Insights
Mercuri Urval: How to Solve the Diversity Problem When Recruiting Your Next Leader?
Given the huge importance of succesful leadership, it is alarming that close to half of all leader appointments fail soon after being made.
As one team of scientists, who published their research in 2022, put it: “These days, ‘Success rates’ in executive appointment equate to a ‘coin flip.’” The recruitment approach most often used, conventional Executive Search, clearly has a Performance Problem. A main contributor to this Performance Problem is the Diversity Problem. Different types of relevant people are not systematically included in conventional Executive Search work in the first place, whilst others have special access.
This over reliance on connections and status means “the club” of potential candidates — those in or close to the Headhunters black book or database — is restricted.