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For most companies, shifts in leadership teams happen surprisingly often. We recently brought several new leaders onboard into key executive-level roles, including leaders of our revenue, finance, technology and product teams.
Hiring senior talent to run a team is a crucial moment in the story and trajectory of a company. It’s an important step to get right. As a leader, you want to bring in someone deeply connected to your mission and vision and aligned with your company values. Misalignment in these critical elements could hurt company culture and employee retention in ways that are hard to walk back.
We embrace a hiring process that helps us find, vet and choose the right leaders for BambooHR: always bring it back to mission, don’t rush the process and leverage the power of references. At the conclusion of this process, I feel a genuine understanding of who our candidates are, the strengths they would bring to the role and how I can help them to be successful. I really enjoy interviewing and hiring leaders.
Whether you need to hire senior talent now or are looking to gather insights for the future, it’s important to be prepared for a gap in a crucial leadership position. Here are three key concepts from our pattern of hiring that can help you find your next leader.
Related: 7 Empowering Strategies for Leaders Transitioning to New Roles
Talk about your mission
I start every executive interview with a discussion of our company’s mission, vision and values. This is a great initial sorting mechanism because if they signal disinterest, I know immediately that they aren’t the right fit for our organization. The right candidate will respond to who we are and want to be a part of it.
Leaders act as emissaries of your mission to their teams. As a business grows, the CEO’s ability to bring everyone together for shared experiences shrinks. A small startup might have a culture reliant on the energy of face-to-face interaction, but you simply can’t do that with hundreds or thousands of people.
For better or worse, the employee experience will inevitably become division-specific, driven by the leaders in each group. If those leaders don’t carry the culture and the mission, then the experience of your people could suffer because of it.
While a “B-minus” leader might be good enough to pass, they are nowhere good enough to thrive. Companies cannot thrive with mediocre management. Only advancing candidates who demonstrate interest and energy for your mission, vision and values create opportunities for you to raise the bar.
Make a good decision, not a fast decision
The leaders of a company often face circumstances where they need to make quick moves. If there are known issues with your products or challenges in your sales funnel, for example, you must solve those problems immediately.
However, hiring the right executive is definitely not a “move fast” circumstance. I rely on the concept of “go slow to go fast” to find the right leaders. The cost of waiting for the right hire is much lower than bringing in the wrong person.
It is always tempting to hire the first person who makes the right impression, especially when you are filling a crucial, high-impact position. However, being intentional about the pace of the process gives you time to really get to know people and find the one who will supercharge their teams.
The slow approach doesn’t always work for everyone, and sometimes a candidate will tell me they are considering other offers. I always suggest they take it if their timing demands because I am not willing to shorten our process.
It’s worth going slow and taking the time to get to know your candidates to find the leaders your company needs. You can’t do that on a compressed timeline, and it’s not worth compromising your organization’s culture.
Related: How to Hire Your First Head of Business Operations and Take Your Success Up a Notch
Embrace the power of references
Finding any leader generally starts the same way: You begin with a list of high-caliber candidates. However, the way you vet those candidates and understand how they work can make all the difference in making your offers.
In my experience, personally contacting references is magic.
The candidate will usually provide references, but this step is critical enough that you should also vet additional backchannel references and connections. Your team members likely know a few, and it’s generally easy to find a few more within an industry.
Then, get the contacts on the phone yourself and ask meaningful questions. One of the best questions that I ask is, “How can I help this candidate be the best they can be and have a massive impact here?” It flips the conversation to how can I help this person versus disqualifying them. You learn most of what you need through the responses. What I really want to understand is how they show up as a leader, what to expect from them, how they are in action and how they are under pressure or when things go wrong.
If I’m hiring for an important position and I outsource those calls, I’m missing a huge opportunity to gain insight into the individual. As the person responsible for the decision, I will not extend an offer to anyone without spending hours on personal references myself.
Few things are as important to a leadership team as ensuring its employees have good experiences and can bring their best selves to work every day. As businesses grow, organizational leaders become responsible for maintaining that positive environment.
Hiring the best candidates for leadership roles is central to your success. By establishing the value of your mission from the beginning, diving deep to understand your candidates and taking the time it requires to make the right decision, you can ensure you bring in the right leaders who will accelerate your company’s mission and success.
