An organization needs people at the helm to achieve its objectives. Running an organization deftly is not a one man show, rather team work and this is the driving force that makes a company great. A team lacking a leader is like a ship without a rudder. Total chaos will reign over a team in the absence of a spirited and talented leader.
But leaders are hard to find and it needs a keen observation on the part of a talented placement consultant or a hiring manager to spot the right talent among the masses.
So what makes an impressive business leader? A great business leader is one who has the creative acumen, initiates action, takes calculated risks, motivates employee, creates confidence, builds morale, ability to think beyond and gets everyone involved.
These are the 5 traits that a recruitment consultant or a hiring manager should look for in hiring a business leader`
Great listening skills:
A candidate applying for leadership roles should have great listening power. He / She should have the inherent ability to take out the wheat from the chaff. He / She will come across lot of discussions and data in his / her day to day job role, but needs to have the acumen to only filter out the productive information in an optimized way. A seasoned hiring manager should initiate simulated discussions with the candidate on topics related with the job role in a short time span to figure out his / her responses and listening skills. If the guy is too eager to throw a response then the candidate might not be the one who can fit the bill check out cashshape.co.uk.
Great decision making skills:
An in-depth interaction should be done with the candidate exposing him / her to different situations such as asking his / her view point on a particular real life problem that has occurred in the company and asking his / her opinion on that matter about how to solve it. If the candidate’s answers are vague then it’s highly probable that the candidate might not be a good fit for leadership roles. On the contrary if he / she gives a solution that is agile, reasonable and to the point then the candidate is having good problem solving skills and fit to work at the helm of a team.
Knows how to move forward gracefully:
A great business leader knows that instead of playing blame game on a particular setback he / she should move forward irrespective of the obstacles. Hence a seasoned recruitment consultant should discuss with the candidate about his / her experiences in handling issues and setbacks in his / her past assignments. Recruitment Consultant / Executive Search Agency can also enquire about his / her view point in solving a particular problem to find out how the candidate reacts with the factors emerging out of a simulated situation.
Leverages networks:
Networking is an important aspect of a great leader. The person should be having good PR skills in order to take the business to a greater height by communicating effectively and improving relationships with employees, customers, suppliers, strategic partners and even competitors. An experienced top level hiring manager can gauge the networking ability of a candidate through his / her body language, analytical expressions, presentation skills, personality traits and psychological signals during an in-depth interview process, reference and social media checks and through his / her personal industry contacts
Strong desire to reach the next level:
As INVAR Kamprad the founder of IKEA said, “The most dangerous poison is the feeling of achievement. The antidote is to every evening think what can be done better tomorrow” So during the interview process the restlessness of a candidate has to be felt with respect to his / her ideas for a better tomorrow in his / her area of expertise. His / Her hunger to scale new heights has to be gauged and his / her antecedents of achieving targets in an innovative way in his / her earlier organizations has to verified in order to come to a logical conclusion of fitness for leadership roles.
Emotionally stable:
To be a successful business leader one must have the ability to stay focussed on their ultimate objective while keeping their emotions in check. On face to face interaction a person’s emotional intelligence quotient can be assessed through various psychometric tests such as:
- Traditional cognitive ability test which assess verbal, numerical and abstract reasoning
- Game based assessment
- Short 10 -12 minute timed separate ability tests
- Tests mapping candidates profile with the benchmark of the target organisation
Powerfully passionate:
Most of all, great business leaders are passionate about whatever endeavour they are undertaking. In the words of Oprah Winfrey “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from doing what excites you”. There are six ways to identify a passionate candidate for leadership roles.
- Discuss about hobbies and interests of the candidates
- Assess his / her ability to maintain work life balance
- Evaluating his / her set goals for professional growth
- Inherent signs of generosity
- Test His / Her mettle
- Digging out the thrill factor
The ways and means discussed above are some of the practical approaches in determining the competency of a candidate for leadership roles. The list is not exhaustive and organizations should also continuously strive to implement rational and quality hiring practices as per their business processes to prevent any costly unwanted surprises that might hinder their progress.