References:
Schmidt & Hunter (1998): Structured interviews and observed behavior are the strongest predictors of performance.
Goleman (2000): Emotional intelligence and related behavioral patterns explain up to 90% of performance differences at the top-management level.
Hogan & Kaiser (2005): More than 60% of management derailments stem from problematic leadership behavior – not from a lack of expertise.
Kaiser, Hogan & Craig (2008): Sustainable leadership success is directly linked to observable behavior in handling power, conflict, and change.
CEB/Gartner (2019): 62% of HR leaders state that current assessment methods do not accurately predict on-the-job success.
McKinsey (2020): Companies focusing on leadership behavior are 2.4× more likely to financially outperform peers.
Gallup (2020): Managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement.
Fløvik et al. (2020): Empowering leadership prevents psychological strain – a clear indicator of sustainable leadership impact.
Harvard Business Review (2021): Personality assessments explain only 9–15% of leadership performance variance, while behavioral indicators correlate much more strongly with actual outcomes.
SHRM (2021): The cost of replacing an employee equals 50–75% of annual salary (some estimates go up to 200% for senior roles).
Gallup (2022): Employees who feel poorly managed are 2.3× more likely to be actively disengaged.
Frontiers in Psychology (2022): Situational leadership behavior increases satisfaction and performance.
PwC (2022): 55% of CEOs believe that leadership gaps are a major threat to growth.
PMC (2023): Open Communication Increases the Perceived Competence of Leaders.
Deloitte (2023 Human Capital Report): Companies with strong leadership pipelines are 1.8× more likely to be innovation leaders.
DDI Global Leadership Forecast (2023): Poor leadership increases voluntary turnover risk by up to 5×.
New Level Work (2024): ROI from leadership development ranges between $3 and $11 per $1 invested.
Heimann et al. (2025): Structured interviews reliably predict income, effectiveness, and well-being.
Meta-analyses: Structured interviews reach validity coefficients up to 0.44 — far exceeding unstructured formats.
Behavior Description and Situational Interviews: Strong Predictors of Average and Maximum Performance.
Conclusion:
Behavior is measurable — and those who understand behavior can predict success, avoid mis-hires, and create sustainable impact.
The AM Academy Group takes this further: by integrating Socionics — a structural model of information processing and interaction patterns — we can explain why people act the way they do.
This makes it possible to understand both observable behavior and the underlying motivation and decision-making logic.
The combination of behavioral diagnostics and Socionics is unique in the executive advisory market — delivering a higher level of predictive certainty than conventional methods.
Scientific Foundation
Our methodology is grounded in behavioral and decision science.
Research consistently shows that observable behavior — in everyday dynamics and under pressure — is one of the strongest predictors of leadership performance and team stability.
Three pillars of the AM Academy
Our methodology is built on three interconnected pillars that reinforce each other:
1. Behavioral and decision science:
A broad body of research shows that structured behavioral observation offers the highest predictive validity in leadership assessment — outperforming unstructured interviews, self-reports, and personality questionnaires.
2. AMBIT powered by a structural information-processing model:
Socionics provides a deep-structure framework for understanding how individuals process information, interpret situations, form decisions, and interact with others.
We do not use Socionics as a personality typology.
Instead, we use its structural logic to contextualize and explain observable behavioral patterns collected through AMBIT.
3. Practice-based insights:
With over a decade in Executive Search and Leadership Advisory, our insights are not merely conceptual — they are validated through real-world patterns. Leaders who demonstrate consistent, stable behavioral dynamics in assessments perform more reliably in practice and show stronger team impact over time.