Active Coping

  Career Development   Leadership   New Practitioners   ProjectsAtWork  

The most successful leaders share a quality in common — they adapt creatively to challenges and change, says clinical psychologist Leslie Pratch, author of a new book on how to use personality assessment to predict leadership performance. Here, she explains what active coping is, and why it’s important.

Clinical psychologist Leslie Pratch has carved out a unique niche in the business world: she has evaluated hundreds of candidates for CEO and other top management positions for companies across the United States such as GE, McDonald’s and Merrill Lynch. She strives to predict who will succeed in these leadership roles, and who will not. In the past ten years her predictions have been valid 98% of the time. And there is one key quality the most successful leaders have in common.

In Looks Good On Paper? Using In-Depth Personality Assessment to Predict Leadership Performance(Columbia University Press; 2014),Pratch writes about the importance of “active coping” in anyone who leads and is responsible for others. Active coping is the ability to be ready and able to adapt creatively and effectively to challenges and change. Active copers continually strive to achieve personal aims and overcome difficulties, rather than passively retreat from — or become overwhelmed by — frustration.

Here, Pratch elaborates on why active copers make the best leaders, the fundamental elements…

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