Theories in Action

Leader Competence Creating Idiosyncrasy Credit

After finishing another week at Porter Isaac, I have found my supervisor – Founder and CEO – Derick to have reached so much success through building idiosyncrasy credit during his 20 years in the staffing and recruiting industry.

Hollander taught us about idiosyncrasy credit, the credit to deviate from the normal. This is seen through unique or somewhat unusual actions that are accepted by others because of the individuals credit. This idiosyncrasy credit is built through competence and conformity.

Prior to starting Porter Isaac, Derick worked for various staffing firms and had to conform to his company’s norms and industry expectations and demonstrate competence in the field. He was able to place many candidates and developed a good reputation for identifying talent.

Through his experiences at other firms, he discovered that he wanted to go out on his own and open his own business. He wanted to be different and provide a safe space for everyone while still identifying only the best talent. He was able to continue success on his own simply based on his idiosyncrasy credit built throughout the years. He operates a little differently from the norm and I think his processes are unique and specialized, which is accepted by his peers because of his prior experience. I feel his competence is extremely strong and now he has created the norms for the company, so he no longer requires conformity.

Working remotely has made it challenging to build my own idiosyncrasy credit but I have continued to focus on the two aspects, conformity and competence. Although all my work is done through the screen, I am still able to contribute my best work and demonstrate my abilities. This week we focused greatly on sourcing candidates through LinkedIn Recruiter and I identified many qualities candidates that Derick thought were worthy of reaching out to. He noted I have a knack for identifying talent. Through this week I feel I have taken great strides in building some idiosyncrasy credit. On the other hand, conformity has been hard to demonstrate while working remotely because I lack the in person company culture but I feel I have been able to get a fairly good grasp for the norms and expectations are for my role. Additionally, I try to follow Derick’s lead within our conversations and conform to him.