This is a really good list. Just yesterday I was chatting with a senior management person about character, and we were discussing a mutual colleague (Let's call him "Joe") who had failed quite spectacularly in the last year. We had three points of view on him - mine as one outside contractor who replaced the individual as an interim CTO, his as CEO of a vendor to the company, and the view of a PE investor who owned a big chunk of the company.
He said the first early warning sign he had that Joe was going to be a problem was when a group were out to dinner, and Joe spent quite a bit of time talking about the school his son was going to. The PE guy is meticulous and of course when he got home he looked it up. After some digging, PE guy found that Joe's son actually went to a less prestigious mid-level college. Why, everyone thought, would Joe go out of his way to lie about his son's school, when no one had even asked about it?
A lot of money and tears later Joe was finally let go for a host of reasons. But it really all came down to character.
He said the first early warning sign he had that Joe was going to be a problem was when a group were out to dinner, and Joe spent quite a bit of time talking about the school his son was going to. The PE guy is meticulous and of course when he got home he looked it up. After some digging, PE guy found that Joe's son actually went to a less prestigious mid-level college. Why, everyone thought, would Joe go out of his way to lie about his son's school, when no one had even asked about it?
A lot of money and tears later Joe was finally let go for a host of reasons. But it really all came down to character.