A friend of mine, Greg, who leads a corporate team of about 50 members, approached me earlier this month for some advice. His company is growing rapidly and he’s in the process of selecting subordinate managers. He asked me if I had any tips.
His inquiry helped remind me of the importance of choosing subordinate leaders. After you’ve made your decision, it won’t take long to know whether it was a good one or not. When you get it right, morale improves and team performance follows. Get it wrong…well…you’ve just created a lot more work for yourself. You’ll have more drama, more distractions, more staff turnover. Team performance will soon suffer. In the worst case, you’ll eventually need to remove them from the position…which will bring with it more drama, distractions and turnover. And yes, you’ll need to start the search process all over again.
Who can best identify both good and bad leaders? The people who work for them.
Choosing subordinate leaders is an extremely important decision.
What can a leader do to help make the optimal choice? Traditional 360-degree reviews can help. These tools gather feedback from not only an employee’s subordinates and colleagues, but also current supervisor(s). However, problems with validity and reliability are commonly reported with these reviews.
While 360-degree reviews can help, what else can a leader do?
Talk to people you trust who work for, or alongside, the candidate. Have a face to face conversation with people who have already experienced them as a boss. This discussion will give you a much clearer picture of the candidate’s ability to lead. Who can best identify both good and bad leaders? The people who work for them.
I found this out myself when, during my command tour, I needed to fill a very important leadership position. My leadership team and I went through the selection process – interviews, record reviews, etc., with a host of applicants. At the end of that exhaustive process we were deadlocked on two highly qualified candidates. I decided to talk to the midlevel managers who worked for each candidate. These were noncommissioned officers – NCOs, or Chiefs in Navy parlance.
The remarks by the Chiefs working for the first candidate were certainly complimentary. They mentioned many of the qualities we were looking for – intelligent, experienced, solid decision-making skills, among others. Pretty standard stuff.
The second candidate had the same standard qualities. However, I’ll never forget the responses by the Chiefs who worked for her. “Sir, she’s awesome! She stays below the radar but we all love working for her!” Collectively, their body language and voices conveyed genuine excitement and passion when describing this leader. She clearly inspired them.
I chose the second candidate. Predictably, she did an amazing job, and continues to do tremendous work for our Navy in very high positions of leadership to this day.
Choosing leaders is an extremely important decision. One could argue that it is the most important decision any organization makes.
Be a great leader. When selecting leaders, optimize your chances of making the right choice by talking to those who have worked for them.