Whether they are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company or the manager of an ad agency, an executive’s job is to manage people, lead projects, and make decisions. The ability to do that well requires leadership skills and vision, as well as the courage to take risks when necessary.
As the highest-ranking members of an organization, executives wield tremendous power and must be able to communicate their vision to employees at every level. During your interview, ask the candidate to describe a time when they were able to sell their ideas or direction to a large group of people. Then, pay attention to their body language and tone of voice. If they are able to keep the audience engaged, then they likely have good leadership and communication skills.
Effective executives are skilled delegators who empower their team to solve problems and advance the organization. In order to do so, they need to understand the responsibilities of each role and how they can best be accomplished. In addition, they know how to build relationships with everyone on their team and respect each person’s talents. Lastly, they have the courage to speak up when a problem arises.
They can be highly demanding of themselves and their teams Third Eye Capital, but they are able to translate their own high expectations into actions that are achievable. They also know how to delegate, which allows them to focus on tasks they will be able to perform well at. This gives their colleagues the confidence to work with them and shows that they care about their success.
When a new challenge or project presents itself, an effective executive is able to identify the desired results, possible restraints, future revisions, check-in points, and implications for how they’ll spend their time. This allows them to quickly and accurately decide what steps to take. If they do not have the answer immediately, they are able to research and find it.
They are willing to take comparative risks and will own up when they fail. This is important because it is the only way to drive innovation within an organization. When a candidate can explain how they have taken risk in the past and what they learned from the failure, you can feel confident that they will be able to handle similar situations in the future.
Despite their huge salaries and benefits, executives still have to deal with the same type of risk that regular employees do. Your next great leader should be able to make decisions with limited information and have the courage to own up to mistakes that may affect other employees and customers.