Colin Powell on Leadership

Lesson #13 "Powell's Rules for Picking People":  Look for intelligence and judgment, and most critically, a capacity to anticipate, to see around corners.  Also look for loyalty, integrity, a high energy drive, a balanced ego, and the drive to get things done.

How often do our recruitment and hiring processes tap into these attributes?  More often than not, we ignore them in favor of length of resume, degrees and prior titles.  A string of job descriptions a recruit held yesterday seem to be more important than who one is today, what they can contribute tomorrow, or how well their values mesh with those of the organization.  You can train a bright, willing novice in the fundamentals of your business fairly readily, but it's a lot harder to train someone to have integrity, judgment, energy, balance, and the drive to get things done.  Good leaders stack the deck in their favor right in the recruitment phase.