Can you identify tomorrow’s business leaders with certainty?
Appointing a first-time or future leader to your senior leadership team can be valuable and rewarding, but also risky. If an individual has no track record in a leadership position, is there a way to truly tell whether they’re ready for Board level, or whether they have the potential to step up in the future?
The answer is yes – and it is something Rowan has done time and again.
Our consultants have an intimate understanding of the owner/founder market and have worked extensively in supporting clients to match future leaders to their senior leadership team requirements, supported by our proprietary ‘Leadership Dynamics’ solutions suite.
This suite includes the PACE behavioural assessment tool, which has identified the typical profiles of business leaders across multiple SME verticals. The PACE tool can identify what good looks like by enabling Rowan consultants to undertake analysis of high growth businesses, and their senior leadership teams, within a Client’s peer group. The data-driven insights provided by the Leadership Dynamics product suite allow us to identify – objectively – which mid to senior-level candidates would make the best matches for our client with a view to future leadership. In particular those candidates who have the behaviours and capabilities to work within a PE invested business.
How does it do this?
Leadership Dynamics has assessed 7,000 transactions and the leadership teams in these companies, and has defined leadership archetypes based on this data. These archetypes form part of the PACE behavioural analysis tool which shows that high performing individuals and leadership teams score more highly than the general population against four specific behaviours;
Pragmatism: Outcome oriented behaviours that lead to strong self-belief in the capacity to effect meaningful change
Agility: The desire to continually re-evaluate the market and be ready to pivot and change to maximise current and future opportunities.
Curiosity: Divergent thinkers who are unfazed by uncertainty, comfortable with ambiguity and view problems as a world of possibilities.
Execution: The ability to put ideas into action and get the job done! A strong sense of personal responsibility these individuals are highly motivated by outcomes.
A more junior candidate that displays this behavioural profile would be a good candidate for a future or first-time leader. Balancing functional experience with a strong leadership behavioural profile can deliver an individual that, with the right professional development and access to certain opportunities, can be the exact right match now, and in the future.
Rowan are able to take the guesswork out of appointing first-time and future leaders, by deriving data-driven insights with our proprietary ‘Leadership Dynamics’ technology solutions suite. This complements our years of experience, deep candidate networks and best-in-class search and assessment process.
We can help you create value by identifying your own future leaders who can optimise the current team or finding the right individuals to bring in to deliver fresh ideas and divergent thinking. If you’re interested in understanding more about the potential in the existing talent within your business, or you’re looking to strengthen your leadership teams, get in touch with a member of our team today.
