Angela Duckworth's research on grit has shown that the combination of passion and perseverance matter as much as talent and intelligence in employee success. Grit can be seen as a capacity for handling life complexity, and it has emerged as critical predictors for success in hiring.

Arlan Hamilton, founder of VC firm Backstage Capital, pattern-matches for grit. According to Hamilton, these candidates accept feedback more readily, work harder, and bounce back from setbacks faster than many of the entrepreneurs she encounters from more typical backgrounds. (Source)

Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset has established that people who embrace the idea that they can learn and develop by persevering through challenges actually do so at a greater frequency than those with a fixed mindset. Employees who possess this resilience and capacity for lifelong learning create a competitive advantage for companies who prioritize hiring for it.

“At Microsoft, we're aspiring to have a living, learning culture with a growth mindset that allows us to learn from ourselves and our customers.” — Satya Nadella (Source)

Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft and points to growth mindset being a key factor in their unprecedented corporate culture turnaround since his taking over in 2014.

Often called "emotional intelligence" or EQ, this kind of awareness allows people to better navigate interpersonal situations in the workplace. It means being self-aware while also being good at reading others. Employees with high EQ are simultaneously self-motivated and adept at working in teams.

“What predicted a leader's success far better than tech skills or test scores was simply making a human connection with followers, being interested in their lives and careers and being accessible to them.”
— Laszlo Bock, SVP of People Operations at Google (Source)

Over the last few decades, hundreds of studies in the field of post-traumatic growth and stress-related growth have demonstrated a clear relationship between our human struggles and the development of key attributes such as integrity and purpose. Strikingly, the people who report the most growth are not those who are resistant to the effects of trauma, but rather those who initially experience some degree of post-traumatic stress. (Joseph, Page 85)

“Amplify your failures rather than sweep them under the carpet,” says Egon Zehnder CEO Rajeev Vasudeva. “Today if you’re not failing, it’s unlikely you’re going to be very successful.” (Source)

Egon Zehnder is the largest privately held executive search firm in world where they work with leaders in every major market.

In the bestselling business book of all time Jim Collins defines Level 5 Leadership—the counterintuitive combination of ambition and humility—as the differentiating attribute possessed by the CEO's who took their companies from good to great. Tellingly, many of them had also had a pivotal life experience that they identified as catalyzing their personal transition from merely good to great. Level 5 Leadership has many similarities with authentic leadership & servant-leadership.

“Above all else, good leaders are open. They go up, down, and around their organization to reach people. They don’t stick to the established channels. They’re informal. They’re straight with people. They make a religion out of being accessible.” —Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (Source)