GIVE THE NEW LEADER A CHANCE TO THRIVE
You’re in a growth mode. You need to scale up faster than you can develop leaders from within. You need to hire leaders from outside.
You know the stats are against you.
While it is typically better to promote from within, here’s an approach to interviewing that will help the new leaders succeed.
“The Leadership Resume”
Typically, we look for people who have specific skills and experience to fit their leadership role. But leadership is more than skills and experiences; it’s also about… wait for it… leadership!
Enter the leadership resume.
Different than the standard resume, which only focuses on that individual’s achievements.
Here are four “leadership resume” questions you can ask during the interview process to get a sense of their leadership acumen.
The people question
Ask the candidate for a list of people they’ve developed. These are the people that, in part, owe their careers to that leader. If the candidate is a decent leader, this list shouldn’t be hard to come up with. You will want to talk to a few of those people to get a sense of this person's leadership style, and what made them such a great leader.
Insist on this in the interview process. Developing leaders is a major distinction of great leadership. (This is indicated in our Rootstock leadership development offering.)
2. The growth question
During the interview process, make sure to ask the candidate about a current leadership area of growth. The question goes something like this: “We know that no one has it all, what are you working on right now to grow your leadership skills?”
If they are a growth-minded vs. fixed-minded person, they should be able to answer this pretty quickly. Leaders that have self-awareness know their weaknesses, and they are constantly working on them.
3. The pain question
Ask the leader candidate to describe the biggest mistake they’ve made in their career. What character or skills flaws caused it? How did they recover? This is going to reveal a lot about this person's character.
4. The values question
Hopefully, you have already taken your organizational values and converted those to behaviors that you expect out of your people. Using that list of values and behaviors, ask the candidate how they fit into those values.
The values of an organization are the cultural lifeblood. They are the “way” you expect your people to treat each other. Dig into the values during the interview process.
It’s all about the fit.
The cards are stacked against us when we bring in new leaders. Employing these “leadership resume” questions throughout the interview process hopefully gives the new leader a better chance to thrive when they arrive.
Yours in legacy leadership,
Tony Woodall
