All too often organisations make the same mistakes when appointing senior executives. These ‘seven deadly sins are explained below.
1) Treating succession planning as the ?poor relation?
While businesses invest time and financial resource in implementing and executing talent management strategies, many fail to acknowledge the importance of succession planning. Often seen as the ?poor relation” of talent management, succession planning is not always given the attention it deserves. If not looked at correctly, it can have severe repercussions. Ideally, succession planning should feed into a wider talent management programme and take a long-term strategic view. A key part of this needs to be establishing what future potential looks like and how it can be nurtured.
2) Focusing on current top performers
Many organisations take the approach of looking at current top performers and ear marking them for leadership. Just because an individual is, for example, performing brilliantly in a sales role, does not however mean they will excel in the areas needed for good leadership. Focusing on performance does not take into account crucial elements such as aspiration or motivation.
Another common approach businesses take is to bring people up in silos, without exposing them to other business functions and operations. Good succession planning should first identify who has potential (beyond just current performance indicators) and then look to expose these individuals to different areas of the business. For example, if they are going to be expected to manage multi-disciplined teams as a future leader, then they need to have an understanding of each of those business disciplines.
3) Hiring in your own image is a faux pas when it comes to appointing senior executives
It may be tempting to hire someone inimage, but to do so may be to ignore future issues. The business world is changing?” just look at the effect the digital revolution has had in recent years. Future leaders need to have the skills to operate in a brave new worldAnd organisations need to look at the bigger picture. It may be that the current CEO is a transformative leader, who has taken the company on a journey of change. The next CEO does not necessarily need to have the same transformation skills, but instead may need more of a stabilising leadership style.
4) Looking at the job title, not the problem that needs to be solved
When it comes to appointing seniorexecutives, rather than refreshing an overly-detailed job specification which probably hasn’t been looked at for years, organisations need to think about what problems the new recruit needs to solve. Senior leadership teams needs to ask what they want any new senior appointment to bring the team . What are the success criteria Be equally clear about the personal characteristics needed.
Read further”for three extra points on what to avoid when appointing senior executives
5) Not thinking outside the box
All too often organisations look for talent in the same small pool. Yet hiring from competitors is not always the way forward. It can be argued that if organisations only look to competitors, followers?will be hired instead of leaders. Organisations should not be afraid to look outside the box”for talent as technical skills will transfer over and fresh eyes from a different business sector can see problems more clearly than those who work in it day to day. They may have already seen and solved very similar issues.
Every industry has its own specialisms and technical know how, whether this is front of office trading or nuances in manufacturing where industry knowledge is key, but almost all technical skills are transferrable take that into account when appointing senior executives.
6) Overlooking EQ (emotional intelligence)
Building a high performing leadership team is complex it’s a science, an art and a jigsaw puzzle. One where, when done correctly, the whole is so much greater than the sum of the parts. The ?parts” are the necessary mix of technical and professional capabilities and IQ but what makes them into a successful ?whole is the added ingredient of EQ (emotional intelligence) the sprinkling of spice which enables senior leaders to celebrate team balance and diversity, motivate, inspire and influence people as well as make critical decisions and influence strategy.
Organisations should look for evidence of strong leadership where difficult decisions have been made, where a candidate has had to encourage a team to steer a different course or establish new performance standards and methods of working. It is important to ask for examples of a creation and cascade of vision, strategy or sense of purpose, and probe to get an idea of how your candidate has used his or her EQ to make these changes a positive experience for their team, however difficult the circumstances may have been.
7) Not appreciating the importance of purpose
What do Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela, Angela Merkel and Richard Branson have in common” On the face of it, not a great deal they?re all leaders with very different styles and behaviours. But they haveA strong sense of purpose. A new evidenced-based leadership model the result of research as part of a collaboration between Kingston Business School’s Wellbeing at Work research group and Adastrum Consulting looks to provide a clear, evidenced-based foundation for understanding the process of leading with purpose and why it is central to success.
Key findings from the research and resulting model show how focusing on a sense of purpose can lead to success. As such, it is important for organisations to establish any potential senior appointment’s sense of purpose at the earliest opportunity.
Chris Underwood is managing director at executive search and talent advisory firm Adastrum Consulting
Image: Shutterstock
