Unearthing leadership skills; Getting past the polished exterior

Changing requirements for leadership roles highlight six?new?skills emerging, with expanding capabilities sought from the C-Suite and leadership teams. The Association of Executive Search and Leadership Consultants (AESC) reported these as Adaptability, Agility, Innovation, Communication, Collaboration, and Customer Centricity. We know that resilience and empathy are also highly sought.?

How do you look past the resume and the polished exterior to get to these???

One thing they all have in common: you can’t ask simple questions to get them (after all, who would say no?).

Our Assessment partners at Ascent Leadership Networks, LLC share these three steps:

1. Identify?how people do what they do: the?pattern of behaviours?that prove the skills exist in a person.
2. Measure the?levels of behaviours?present in the individuals since they hold a wide range of skills. Collaboration looks different in project team members than in international diplomats. And C-suite positions in multinationals often act as international diplomats!
3. Finally,?match skill levels?to role requirements?based on the demands of the position, its size and scope, and what high performance requires. Different strategic contexts demand different levels of these skills to sustain significant results. You can have great people who are not right for a given role.

Fortunately, extensive research has provided us with the key sets of behaviours found in various C-suite positions, and thanks to our partners Stephen Kelner , Ziva Mann , who know how to measure them reliably and provide transparent metrics through a variety of tools and methods.