I recently met with a CEO to discuss how we could support their organisation with its talent needs. The brief was familiar. They were looking for ambitious, collaborative and values-driven people – proven performers who take ownership, solve complex problems and lead without ego.
The conversation quickly moved beyond vacancies, job descriptions and salary expectations. What came through clearly was a frustration many organisations are experiencing: technical capability and experience are no longer enough to predict whether someone will succeed. Increasingly, character, cultural fit, accountability and how a person operates are just as important.
None of these expectations are unreasonable. The difficulty is how you uncover those qualities through the screening process, particularly at leadership level, where the impact of getting an appointment wrong can be significant.
Experience still matters, but it only tells part of the story. A CV can show where someone has worked, the size of the teams they have led and the results they have delivered. However, it tells us far less about how they achieved those results. Did they build accountability within their team? Could they challenge poor thinking in a constructive way? How did they respond when things didn’t go to plan? And perhaps more tellingly, would people choose to follow them to another organisation?
Organisations also need to be clear about what is genuinely essential. When every candidate is expected to be commercially strong, technically capable, collaborative, innovative, highly accountable, emotionally intelligent, culturally aligned and so on… the search can quickly become unrealistic. Digging into what this actually means for the organisation is often where the real gems can emerge. Sometimes the strongest appointment is not the person who ticks every box today, but the person with the capacity to grow into the role and create long-term impact.
Senior-level recruitment needs to go further than matching experience to a position description. Assessing senior talent properly requires considerably more investment in the process. You need to understand the organisation’s culture, role expectations, growth strategy and key challenges. A high-performing candidate can thrive in one environment and struggle in another. So the real question is not simply whether they can do the job, but whether they are likely to thrive in that environment.
For leadership appointments, experience, track record and capability often get someone into the talent conversation. What ultimately determines success is how they lead, how they behave and how they deliver results through their teams. It’s a question giving many CEOs plenty of food for thought.
I’d be interested to hear what other business leaders are seeing in the current market. Are you finding it harder to identify leaders who combine these qualities? Comment below or reach out to me directly.
With more than 20 years’ experience in recruitment, Tony has provided professional placements and HR consulting support services – including permanent, temporary and contract talent – for a wide variety of organisations. His scope ranges from general front line business support and operations to senior executive search within the Local Government and Australian Federal Government sectors, through to Commercial and Not for Profit operations. Read more…