Page 92 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

82 HBR Leader’s Handbook

Recruit the right leaders
As you consider your team of direct reports, you’ll need to create a list of
critical attributes that reflect what you think will be most important for
executing your strategy and getting things done. For example, ConAgra’s
former CEO Gary Rodkin made a list that included technical excellence,
vulnerability, the ability to communicate and develop people, time man-
agement, and basic people skills. You also should look for skills that allow
your team members themselves to be great leaders of their own teams (see
more on this in the section “Build Your Team and Coordinate an Organi-
zation of Teams” later in this chapter). We believe that two such skills are
particularly important across sectors and industries at all levels: adapt-
ability and emotional intelligence.
Claudio Fernández-Aráoz, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business
School and an experienced recruiting professional, provides useful guid-
ance on recruiting adaptable leaders in his HBR article “21st-Century Tal-
ent Spotting.” Fernández-Aráoz argues that rather than technical skill or
specific knowledge, the most critical characteristic that leaders should look
for in selecting people is potential, “the ability to adapt to and grow into
increasingly complex roles and environments.” This approach recognizes
the pace of change in a global, digital world in which the skills and compe-
tencies important in the past might not be relevant for future challenges.
Emotional intelligence is also increasingly seen as critical for leaders
across functions, especially as organizations become flatter and managing
in a collaborative way becomes more crucial. Daniel Goleman and his col-
leagues’ pioneering research has shown that leaders who are aware of their
and others’ emotions and who are able to moderate their own emotional
responses also have more ability to create great organizations and teams.
(Goleman and his coauthors describe the hallmarks of emotional leader-
ship in their classic HBR articles “What Makes a Leader?” and “Primal
Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance.”)
Finding people who meet your criteria doesn’t mean that all your direct
reports need to look alike, act alike, or think alike. Recruiting people with
complementary and diverse skills is equally important. As a leader, you