Be tough and outgoing to reach the top

Investment banking is not a caring profession. Bankers have a reputation for being over-confident, tough-minded and sometimes insensitive. Research into the personalities of people in the industry suggests there is some truth in these stereotypes.

Penna Consulting, a human resources group, looked at the personality traits of top performers in UK investment banks and compared them with their more average peers in the same company.

Initial findings indicate that successful investment bankers are significantly more brash, energetic and detail-conscious than the rest. They are also less empathetic, open-minded and adaptable.

Maureen Holland, a principal consultant at Penna, was not surprised by the results. She said: "People are more confident because they are often exposed to senior management at a young age. Investment banks have a relatively non-hierarchical structure." This allows more dynamic types to get ahead fast.

Successful City of London staff are less open-minded because they are more focused, said Holland: "It's a question of being highly goal-oriented and not taking every new idea on board."

Penna's research was based on interviews in the past few months with about 100 staff at managing director level, across various sectors at organisations including Morgan Stanley, UBS, NM Rothschild, Goldman Sachs and Hermes Asset Management. All were asked questions such as: "What does it take to be successful in the City?"

Results were combined to derive norms for the make-up of high-performing personalities across financial services companies.

Penna is not the only company to have scrutinised the character of successful bankers. Hogan Assessment Systems, a US provider of personality measurement tools, SHL, a talent management group, and Robertson Cooper, a firm of business psychologists, have done surveys.

Rodney Warrenfeltz, managing partner at Hogan Assessment, said successful mergers and acquisitions (M&A) bankers tend to be unusual personalities who combine sociability with attention to detail and high analytical ability. He said the mix is an unusual one, ensuring that the pool of people from which top M&A bankers can be drawn is small.

Phil Roberts, a consultant at SHL, said its research, based on psychometric interviews with hundreds of investment bank employees, revealed high performers in the industry tend to be outgoing, independent, socially confident, and comfortable working with data. They are also tough-minded, said Roberts: "Banks do not want people who are too benevolent and concerned about other people's feelings."

Jill Flint-Taylor, managing consultant at Robertson Cooper, said its research led it to similar conclusions. Successful employees in investment banks tended to be relatively disagreeable. They were not swayed by the need to keep other people happy and are tough negotiators.

Flint-Taylor said Robertson Cooper interviewed hundreds of employees at client banks to form profiles of personality characteristics most likely to succeed in areas such as trading, sales, relationship management, product structuring and fund management.

Specific results are confidential. However, Flint-Taylor said successful individuals working in any area of an investment bank tend to have one factor in common: their confidence in the company of others and the ability to influence them. This in turn implied a high degree of emotional stability.

"Investment banking is a very challenging environment. Internal and external clients can be very demanding. To be successful you need to be socially confident, not very easily discouraged and able to quickly establish your own credibility."

However, banking is not only about determination and toughness. Penna's research revealed that high-performing bankers are good listeners and interested in the welfare of their team - if only to ensure high performance, rather than because they are caring.

In this sense they have a higher degree of interpersonal sensitivity and are more people-oriented than average performers, Penna found. They listen attentively and take the trouble to check they have understood. On the other hand, they are less interested in developing teamwork and in training.

Penna's research forms part of its Top Talent Audit, which is designed to help organisations identify their top people. As part of the audit, staff take psychometric tests to assess their personality, working style and competence at various tasks. If the results are similar to those of top performers in the industry, the implication is that they are likely to succeed.

However, Holland said being endowed with a favourable personality is no guarantee of success. "It is an indicator of potential. Success comes when that potential is placed into the right environment. It is nature and nurture."

Not all investment banks have warmed to the idea of personality testing. David Leech, head of human resources at Investec, said he avoids using personality tests for fear of stifling variety. "We are anxious not to stereotype or characterise people by putting them into different personality labels."

Companies involved in personality profiling stress that this need not be the case. Flint-Taylor said: "If you go for a perfect profile there is a risk that you will recruit too many of the same kind of person. Instead, you need to recruit a mix of different people with complementary traits."

To be successful, banks may therefore need to hire a few benevolent and sensitive people to keep the boisterous majority in check.