Your company reflects its leader: what to define before hiring

Hiring a senior leader means giving someone authority over priorities, people and decisions that affect customers. Their experience matters, but so does the way you ask them to use it. Before comparing candidates, a CEO or board needs to agree what this person is there to change and what they should preserve.

Alex McClafferty, then my adviser, put it simply: “Your business is a reflection of you.” I carried that idea into my 2019 essay on leadership, where I wrote: “You set the bar for what is acceptable and expected.” In it I argued that a leader's behavior shapes the team, the team's behavior shapes customers' experience, and that experience drives business metrics.

On that reasoning, a senior hire sets that bar for the function they lead. Before the search, I would use that principle to define the standards you want them to uphold and the authority they will need. Agree those expectations first, then use the brief below to discuss them with candidates and plan the handover.

DisclosureJake Jorgovan co-founded Alpha Apex Group, which this essay links to.

Decide what the role should achieve

“Improve performance” leaves a great deal open. Before briefing a search, describe the problem the person is being hired to solve and the result you want. Then check that the people who will assess the hire agree on both.

I recommended defining success for a role in one sentence in a 2022 episode, so it could guide the person's activities. My examples came from Content Allies, the podcast company I founded. Podcast managers were responsible for episodes going out on time and without errors. For a newly hired enterprise client strategist, success meant making sure our enterprise clients achieved their business objectives.

That episode was about promoting people inside small, founder-led service businesses, where I said hiring outside managers was uncommon. Applied to a senior appointment, the question covers the whole function: what must this leader make possible? The sentence gives the role a purpose; the brief underneath it needs to explain how you will judge progress.

Consider a hypothetical COO appointment. The board might want to improve delivery reliability while the company expands. Before starting the search, it should decide which delivery problems the COO will own, what they can change and how much disruption the business can accept. That gives candidates something more useful to respond to than a request for an experienced operator.

A search partner can help refine the mandate. I would bring a considered starting point and invite them to challenge it, especially if the expectations compete with one another.

Make the standards specific enough to discuss

The reflection idea is useful when it changes what you ask about. “We need a strong leader” tells a candidate little about how you expect them to act when priorities collide.

A hypothetical leader inherits a team that regularly promises customers more than it can deliver. Do you want the new leader to change those commitments? Who needs to agree? What should happen when a valuable customer asks for another exception?

Before praising a candidate as commercially aggressive or operationally disciplined, ask how they would handle that customer request. Those labels tell you little until you know which commitments the person would make and which they would decline.

Write down the standards that matter to this appointment. They might include how a customer hears about a missed commitment, how changes to priorities are explained or when a problem must reach the executive team. Be equally clear about decisions reserved for the CEO or board.

Leave room for the new leader's judgment. If reviewing suppliers or reorganizing the function is part of the job, say so. If there are commitments they must work within, explain those too. A vague instruction to “take ownership” leaves those boundaries unresolved.

Separate early ownership from longer-term results

In a 2020 episode on hiring, I described a mistake I had made and seen others make: finding someone I liked, then working out where they might fit. My advice was to define the role first, then write down what success looks like at 90 days. My example was owning part of the business, knowing the people involved and documenting how the work runs.

Keep that early ownership separate from the commercial result the board ultimately wants. A new COO might be expected to understand delivery problems, agree priorities and take responsibility for operating reviews during the first 90 days. The time needed to improve delivery itself should follow from the work required.

Use the first-quarter plan to agree what the leader should learn, decide and own. Set longer-term targets with the resources and dependencies attached. That makes it possible to discuss progress without treating an appointment as a promise of immediate transformation.

Image

Zoom

The approach described in this article, shown as a visual guide.

Test candidates against the work in the brief

Give finalists the same starting brief and ask them to explain how they would approach it. Listen for the assumptions they question as well as the plan they propose. A candidate who spots a conflict between the target and the available authority has given you something worth resolving before an offer.

Ask about their past decisions and how they would approach this brief:

• Tell us about a commitment your team could not meet. What did you tell the customer, and what changed afterward?
• When you took over a function, how did you decide what to preserve and what to change?
• Describe a problem you helped a direct report resolve. What did you do, and what remained their responsibility?
• Looking at this brief, which result depends on a decision or resource outside your control?

Ask follow-up questions about what the candidate personally decided and what happened next. Where appropriate, use references to explore the same examples. The aim is to understand how the person would exercise the authority you are offering.

Make the handover real, with support still available

The appointment also asks something of the person handing over: set a date when the role becomes the other person's responsibility. In the same 2022 episode, I credited that advice to my adviser Anthony Tombolio. I described keeping check-ins and agreed measures after that date. I also warned against stepping back in to do part of the work because the new owner did not seem ready. My concern was that this undermined their confidence while keeping the work in the previous owner’s hands.

Make the decision boundaries explicit to the wider team. If a decision belongs to the new leader, send it to them. When they bring you a problem, ask for their recommendation before supplying your own answer.

Image

Zoom

In Pew’s February 2023 survey, workers receiving frequent feedback were more satisfied with the amount they received. The sample excludes self-employed workers. This association does not establish that more feedback caused the higher satisfaction.pewresearch.org (opens in a new tab)

Keep an agreed route for escalation when a decision exceeds their authority or puts an important commitment at risk. Support should give the leader a way to resolve the problem while keeping responsibility clear. Revisit the brief together if the role, resources or business priorities change.

Image

Zoom

The approach described in this article, shown as a visual guide.

Before your next senior search, put the brief in front of everyone who will judge the appointment. If they disagree about what the leader should achieve or be allowed to decide, work through that disagreement now. The candidate deserves to understand the job you are asking them to take.