Leadership Assessment.
How do you know if you’re selecting the right leaders for your organisation? Most people get no training in how to assess leadership capability. And yet this is an area where mistakes can be both costly and highly disruptive.
Professional leadership assessment can help you get it right.
Leadership Assessment for External Recruitment.
This is the most typical use of leadership assessment. Some of my clients come to me because they have previously made a catastrophic hiring error, like the mid-sized company flattered that a big hitter with a long corporate career was willing to be their MD, only to find that the organisation couldn’t accommodate his ego.
Others have a high stakes appointment they just have to get right, like the retiring CEO of a charity looking for someone to take over her life’s work. Some clients are just wise enough to recognise that an external, professional perspective would be helpful.
I can support you to make better recruitment decisions by:
- Helping you determine what you really need in the role.
- Devising a way for you to narrow down the field without my direct involvement
- Assessing the final 2 or 3 candidates (or just one if that’s all you’ve got)
- Weighing up the pros and cons of each candidate
- Exploring how to get the best from your chosen candidate
- Projecting a positive image of your organisation by treating every candidate with respect and consideration.
Sometimes I have a clear recommendation of which candidate to appoint (or whether to appoint if there’s just one). But often it’s not that clear cut. No candidate is perfect. I’ve sat in many a board room talking through what it would mean to appoint candidate A vs candidate B. The final decision is always yours.
Talk to me today about assessments for recruitment.
Leadership Assessment for Internal Promotion.
Why would you bother to assess someone who already works for you? Surely you know them well enough by now. Well maybe, but you know them in their current role. What a professional leadership assessment will tell you is whether they are ready and able to step up a level. Let’s face it, we’ve all met people who were promoted beyond their level of competence because they were good at a more junior role. This is particularly important when promoting technical experts to leadership positions. Some will be capable of making that move and some won’t. It’s important to know which is which.
There may also be occasions when you have a mix of internal and external candidates for the same role and you need to assess them on a level playing field. Leadership assessment is an ideal way to do that.
Talk to me today about assessments for internal promotion.
Assessment for Leadership Development.
Leadership assessment is not just for appointing people to jobs. It can also be useful in identifying areas where leaders and aspiring leaders need to develop further. I don’t believe that an organisation needs identikit leaders with a common skillset. No individual will excel at all aspects of leadership. A good leadership assessment and feedback discussion can help a someone work out where their strengths lie, what kind of leader they aspire to be and how to focus their development. It often forms the basis of a development plan, perhaps as a prelude to coaching.
A developmental assessment can also be a key plank in a well-structured succession planning process, identifying the experience, training and support an aspiring leader will need to be ready to take over.
Talk to me today about assessments for leadership development.
Management Due Diligence.
When you invest in a business, what are you really investing in? Sure, there’s a commercial entity, a product or service and a client base but the growth of that business will be driven by the leadership team. You’re really entrusting your investment to some people. So maybe it’s worth finding out more about who they are, whether there are particular skills missing in the team and how you can best support them to deliver. Leadership assessment in this context, looks at the entire team, identifying risks in the team dynamics, as well as individual capabilities.
The same is true if you’re acquiring a business and some of the existing management team are staying on. A leadership assessment would help you work out how to integrate them into your organisation, particularly if you already know the strengths and limitations of your own leadership team.
Talk to me today about management due diligence.
“Caroline helped us with psychometric profiling of a candidate for a strategically important role within the organisation. She spent time really getting to know what we needed, getting to know us, the organisation culture, the role and our aspirations for the person too. She has a natural gift in being able to explain complex psychological assessments in a way that make sense and gives you a well-rounded and unbiased view of the person.”
“Caroline has been very helpful in developing efficient selection strategies to ensure we choose the right candidates. The selection techniques provide the added benefit of helping with development programmes for the staff once they have joined the company”
“Caroline’s assessments really get under the skin of a person. They don’t just help us decide whether to take a person on but how to manage them and what to watch out for once they’ve started.”
“Caroline provides excellent coaching and support to our recruitment of senior staff. I particularly value her ability to guide me to the root of issues and to help me to find the solutions for myself. She is incisive and insightful and has a comprehensive understanding both of businesses and of people.”
“Caroline’s input is a really valuable part of the recruitment process. For a senior role why wouldn’t you take advantage of the insight it brings?”
“Caroline’s assessments are very thought-provoking. She’s stopped me recruiting the wrong people and identified the best candidates. You get a really rounded view of a person, their potential and how to get the best from them.”
“Caroline is a very capable, friendly and efficient Business Psychologist. In my dealings with her, I really appreciated her warm yet professional approach, that produced very insightful results & feedback.”
“Caroline has provided trusted, candid and robust insights to inform numerous selection decisions. Her professional, insightful and non-threatening approach, elicit a deeper analysis of candidates’ suitability than interviews alone.”
“Caroline’s support with our recruitment process was a revelation – her compelling combination of psychology, insight and gentle challenge brought an unexpected depth of understanding and confidence to our decision to appoint.”
Unravelling the mysteries of in-depth psychological profiling
As a business psychologist, one of my main activities is in-depth psychological profiling of people. It’s not the only thing I do but it’s certainly a big part of my job. What I’ve realised when I talk to people, however, is that they don’t really understand what I mean by it. So this month I thought I’d go back to ...
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