Financial Behavior Traits of the World’s Top Executives

We have used our new digital scan technology to uncover the financial behavior traits of every S&P 500 executive. Here’s what we found!

In July of this year, we introduced our latest innovation in behavioral technology: the digital scan. Any contact list can now be instantly enriched with behavioral data to help guide your relationships with employees and clients. Augmenting your CRM with behavioral data, however, is just the beginning!

Our unique focus on behavioral finance has opened the door to an incredible opportunity to change how executive teams are assembled, and investment strategies are designed. DNA Behavior’s technology is the engine behind a brand-new financial ratings platform – Pegasus Ratings. In its inaugural run, the system scanned every S&P 500 CEO and their leadership teams to demonstrate the significant contribution of leadership to the financial value of all public and private companies. The result confirmed what we already know:

Financial behavior is a key indicator of a company’s long-term success!

Leadership Financial Behavioral Traits

The current make-up of a company's key executive teams, led by their CEO, will drive corporate decision-making and, ultimately, the company’s financial value. So, let’s look at the types of financial behavior traits that are a part of that mix. Remember, each person has a unique blend of these traits, so it is unlikely that two people will be the same, given that we measure 64 traits based on eight primary behavioral factors and 24 sub-factors, resulting in over four trillion combinations of styles.

Operational Leadership Capability

Now, let’s examine what we found out about the S&P 500 executives. The data shows that 69% of the key executives are Strategists, Initiators, and Influencers. They all fall in that upper left results-oriented quadrant, with Influencers toeing the line with their relationship strengths. The fact that they share similar leadership traits underlines the importance of having growth and results-oriented leaders at the helm. That does not imply that outstanding leaders cannot have more relational styles, but it does indicate that having strengths on the results side is advantageous. So, that should be considered when balancing out a high-performance team. The graph below shows the full distribution of behavioral styles identified in the S&P 500 executives.

Unique DNA Style Population Distribution for S&P 500 Key Executives

Comparing CEOs With Their Executive Teams

Breaking this data down a bit further, we can compare the behavioral styles of CEOs with non-CEO executives. When you separate the two, an interesting trend appears. Overall, Influencers, Initiators, and Strategists make up 81% of the CEOs and 67% of their key executives. Adapters also make a strong appearance among executives, they’re just not typically CEOs.

Adapters make up 13% of non-CEO executives, making them just as prevalent as Influencers in that group. Adapters are flexible and able to focus on both results and relationships like an Influencer, but they tend to be more conservative when it comes to growth. Considering how important balance is on a team, it makes sense that Adapters are frequently part of the equation, even if not at the very top.

More About the Influencer Style

It was determined that 42% of the CEOs have the Influencer style. Influencers are heavily growth-focused and, with their outgoing (extroverted) nature, will be the more externally charismatic champions of the business. However, from a financial behavior standpoint, they will typically not be as strong on fiscal management as Initiators and Strategists. They will require those financial behaviors to be more strongly demonstrated by their key executives.

Behavior and Profitability

There are even more findings in the Pegasus Ratings Report that confirm the connection between executive team behavior and profitability. In subsequent posts, we will be looking at those results and diving deeper into:

• The importance of balancing behavioral styles: results versus relationships
• How the financial behavior style of the CEO influences the entire organization
• Using behavioral data to guide your investment strategy
• Driving profitability by focusing on the behavioral styles of the executive team
  
  

Got a Project in Mind?

Imagine having instant access to behavioral insights without anyone having to complete an assessment. There are endless possibilities of how behavioral data can be used. Have we sparked an idea for a project that could benefit your organization? Be one of the first to implement digital scans in your business and gain unparalleled insights into your team and leadership composition. Join our digital scan waitlist!

About Pegasus Ratings
The Pegasus Behavioral Ratings System is an AI-driven leadership financial behavior rating platform that uses unbiased measurement to reliably predict which CEOs and leadership teams will likely succeed in this fast-changing world to create financial value.

Pegasus Ratings was established to provide immediate transparency into the key financial behaviors of every global public and private company leadership team before major operational, governance, and investment decisions are made. The inability to reliably measure the financial behavior style of the CEO and leadership team up front has been the critical missing element in organizational design and traditional due diligence processes, preventing leaders, boards, and investors from being fully informed about the potential for businesses to reach their financial objectives.