When you look at any company that’s killing it in its sector, there’s one thing you can count on at the executive level. It’s not just a great product. It’s not one crazy visionary. It’s that they’ve created a world-class executive team with each position filled by someone who has something special to contribute.
Most organizations treat executive hiring as a one-off event. A position comes open and there is a mad dash to fill it and hope for the best. But organizations that consistently outperform develop a new approach to building a leadership team.
The Chemistry Component Not Widely Considered
What’s interesting, too, is that you can have five incredibly capable executives on paper and it’ll never work. Yes, there’s the importance of technical skills in the right areas, but the companies doing this best are paying just as much attention to how that leadership team actually functions.
Think about it this way: if you’re creating a band, you don’t just get the five greatest musicians at random and expect them to sound great together. You need people who can listen, people whose rhythms complement one another and whose musical ears align with what’s being created.
The best companies spend adequate time determining what’s lacking from their current leadership dynamics before they even draft a job description. Maybe they’re great with strategic thinking but lack execution practitioners. Maybe they have a lot of operational experts but not much in terms of innovative thinkers. They figure out what’s missing first.
Going Outside of the Box
There’s a tendency for companies to go on a very short list when searching for executives to fill positions. People who have the same titles in similar companies appear to be safe bets. However, the companies creating truly world-class teams are open to wherever they may find good candidates.
For example, some of the best CFOs come from backgrounds in consulting, and some of the best COOs have never been a COO before. It doesn’t matter the title before; what matters is whether the previous component exists sufficiently to create what is needed now.
This is where bringing on specialists in executive search makes all the difference. They’re connected to talent who are not actively seeking an opportunity and they’re able to assess potential beyond something as simple as a resume. Therefore, your ideal leaders for your company might be so happy in their existing positions that they’re not even looking yet can most definitely be persuaded if approached correctly.
Diversity for the Win
When companies have homogeneous leadership teams, they make similar decisions time and time again. They have the same blind spots and approach potential opportunities and risks through the same lens.
Companies creating world-class executive teams intentionally find people from diverse backgrounds who can bring different perspectives to the table—and we’re not just talking about demographics. We’re talking about people who have worked for different companies, with different challenges and experience thinking about problems in different ways.
If everyone was previously on the same path through three different business schools and then all became promoted through similar corporate chains, it’s unlikely they’ll have anything beyond a narrow playbook to draw from. In contrast, someone who’s built a startup, someone’s who turned around a broken division, someone who’s scaled operations abroad, someone who’s led through industry-wide disruption? The sky’s the limit.
Investing in Transition
When hiring executives, most companies want to transition these new hires into their roles yesterday. They’ll set up a week of meetings for acclimation and then throw them into the deep end. The best companies treat this transitional onboarding period like it’s worth months of deliberation and real investment.
They create scheduled time for connecting with every relevant stakeholder. They carve out opportunities for relationship building among the leadership team. They specify cultural norms and implicit rules. They provide mentors or sounding boards to flesh out context along the way.
This is more valuable than people realize. An executive who’s aware of who to go to for what after having established rapport with peers is going to be productive far sooner than someone who’s left on their own accord because “everyone else had to learn the hard way.” Companies fail this way all the time without realizing it; their talented executives can no longer gain traction quickly enough and questions arise as to why it was a bad hire in the first place.
Encouraging Healthy Conflict
This might go against popular opinion, but the best companies find their executive teams arguing constructively (not destructively). The best companies creating these successful leadership teams appreciate when there is active, strategic debate about strategy, priorities and decisions—and they’re willing to put mechanisms into place where this conflict is inevitable.
It’s counterproductive when everyone is playing nice in meetings only to go back into their departments and do what they’d like with their earlier suggestions ignored. That’s not cohesion, that’s avoidance. When teams work well together, they can have heated discussions in the room and then unanimously agree to execute something they’re personally not behind.
But this doesn’t happen easily; it requires highly secure leaders who can champion ideas without ego attachment and with respect for other people’s competence in their specialties as well. Therefore, hiring executives needs to assess not only competence but also culture fit for this sort of dynamic.
Looking Beyond What’s Next
Companies with tremendous executive teams aren’t operating on what’s good for them today; they’re considering their options three-to-five years down the line. What skills will we need as we further penetrate other markets? What leaders will we need if we pivot this way? Who’s ready for promotion among our internal team versus who’ll definitely be an outsider?
This means having serious discussions about succession planning before a crisis emerges; this means being honest that some executives may no longer be able to grow with the company versus reporting back two weeks after someone announces retirement; this means making tough choices now so there aren’t proactive choices made later when an executive isn’t even doing a bad job in their current role.
The best organizations treat executive-level composition as a strategic priority that needs constant review—not just when someone resigns or retires or a gifted junior leader emerges without any preparedness ahead of time.
The Payoff for Getting It Right
When you’ve developed an actual world-class executive team, everything else becomes easier by proxy. Strategic execution becomes easier because people know what they’re doing and are aligned; innovation becomes easier because top-level thinkers appreciate diverse sectors; speed becomes enhanced because everyone trusts everyone else without extensive vetting required time and time again.
Even better, it creates a moat around your organization that others find difficult to replicate. Other organizations can copy your product; they can duplicate your business model. But they can’t easily duplicate your specialized talent combined with specific chemistry that’s placed on high a pedestal with leadership priorities given overwhelming attention.
When companies realize this, they don’t leave executive building components up to chance. They do it intentionally, strategically, knowing they’re going to take their time and put in the financial resources necessary to create something great because otherwise it’s foolish down the line if it’s done half-heartedly from inception.
This is what separates good companies from great companies.
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