“I’m not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep. I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.”

-Alexander the Great

One of the biggest challenges organizations face is how to bring in good, senior leaders. This might look like finding a new executive, developing a board, expanding a management team or replacing a minister.

An organization with a new leader goes through a very different experience than a leader creating a new organization.

Recruiting from within or without?

Some organizations attempt to solve senior leadership changes by only ‘growing their own.’ Largely because it helps to address concerns about bringing someone in that doesn’t fit the culture of the organization.

Additionally, the leader’s loyalty has already been tested. They’ve already been on-boarded to how the organization works. There is a lot of value in this approach. It is the most common approach for most organizations and the one that usually works best.

But it comes with some challenges:

• People may have a difficult time viewing a former peer as their leader.
• The new leader may feel trapped, by loyalty, to decisions the outgoing leader made
• History or politics may follow the new leader.
• The new leader may have a limited perspective if they don’t have much experience outside the organization.

Other organizations will hire senior leadership from outside. This allows for robust skill & experience-based recruiting; it allows for new perspective; it brings in someone free from the internal politics of the organization.

But this approach also comes with challenges.

• New leaders may not know how to honor the organization’s culture and history.
• They may require more time to get ‘up to speed’ on organizational issues.
• They may not bring with them networks and relationships that are important.
• They may not have any particular level of loyalty to your organization.

Guiding principles for both

Either way, following a few principles, will help an organization be more effective in recruiting new leaders:

1. Know who you are: Be clear on ‘who’ the organization is. What are the values, vision, and elements of culture that are most important to this organization?

A healthy organization knows who they are, and what they are trying to accomplish. They aren’t looking for the right leader to fill the hole of their identity.

They are looking for a leader who can help serve a vision and identity that’s already established.

2. Pursue organizational health: Only leaders who are still very inexperienced, have issues, or no options are interested in working for organizations with issues.

The only exception to this is when the new leader is recruited specifically to lead a turnaround by an organization that is willing to turnaround.

If you want to attract healthy, high-functioning leaders for your organization, you need to focus on building a healthy, high-functioning organization.

3. Set a high bar: Never recruit low. Ask for excellence and offer excellence in return. You’ll eventually find someone who likes that combination.

Some organizations fall into the trap of scarcity thinking – where they lower and lower their bar of standards hoping someone will finally say, “Yes.” It’s hard to think of a scenario in life where that is the best approach.

What happens is the lower you drop your bar, the harder it will be to find ideal candidates. They’ll make themselves scarce. However, the higher you raise your bar (as long as you are also pursuing organizational health) you begin to create the conditions that attract ideal candidates.

Ideal candidates know they have something to offer. They aren’t just looking for an opportunity. They understand they have limited time on spaceship earth, and they want to put it to good use.  They’ll be choosy.

4. Legacy, not Leg-Irons: Never recruit for yesterday’s mission, organization or personality. Recruit for the opportunities and challenges in front of you.

If the past leader was good – remember with honor. If the past leader was a disappointment – learn your lessons. Either way – let go and let the new leader lead.

5. Establish Mutual Expectations: Be clear about what you expect from the new leader and what you are offering them in return.

This goes beyond title and compensation. This should include expectations of time, relationships, availability, cultural expectations, public involvement, and so on.

Expect this to be negotiated, modified or respectfully challenged.  If the recruit won’t move to shape these expectations, then they aren’t ready to lead.

An ideal candidate will act like a leader early on. Ideal leaders always move to shape their environment. You don’t have to agree with or accept everything they want. But embrace this as part of your negotiation and on-boarding process.

Look at Your Leadership Pipeline

If your organization isn’t small, it should have a strong bench of leaders and potential leaders. At all levels of the organization.

If it doesn’t, you need to ask yourself, “Why?”

• Why aren’t we growing leaders?
• Why aren’t we attracting leaders?

If you need or tend to recruit leaders from outside, and are having a hard time finding ideal options, you need to ask yourself the same two questions.

Take good care,

Christian

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