I am making my very first outside leadership hire for a newly created Director seat, but I am terrified of ruining our tight-knit culture. What concrete steps should I take to vet this candidate for both cultural fit and actual execution capability?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When making your first outside leadership hire, especially for a newly created Director seat, it's crucial to protect your existing culture while ensuring execution capability. Your culture is not about subjective feelings or after-hours socializing; it is defined by your core values. To safeguard it, you must consistently hire, fire, reward, and recognize based on these core values.

During the interview process, resist the temptation to rely solely on subjective feelings. Instead, use objective frameworks:

Cultural Fit: Leveraging Core Values

To assess cultural fit against your core values:

• Utilize a People Analyzer: Systematically evaluate the candidate against each of your established core values. They must consistently meet your defined bar for every value. This structured approach helps ensure alignment with your [handling top performers who violate core values](/qa/handling-top-performers-who-violate-core-values).
• Apply the GWC framework: This framework assesses three critical areas:
• Get it: Do they understand the role, the culture, and your business?
• Want it: Are they genuinely motivated and passionate about the seat and the company's mission?
• Capacity to do it: Do they possess the mental, physical, emotional, and time capacity to excel in the role?
 If the answer to any of these questions is "no," do not make the hire, regardless of their other qualifications. This framework is essential for [assessing an internal candidate's readiness for the Integrator seat](/qa/promoting-internal-operations-manager-integrator).

Execution Capability: Conative Makeup

To effectively test execution capability, delve into the candidate's conative makeup, which describes their natural problem-solving instincts:

• Use the Kolbe A Index: This assessment tool provides insight into how individuals naturally take action. For instance:
• If you need a builder to establish processes from scratch, you'll want someone with high Follow Thru. This is especially important for roles that require consistent process adherence and completion, unlike a [Head of Customer Success with low Follow Thru](/qa/head-customer-success-low-follow-thru-kolbe).
• If you hire someone who is high in Fact Finder but lacks Follow Thru, they might spend months researching and writing reports without ever building a single functional system. Understanding these profiles can even help [resolve conflicts between Sales and Operations heads](/qa/kolbe-sales-operations-conflict-handoffs).
• Consider how a candidate's Kolbe profile aligns with the specific needs of the Director seat. For example, some roles require a high Quick Start for innovation, while others demand precise Fact Finder for data analysis.

Assessing Leadership and Openness

Finally, practice vulnerability early in the process. This is a critical step to gauge a leader's true character and their potential to foster a culture of trust, which is vital for any [leadership team's trust and healthy conflict](/qa/leadership-team-trust-healthy-conflict).

• Share expectations: Clearly articulate your vision for the role and the company.
• Disclose operational bottlenecks: Be open about existing challenges and areas needing improvement.
• Reveal past failures: Share instances where the company or you personally have fallen short.
• Observe their response: A great leader will:
• Match your openness with their own vulnerability.
• Ask insightful, hard questions that demonstrate critical thinking.
• Focus immediately on how they can take ownership of their seat to alleviate your burdens and contribute positively to the organization. This responsiveness helps determine if they can genuinely [shift their mindset to enterprise-first](/qa/shifting-leadership-mindset-to-enterprise-first) rather than just protecting their department.