If your organisation needs new leadership, how do you best find the right candidate?
Finding the right candidate for a management position can be very difficult. Choosing the right manager is crucial to the success of your organisation. As a recruitment process is both time-consuming and financially anchoring, it's crucial that the right candidate is found the first time.
When hiring a new manager in your organisation, there are two ways to find the right candidate. One is through a new hire, where the company selects a candidate for the leadership position through external applicants. Another way is for the company to look inwards and try to find the right candidate for the leadership position from within the organisation among its employees.
Promotion of employee to manager
Often, it can be useful to take a good look within the organisation to see if there is a talented employee who would be suitable for a management position. You may want to ask employees at performance reviews what their career dreams are and if there is anyone who might be interested in a management position.
If you find one or more employees who might be interested in becoming a manager, it's up to the hiring committee to find exactly the right person with the right skills to successfully fulfil the leadership role.
It's especially important that you don't look at which employees deliver the best results, but instead look for people who are well-liked by their colleagues and who have good chemistry with most people in the office. Even if an employee delivers great results, it doesn't mean that they can get others to do the same in a leadership role.
As a company, you need to remember that both professional and personal leadership skills need to come into play in order for the qualified employee to succeed in the role of leader.
What does it take to be a good leader?
Whether you're hiring a new manager or promoting an employee to manager, it's a good idea to consider what it takes to be a good manager. Here you can explore what competences the future manager needs to acquire or build on in order to become a good and capable leader.
Leadership requires a lot. A good leader must possess many different competences and strengths in terms of understanding the processes that create growth and progress for the company and in terms of understanding the individuals behind the processes - how they thrive, are motivated and succeed in their tasks.
The characteristics of a good leader are therefore that a leader must be able to:
- Inspire your employees and exert control
- Decision making and collaboration
- Be assertive and involve your employees
- demonstrate structure and flexibility
To succeed in leadership and be a good leader, a person must constantly balance these opposing strengths.
To be a good leader, you also need to be able to set clear goals and visions for your organisation and help your employees see these goals.
In addition, it's important that managers engage and motivate their employees and communicate to them in an understandable and respectful way.
In addition to these strengths and competences, a good leader must also have an understanding and practice:
- Creating dialogue between manager and employee, where the manager must also have the ability to listen
- Employee coaching to empower employees to problem solve on their own
- Conflict management both internally and externally in the organisation
- Openness and honesty
- Employee wellbeing creation
A good leader must be able to balance between soft and hard values, and must be able to respect employees, but also inspire and motivate them so that they understand their own role in the organisation and create success for themselves and the company through this role.
Situational Leadership
However, no employee comes with all these competences and strengths from day 1. They are partly skills that the employee brings and has learnt through their own employee position, and partly skills that the employee learns over time in their role as a manager.
While these traits can be a guide, there is no specific formula for what it takes to be a good leader. No two people are the same, which is why you should always look at the individual and see if the competences they already possess can be developed and enhanced to help them succeed in their leadership role.
If leadership is to be found among the employees, there may also be a good reason to get the employee on a leadership course that can help them increase their leadership skills and become more aware of their leadership style, which can create a foundation for good future leadership in the company.
One of the most recognised leadership tools that can be used when training new and existing leaders is Situational Leadership. Situational Leadership is a management theory that recognises that people are different and have different management needs.
Situational Leadership provides the new or existing manager with tools to help them adapt their leadership style to the specific situation and the individual employee. Managers gain knowledge about their own strengths and development areas and learn how to adapt their daily management to create the best match with their employees. Ultimately, this can lead to greater efficiency and growth in the organisation.
Hiring a new manager
If there is no one immediately available within the organisation who is suitable for the position and could take on the leadership role, one option is to hire an outsider to become the company's new leader.
A new hire can also be just the change you need to create more growth and prosperity for your organisation.
If you choose to hire a new external candidate for the management position, it's important for the hiring committee to pay special attention to the type of manager you want to hire and find the right candidate based on that.
One of the most important steps in recruiting a good manager is therefore to prepare a job analysis and a competency profile.
In the job analysis, you need to set clear requirements and wishes for the candidate and find out what core tasks the manager will have to fulfil and what results the manager must be able to deliver. This will also form the basis for a job description.
The competency profile should describe what competences the candidate needs to have in order to do the job. Here you should list the competences and knowledge that the future manager is required to possess. It can help to consider how the future leader should act in specific situations and what skills the candidate should possess.
Make use of an ability test or DISC analysis
Once you've mapped out a job analysis and competency profile, and you have relevant applicants for the position, the interviews follow. Here you need to choose an interview method that will help you find the right candidate for the management position.
Many companies often choose an informal interview as an interview method because it gives the hiring committee the opportunity to get to know the candidate better. However, if you need to learn more about the candidate's actual competences, it can be a good idea to choose a different interview method or supplement the informal interview with a cognitive test and/or a personality analysis such as a DISC analysis.
A cognitive test is a testing tool that tests a person's ability to think and reason, where a DISC test tests which personality type the candidate can be characterised as.
Together with an interview, these testing tools can tell you about the candidate's personality, strengths and weaknesses. This can help you determine if the candidate is the right match for your management position - both in terms of leadership skills and personality.
Find the right leader
Whether you choose to promote one of your employees to manager or you choose to hire a new manager, it's important that you look at what specific competences and leadership style the future manager should have, already has, or can build, that can create the best foundation for good leadership in your company.
At HR Solutions, we can help you do just that. With the right tools, we can help your organisation find the right candidate. In this way, we can help your organisation create the best leadership for your employees. Contact us for more information at 70 26 32 25or fill out the form below.
English 
Danish 
Norwegian