How can you identify potential leaders outside of your organization?

1 Define your leadership criteria

Before you start looking for potential leaders outside of your organization, you need to have a clear idea of what kind of leader you are looking for. What are the skills, competencies, behaviors, and attitudes that you expect from your leaders? How do they match with your organizational goals, values, and culture? How do they differ from your current leaders? Having a well-defined leadership criteria can help you narrow down your search and focus on the most relevant and qualified candidates.

2 Use multiple sources and channels

To identify potential leaders outside of your organization, you need to use multiple sources and channels to reach out to them and learn more about them. For example, you can leverage your existing contacts in professional networks and associations related to your industry, function, or interest. Additionally, social media and online platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Medium can be used to find and follow potential leaders. Talent databases and platforms such as Indeed, Glassdoor, or AngelList can also be used to search for potential leaders. Moreover, external recruiters and agencies can be employed to identify and reach out to individuals who may not be actively looking for a job or who may be working for competitors. Finally, agencies that specialize in executive search, diversity and inclusion, or leadership development can also be utilized.

3 Assess their potential and fit

Once you have identified potential leaders outside of your organization, you need to assess their potential and fit for your organization. To do so, interviews can be conducted to ask questions about their background, achievements, challenges, motivations, values, and goals. Additionally, assessments such as personality tests, aptitude tests, psychometric tests, case studies, simulations, or role plays can be used to measure their traits, abilities, or preferences relevant to your leadership criteria. Furthermore, references and feedback from their previous or current employers, colleagues, clients or partners as well as team members, stakeholders or customers who may have interacted with them during the hiring process can be used to verify their achievements, skills, competencies, behaviors and attitudes.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?