Effective leadership is critical to any organization. When trying to fill leadership roles — that is, management positions — you likely look for candidates with experience in your industry or sector. Ideally, of course, you’d probably love to find someone who knows the ins and outs of your specific organization.
The good news is that this individual may be sitting just down the hall. Promoting current, nonsupervisory employees to management positions can fulfill the employment needs of many organizations. You’ve just got to follow the right recipe.
Key ingredients
There are a couple of key ingredients to every internal management hire. One is an expressed desire to ascend to a management position. Although ambition alone doesn’t guarantee the employee will be an effective manager, it helps weed out those who are undecided, ambivalent or uninterested in taking on a supervisory role.
Another key ingredient is “actions over words.” An employee who has already assumed an informal leadership role among peers, and isn’t resented by co-workers for having done so, is likely a strong candidate. This suggests a basic capacity to take on more responsibility as well as a tendency to look out for peers.
Invaluable spices
With these two ingredients in the pot, so to speak, you can then select a variety of spices to help ensure a successful internal management hire. These may include:
Mastery of the current job. An employee who wants to move up before having demonstrated a high level of proficiency at his or her current job might lack the patience and stamina required of a strong supervisor.
Consistently exceeds expectations. Employees who typically go above and beyond can, by example alone, raise the bar for the people they supervise.
Exercises creativity. An employee who has demonstrated an ability to apply original solutions to solve problems can be a versatile supervisor.
Shows accountability. Supervisors need to have the self-confidence to acknowledge mistakes without defensiveness.
Many delectable benefits
Internal management hires can provide experienced, motivated employees. In addition, they show other staff members that your organization offers upwardly mobile career paths. Plus, promoting internally often lowers hiring costs by accelerating the process of finding and vetting the job candidate. We can help you identify hiring strategies that strengthen your workforce while controlling the expense of doing so.
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