“If you are interested in status and money and wealth and business, you’re going to be attracted to banking and finance; and banking and finance...are gonna find you to be an attractive candidate as well.”
—Science of Personality Podcast, Episode 128

Red Flags: The Cost of Misaligned Values (“Organ Rejection”)

Failure to align on core values can lead to what Hogan terms “organ rejection”—where the organization can’t assimilate the new leader, jeopardizing both culture and performance:

“Organ rejection happens when a leader’s values diverge too much from core organizational values...I look for core nonnegotiable values, and if there’s a difference on that, that’s gonna be a red flag for me.”
—Science of Personality Podcast, Episode 128

The lesson: Too dramatic a shift—hiring someone whose values are fundamentally at odds with the organization's—can derail even the most talented executive.

Sticky Values, Shifting Behaviors

While behaviors are coachable, Dr. Sherman cautions that values are far more ingrained and “sticky.” Attempts to coach someone out of a fundamental value misfit are usually futile; those individuals are more likely to exit than adapt.

Practical Guidance for Boards and Search Committees

• Codify Core Values: Identify the values critical to your culture and success—the nonnegotiables.
• Use Scientifically Valid Assessment: Leverage tools like Hogan’s MVPI to empirically compare candidate and organizational values.
• Anchor Selection on Values Alignment: Move the hiring conversation from “fit” as a heuristic to “values overlap” as a measurable criterion.
• Be Wary of Bias: Avoid letting intuition override objective data, especially late in the process.

Conclusion: Leadership Success Is About Shared Values

Leadership transitions represent inflection points in an organization’s trajectory. Ensuring shared values between a new executive and the team they’ll lead is not just a theoretical ideal—it’s an operational necessity.

For deeper insights and lively discussion, listen to the full episode of “Values & Fit, the Culture Equation” on the Science of Personality podcast, featuring Dr. Ryan Sherman.

Note: Quotes and perspectives throughout are drawn directly from the Science of Personality Podcast, Episode 128.

For the entire podcast, visit: https://www.thescienceofpersonality.com/