Need to hire?
Align talents with mission
Align talents with mission
A quick read through leadership articles on hiring will offer completely conflicting advice. Some emphasize “getting the right people on the bus” while others insist on clearly defining the role before hiring. In reality, strong leaders know the answer usually lies somewhere in the middle. The challenge is discerning whether you are thoughtfully aligning a person’s gifts with organizational needs – or unintentionally reshaping a role around a specific individual that might not serve the mission.
Here are three questions to help guide this discernment.
A quick read through leadership articles on hiring will offer completely conflicting advice. Some emphasize “getting the right people on the bus” while others insist on clearly defining the role before hiring. In reality, strong leaders know the answer usually lies somewhere in the middle. The challenge is discerning whether you are thoughtfully aligning a person’s gifts with organizational needs – or unintentionally reshaping a role around a specific individual that might not serve the mission.
Here are three questions to help guide this discernment.
What is the organization losing or giving up by tailoring a role for this person?
No person is 100% right for any role. What we need is not a perfect fit, but the best fit. Be sure to honestly and thoroughly consider what the organization will gain and what might be sacrificed. If the sacrifice outweighs the gain, it may be worth pausing to consider if you’re settling with this hire or compromising the organization.
Would I hire for this role again if this person moves on?
If the answer is no, why not? How would the role change or be filled with someone new? No one is irreplaceable, so it’s important to think about how the functions being filled would continue (or if they need to continue) in this person’s absence.
Am I trying to create possibility or mitigate challenge?
Often – especially in resource-constrained organizations – we tend to adjust roles to try and keep people from leaving; we may reduce responsibilities to retain someone who wants part-time work, or reshape duties to compensate for performance gaps. Are you mitigating immediate challenges that will only create more down the road?
It is essential to get the right people on the bus. It’s also important to be intentional about the seats you have for them. When leaders thoughtfully discern both the organization’s needs and the individual’s gifts and talents, they avoid forcing a “square peg into a round hole” and create a team that strengthens mission and draws out the best in each member of the team.
Dan Cellucci is the CEO of the Catholic Leadership Institute.
