Canadian leaders miss what workers want

Hogan Assessments’ new global research says there is a widening gap between the leaders’ organizations promote and the qualities employees actually value, and that matters because leadership style shapes everything from workplace trust to public-facing performance. In Canada, employees say they want diplomatic communication, strategic thinking, and drive, while the behaviours they see as most damaging include emotional volatility, arrogance, passive aggression, and extreme caution.

The report says Canadian employees place particular importance on diplomatic, tactful, and sensitive communication, along with strategic thinking and curiosity, and drive, energy, and goal orientation. It also says Canadians value high-quality products and strong brand image, data-driven decision-making, teamwork, belonging, and enjoyable work environments. Across global markets, respondents identified emotional volatility, passive aggression, arrogance, entitlement, and extreme caution as behaviors that weaken leadership effectiveness.

Photo Courtesy of Abra Prudence | Graphic designer

What the research is showing is that many organizations still reward people for appearing leadership-ready rather than for actually leading well. That is an important distinction, because visibility, charisma, and forceful self-presentation can look like strength even when they erode trust behind the scenes. The report also suggests that Canadian leadership culture tends to emphasize authority, autonomy, and impact more than the relational qualities employees say matter most.

What remains unclear is how broadly these patterns apply across sectors, seniority levels, and industries, especially in public institutions and community-serving organizations. The report gives strong directional findings, but it does not, in the excerpt provided, show how Afro- and Indo-Caribbean workers specifically experience these leadership gaps in Canadian workplaces. That matters, because communities that face racism, accent bias, and unequal access to advancement often feel these disconnects first and most sharply.

Yes, this is a familiar problem, even if the language changes from one report to the next. Organizations have long promoted people for confidence, polish, and command, then discovered that those traits do not automatically produce fairness, clarity, or accountability. In workplaces shaped by hierarchy, that gap can become a pattern: the loudest, or most self-assured people rise fastest, while the most trustworthy or thoughtful leaders are overlooked.

For Afro- and Indo-Caribbean workers, this is a power issue. When leadership pipelines reward charisma over judgment, people who communicate differently, lead collaboratively, or refuse performative dominance can be pushed aside even when they are the ones best equipped to build healthy teams. That affects who gets hired, who gets promoted, whose ideas are heard, and whose communities benefit from opportunity.

It also connects to the wider civic world. The same leadership habits that weaken trust in workplaces can show up in school boards, nonprofits, hospitals, transit agencies, and government offices, where residents already carry the cost of decisions made without accountability. If leaders are selected for image instead of integrity, the public pays the price in confusion, burnout, poor service, and distrust.

Photos Courtesy of Cheri Cobb | Patient Acquisition & Lead Management

The power dynamic here is simple but uncomfortable: institutions often say they want effectiveness, but they frequently reward confidence theater. That is why the report’s finding matters so much; it exposes a mismatch between what climbs and what works. The people closest to harm are rarely the people making the promotion decisions, which is why these gaps survive for so long.

Organizations should stop treating visibility as a proxy for readiness. They should build promotion systems that value feedback, follow-through, emotional steadiness, and strategic judgment as much as confidence and presence. For workers, especially in racialized communities, that shift could mean a fairer shot at advancement and a healthier workplace culture.