What Kind of Rebel Are You?

This blog is adapted and reprinted with permission from the original.

I have spent more than a decade studying rebels at organizations around the world, from high-end boutiques in Italy’s fashion capital, to the world’s best restaurant, to a thriving fast-food chain, to an award-winning computer animation studio. In my research, I found masters of innovation and reinvention, people who break the rules in ways that are constructive and productive. By taking this assessment, you’ll learn which type of rebel, out of four possibilities, you tend to be. You’ll receive a short explanation of your type and a few tips on how you can further deploy and develop your talents.

Call to mind the thoughts and feelings you typically have regarding your job or in your personal life. You will be asked to consider 30 pairs of statements. For each pair, choose whether “A” or “B” is most characteristic of your behavior.

My book, Rebel Talent: Why It Pays to Break the Rules at Work and in Life, explains that while every rebel is unique, all rebels tend to share the same five core strengths: novelty, curiosity, perspective, diversity, and authenticity. It also outlines eight principles of rebel leadership:

1. Seek out the new.  
2. Encourage constructive dissent
3. Open conversations; don’t close them.
4. Reveal yourself—and reflect on your weaknesses.
5. Learn everything—then forget everything.
6. Find freedom in constraints.
7. Lead from the trenches. 
8. Foster happy accidents. 

Take the test!

Francesca Gino is an award-winning researcher and the Tandon Family professor of business administration in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit at Harvard Business School. She is also affiliated with the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative at Harvard, and the Behavioral Insight Group at Harvard Kennedy School.