“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.

To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”
― Octavia E. Butler

What is the best way to choose a new CEO? How do we find active, engaged board members? Who can best guide this family-owned company? How do I select a successor? Who would be the best person to join a leadership team? Who should we promote to supervisor?

In a previous article, How to Pick a President (Or Any Other Leader), I discussed the process I use for choosing elected leaders. There is certain cross-application in that process to any other leadership selection process where there is a relatively small pool of leaders to choose from. In that article, I discussed how to use the criteria of Credibility, Servant Leadership, Capacity, Principles and Preferences to sort through rhetoric and examine who can actually provide the most effective leadership.

Building on this, there are some additional considerations when choosing leadership from a “wide open” pool of options (even if it looks like the pool is empty when we first take a look at it).

Very Common and Often Costly Errors are to make leadership selections based primarily on criteria such as:

• Seniority
• Loyalty or similarity to the outgoing leader
• An award
• (The worst) the “warm body” method of leadership selection – essentially, “You are available so you are it.”
• (Even more worst) the “we can’t be bothered approach,” – “You were the only person that came to mind.”
• (The very most worst) they are related to someone, someone owes a favor to someone, someone owes a debt to someone, they can’t get fired but must be moved, etc.

These are the methods that, more often than not, produce the cowardly, foolish, untrustworthy, dishonest, abusive, neglectful leaders who drive teams, organizations, and opportunities into the ground. Or, less dramatically, they generate leaders who are insufficiently skilled or unmotivated. These kinds of leaders confuse stagnation for honoring legacy and maintaining traditions. They didn’t arrive at leadership because of performance or ability. As a result, performance and ability are often devalued or threatening.

It isn’t chance that most small and medium-sized, family-owned businesses close their doors or are sold within 5 years of the departure of Mom & Pop. Most churches go into decline when the founding pastor dies or moves on. Many boards stall out and become a source of drag on the organization because they don’t know how to select new, motivated, engaged members. It isn’t actually the transition that is the problem. It is the unplanned and unreflected-on transition that creates the problem.

Here is How-To

I’ll introduce a method I’m calling the “Leadership Selection Funnel.” Along with this, use all of the criteria from the previous article. If you are so busy you can’t read it right now – it essentially says, “Past performance is the best indicator of future results.” This seems like a no-brainer. But very often we look at someone who does X spectacularly and assume that this qualifies them to succeed at Y.

I’ve introduced the Leadership Selection Funnel to many boards and executive teams. It has never failed to dramatically change their thinking and help identify a larger and richer pool of leadership candidates than what existed before.

The Leadership Selection Funnel

Step One: Describe the Ideal Leader.

Brainstorm all of the characteristics that you would like in the Ideal Leader. Don’t even worry if it seems unrealistic that one person might have “all of this.” Just create a list of what you’d like to have in a leader if you could. It’s helpful to use these broad categories to stimulate thinking:

• Perspectives: What kinds of perspectives might be valuable in this position? This can include,
  • Demographics: Gender, Age, Ethnicity, Socio-economic background
  • Cultural: Do they come from/have they lived in this region, urban or rural? What is needed to mesh well with our culture?
  • Professional cultures: Engineering vs marketing, etc? Administration vs field?
• Experience: What kind of experience would be ideal?
  • Life experience and professional experience.
  • Demonstrated success in similar roles.
  • Demonstrated success with similarly needed skills.
  • How have they typically related to others?
  • How have they handled conflict or difficult challenges?
• Expertise: What skills or credentials should they have?
  • What Licenses/Degrees/Certifications?
  • What management knowledge or ability?
  • Executive ability?
  • Areas of technical or topical expertise?
  • Organizational growth or development?
• Competencies: What are they able to do?
  • Can they think and lead strategically?
  • Are they able to communicate clearly?
  • Are they able to effectively prioritize and manage time?
  • Are they able to network well?

Add or amend categories as you see fit. The idea is to create a list of what you’d like to have in an Ideal Leader.

Step Two: Build the Funnel – Prioritize Traits

Take all of the traits you’ve identified above and divide them among the following categories:

• Must-Have Traits: Any candidate worth considering must have all of these traits. These are the non-negotiables. Interested parties need not apply if they don’t fulfill these minimums.

• Elective Traits: Remember college? You had to pick 3 of the following 5 class options? Same thing. This is where you put all of the traits that are of high importance but not “Must Haves.” List them all and decide what is the minimum number of elective traits a candidate should have. This helps you select from candidates that satisfy your “Must Have” criteria.

• Bonus Traits: You can live with or without these traits. But, wow, it sure would be nice if… that’s where these traits go. They help you select from the people who have the Must Haves and also have sufficient Elective Traits. There might be a few choices left over. These help filter them out.

Step Three: Brainstorm for Candidates/Write Your Recruitment Ad Copy

Now you know what you are looking for. Start coming up with a list of all the possible people who might fit these criteria. You’ll end up generating a larger and more qualified pool of names than before.

If you aren’t able to generate sufficient names to satisfy your Must Haves and Elective lists – begin your recruitment process. But use the criteria above to shape the ad copy and the job description. Those people are out there. The better you describe them the more they’ll recognize themselves in your recruitment.

Step Four: Choose

The people who match all of these criteria and look pretty good after looking at them through the lens of Credibility, Servant Leadership, Capacity, Principles, and Preferences are going to be rock stars for your business or team.

Hire all of them.