Recruiting natural leaders

Read an interesting article in "The Zweig Letter" concerning the important role recruitment plays in finding future leaders of your firm. This is an industry newsletter geared toward the A/E and Environmental Consulting field but has some interesting perspectives that trancend industry. In this article the author contends that there are certain topics and lines of questioning that can be used during the interview process to identify "natural" leaders. I would go further and contend that beyond this, you should consider regularly assessing current employees in these areas.

• Taking Charge
• Academic Leadership
• Work Ethic
• Entrepreneurialism
• Risk-Taking
• Problem Solving
• People People
• Communication
• Career Progression
• Adaptability

In general, it's somewhat hard to disagree with the points made in this article. Most would readily agree that someone who excels in these areas would very likely be a successful leader. The part of this article which was most interesting to me were the examples given for discerning a person's capabilities in the areas listed above. I believe that a person's reaction to a question such as, "Have you every had an idea for an invention?" would actually give you a good indication of whether the candidate has some entrepreneur instincts or creative problem-solving traits. For me, this is where the preverbial 'rubber meets the road', i.e. how do you go about ascertaining whether a candidate, or even current employee has natural leadership potential? In my company, I can tell you there is nothing formal established either in the recuriting process (such as scripted interviewing questions) or employee performance appraisals to evaluate people in these types of areas.

The full article can be accessed at: http://www.zweigwhite.com/trends/thezweigletter/index.asp