How Do You Select Leaders?

I am interested in hearing how you select leaders in your organization and whether it is working. I have worked for large fortune 500, medium and small sized companies. My experience has been that leaders are often selected based on their technical skills more than their ability to lead people. Because someone is a really good customer service representative for example, they are selected to be the new supervisor. Or because someone is the best processor they have on the team, they are selected to manage the processing team. This seems a bit backwards to me. Would you buy a house just because it is painted in a color you really like? Of course not; price, square footage, location, number of bedrooms and many other considerations go into buying a house.

Selecting the right leader requires many considerations as well. They include the person’s ability to build trust, ability to motivate others, level of emotional intelligence, strong communication and listening skills and so many more. But yet, how many organizations really take the time to figure this out?

Again, I am interested as well as our community is interested, I am sure, in learning how your organization selects leaders. Do you have a process identifying them? What types of things do you look for? Do you even agree it’s that important?

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Comments

[Myron J Radio]

Mike - Great question. We have a process that helps organizations with their succession planning and leadership development. It begins with a structured review of the leadership positions. This renders a Role Profile for the ideal leader from a Style, Motivation and Mindset perspective. Incumbents or job aspirants can then review these profiles to see how well they "fit" into a specific role.

We also have parallel assessments to measure one's personal profile. This can also be used to match candidates to future positions or to develop incumbents for roles as they evolve.

For more info please visit our website at http://the-r-group.com

[Debra Young]

As an executive search firm, we have a very thorough vetting process that helps our clients identify executives that would be great leaders for their organization. It goes way beyond behavioral interviewing to get underneath the resume to the personal competencies, cultural match and business values alignment. The intangibles are just as important, if not more important that just making a technical skills match. We have had tremendous success with our process and would love to share it with any hiring authorities who really want to hire executives that have been vetted using a 360 degree analysis of a candidate.

[Thomas Samson]

Selecting leaders is probably not the best way to approach this subject but rather "What are organizations doing to GROW leaders?" For more than two decades we have been working with clients to address this issue and we have learned from the best and the worst. Leadership is a developed talent for most of us. The selection process should focus on which individuals in an organization are candidates for leadership and then guide them through a process of professional development that brings them into new roles based on the results of the development process. Unfortunately, far too many organizations focus on the results directly created by the individual when promoting from within and not the results of the team the individual is responsible for leading. Individuals who are promoted to lead teams from an individual contributor role face the largest challenge in most organizations, especially if that organization provides little, if any, leadership development or mentoring support.

Please visit http://www.teamworkdynamics.com for more discuss on this topic.

[Patrick T. Malone]

Interesting question but I wonder if what you are really asking is how does an organization select it's executives and managers? Just because someone is in a Leadership position within an organization does not automatically qualify them as a leader.

My experience is that real leaders are selected by their followers. If they have willing followers committed to a common course of action then they are a leader regardless of title or position.

Read "Decision making vs. decision getting for more information http://bizymoms.com/business/Article/Decision-making-vs--Decision-getting/6

[Maximiliaan Edward Kopijn]

I fully agree with the comment made by Thomas Samson. Real leaders reveal themselves unpurposely in daily practice - at various levels within companies and organisations - by their actions and behaviours in relation with others.
"Leaders" selected by executive search firms or existing "higher management" often often are just "self or agency proclaimed wannabees". They are intelligent enough to behave and act externally exactly the way they are supposed to do. Managers and CEO's who consider themselves leaders - which they unfortunately quite often are NOT - usually look for replicas of themselves when recruiting new managers. Thus preventing to lead the company one or more steps beyond they were capable of themselves. Luckily for some companies, they have a few real - hidden - leaders who bring the company forward, even if they are not recognised as such by the ones in - offcial - power positions.

[Mike Rogers]

Wonderful discussion everyone. Growing leaders is probably the best approach. And has to be done through careful selection of individuals who show an ability to lead others, inspire others, think strategically, build relationships etc... Once the selection is made, then they can be put on a development path. But again, we get it wrong most of the time by selecting those who show great individual technical knowledge. And what makes it even worse is we don't take the time to develop them.