As a consultant specializing in helping businesses align great people with strategic initiatives, it always intrigues me when smart business leaders ignore or disdain the use of personality assessments as part of their overall talent management strategies. Usually it is because of ignorance as to the value of such tools. When I run across research in support of these tools, I feel compared to share them.

In his Harvard Business Review blog, Steve Martin identifies his research that led him to identify seven personality traits of effective salespeople. I highly recommend reading this brief blog. If it is not a compelling argument for leaders to utilize proven methodologies such as personality testing to uncover important personality traits and characteristics, I am not sure what might be.

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/the_seven_personality_traits_o.html