I read the Oxfam news with interest this week. I was thinking about my own experience as the CEO of a small studio, reporting to CEOs in three jobs and as a Chair and a trustee.
What we want from our leaders on paper rarely turns out to be what we want in practice and I always find that an interesting tension. How are you supposed to find out what people really need? What code word could you build into a job description to say ‘we need help but we hope you don’t get involved too quickly either’? What question would you ask to figure out how aggressive someone is likely to get when put under pressure in Q4? How might you figure out if age is an issue or an asset? How can you tell if someone is going to get emotional in a way that will irritate employees? The answer to these questions is mostly ‘none’, ‘never’ and ‘you can’t’.
Hiring leaders is not about hard skills, it’s about whether you think they’re both strong AND pliable. A CEO is both a lone wolf AND a sheep. A CEO has to be able to be guided by shareholders or a board while shaping an organisation. It’s a very hard thing to get right which is probably why CEO retention has plummeted recently.
So boards do the next best thing which is to hire someone who seems affable and calm. A person who smiles in a particular way. A ‘safe pair of hands’. That person is wearing the smile they need them to have when shit hits the fan and the business needs to make 30% of the team redundant or the share price tanks. Shareholders need someone who smiles in a way that soothes. In a way, businesses are always trying to recruit the perfect parent for the organisation. But as we know, the perfect blend of speed, action and energy is as elusive as the perfect parent.
So instead of relying on a smile, here are 5 questions I would ask a CEO in an interview process:
– Talk to me about a time when you were put under pressure and failed.
– How would you manage an underperformer in a visible/senior position you don’t directly manage?
– If you had a clash between an important meeting with your most important client and a speaking slot at Davos [change to whatever industry event you like] how would you decide which to go to and which to dial into?
– How would you deal with personal conflict in your leadership team?
– How would you scale up the Operations side of your business to help with growing pains? Who would you hire first/second/third?
There might be others, but I think organisations have to go beyond talking about strategy and vision in interviews to find out how emotionally mature a leader actually is, not just how they appear to be.