When you catch a glimpse of your next leadership role…

Throughout the economic ups and downs of recent years, my business has continued to attract a steady flow of requests to conduct professional assessments of potential candidates for leadership roles.  Sometimes I interview short-listed candidates for vacant roles from within a client organisation or who want to join a client organisation.  Sometimes I’m asked to conduct an assessment to determine a candidate’s readiness for the next promotion, even before a role becomes vacant.  Sometimes I am asked to assess the leadership assets of an entire team as part of valuing an organisation which is merging with or de-merging from an organisation.

Often, I have the opportunity following an assessment to have a debrief with the person who has just been assessed and I never know what to expect.  Some candidates come full of fire and fury, doubting my professional judgement and wanting to prove me wrong.  Some candidates are amazed at the accuracy of the assessment and want to know how they can address their key development areas.  Because of the variety of needs candidates bring I always start the meeting by clarifying that this is a meeting for their benefit and asking what would best support them.

The assessment and the debrief that follows it is second only to coaching in gratifying my professional curiosity.  I love it that I get paid to be nosy – and on a grand scale.  For even when the immediate question is “can this person do a good job in his or her target role?” there’s always a deeper story.  Recently, I’ve interviewed candidates in several organisations who, for one reason or another, are hesitating to put themselves forward for the next leadership role.  The assessment, whilst designed to meet the needs of the organisation – my commissioning client – also offers an opportunity for the candidate to reflect on his or her deepest desires.  The debrief, as well as offering the opportunity to clarify the conclusions outlined in the assessment report, often includes an element of coaching.

But what about those candidates who, in some way, are hesitating to take the next step towards a larger senior role?  Sometimes, the value of the debrief lies in helping them to explore their hesitations and to understand them.  It helps when the assessment includes a good psychometric around motives and values to supplement an interview (I like to use the Hogan suite of tests, for example), though this is by no means essential.  Sometimes it’s enough to start by sharing what I notice and to ask questions.   “There was some good evidence of you leading others but mostly you talked about the work you do yourself.  Which do you find most exciting?”  Where I have some kind of a hunch it’s my policy to share my hunch and see how it lands.  “So, I notice that your examples of successful events were all examples in which you were doing the work rather than examples about leading your team.  I’m wondering if you’re most engaged when you have a hands on role in the delivery of a piece of work – what do you think?”

The purpose of such questions is never to prove that “Dorothy knows best”.  Far from it.  Instead, my aim is to support candidates in discerning their own truth.  This, in turn, offers a kind of “guiding light” to candidates who may have been unsure.  Once they have greater clarity and a stronger sense of connection with their own inner wisdom, they are better equipped to discern for themselves what their next steps should be.  Over the years I have met candidates who recognise that their deep love of their specialist area is greater than their desire to lead.  Such candidates often do well as the “first amongst equals” leader of a tight specialist team.  Sometimes I have met candidates who have battled their way into leadership roles only to feel deeply unhappy and even, sometimes, angry and resentful.  For these candidates, a debrief can open up a tender and vulnerable dialogue about the reasons they pursued a particular path and open a window onto previously hidden talents and desires.  Some candidates, though, may be well-suited to a larger leadership role, if only they can face their fears and take the next step.  Sometimes they even know it themselves – the feelings of increasing frustration they bring to the debrief are a sure sign that strategies that have worked in the past are keeping them smaller than they want to be right now.

The primary aim of an assessment is to give clarity to a potential employer about a particular hiring decision.  This aim is about gaining clarity and weighing risks.  There is, though, a rich world beyond the immediate hiring decision.  This second world is about the longer-term development of talent for the organisation and about the realisation of potential and desires for the individual.  In this second world the assessment and the debrief are often not the full answer.  Rather, they help candidates to identify key questions which may need to be explored further.

I wonder, what has been your experience of such moments – moments when you have explored the question of what next?  I’d love to hear about your experiences in the comment box below.