Whether or not a new hire is in a managerial position is arbitrary; leadership is about taking responsibility for your contributions and taking accountability when miscommunication occurs. When conducting the interview process, it’s important to evaluate whether or not a promising job candidate is eager to develop their own leadership skills and grow as someone who works toward long-term growth for themselves, their peers, and their company. Here are some key ways to identify strong leadership potential and a few reasons why it’s important.

Effective Communication That Promotes Team Synergy

Communication is a core responsibility of a leader because it is a catalyst for development. An employee that values discussions about how a project should turn out, what contributions they intend to make, and their areas of improvement is an employee that craves growth, for themselves and their co-workers.

Communication is a core leadership metric, as it’s a skill that promotes understanding, healthy collaboration, and improvement. Good leaders promote and practice open, honest, and productive conversations. This practice is in the discussion of new projects, task delegation, or employee feedback. Leaders know how to deliver critical feedback, breaking project developments, and team setbacks in a manner that inspires confidence and assures forward movement. This is a difficult skill that is not easy to master. Though, a potential new employee’s desire to hone this skill is a good sign for the future of your workplace.

Poor communication can be identified in a few different ways. It can be a lack of communication, like choosing not to address an issue or a roadblock when it arises. Or it could be an inappropriate use of communication. This may present itself when the speaker’s tone, word choice, and expression are not supportive of their peers. A new hire’s awareness of their communication patterns, such as where they excel and where they could improve, is an important detail to inquire about.

If a candidate is not making admissions about previous workplace conflicts, explaining gaps in their resumé, or if they’re unable to clearly outline the strengths of their communication style, they may not be a right fit for a full-time position. Constantly striving toward transparent communication is the practice of a good leader. Working with a staffing agency service can ensure a thorough evaluation of a wide array of quality job-seekers.

Conflict Resolution Skills

Assessing a potential new hire’s conflict resolution skills is a fundamental part of the typical job interview. It’s a well-known interview question that indicates a candidate’s history of communication skills, empathy, and willingness to find an understanding with a fellow co-worker.

Sometimes, gaps in communication can create conflict between team members. Misunderstandings and lack of one-on-one rapport are examples of communication gaps that are at the root of workplace conflicts. Frank, self-aware acknowledgments of where a conflict arose, how it impacted each party, and how to avoid it in the future are pieces of a candidate’s answer that indicate how well they will fit into your team. While this is a skill that can always be developed, it’s in the company’s best interest to opt for a candidate that demonstrates quality conflict resolution skills now. Whether you’re using headhunters to staff or a staffing agency service, be sure to establish conflict resolution as a skill essential to your workplace.

Decision-Making Skills

Businesses move quickly. Projects move quickly. Making decisions on the fly and performing under tight deadlines and sudden circumstances is key to any employee, whether or not they are in a leadership position. Shifting client demands, budget changes, or timeline challenges will demand a level of clear thinking that assesses long-term solutions and ways to implement them. A strong leader understands the expectations that others have of them and their decision-making skills.

Quick yet thoughtful decision-making is also not a skill that comes easily. Willingness to trial-and-error the practice of assured decision-making and solution-finding under pressure is the mark of a new employee’s leadership potential. A workforce leader is capable of steering others in the right direction with good ideas and solid plans, with a level of confidence in oneself’s skill.

If you’re hiring through a recruiter staffing agency, you can formulate a questionnaire or test of sorts to evaluate how well a candidate can make decisions under pressure.

Being Adaptable and Embracing Failure

No matter how much a project’s timeline is mapped out, failure is still entirely possible. Hardly anything is 100% failure-proof, and the smaller, more technical aspects of a task or project can be causes for plan deviation. That’s why it’s important for an employee to demonstrate the ability to adapt to ever-changing circumstances. Making suggestions of solutions, re-adjusting their personal work strategy, as well as lending a helping hand to co-workers with a heavier workload can make or break how well a team navigates hardship.

Adaptability to ongoing changes is vital, and so is adaptability to less-than-favorable results. When a project, client relationship, or pitch doesn’t produce a satisfactory outcome, how does a potential candidate move forward? What adjustments do they make to their workflow and task prioritization? Are they aware of where they could improve? Do they demonstrate the ability to learn from their mistakes and grow as a collaborator? A solid leader is capable of addressing each of these questions and formulating a long-term course correction.

When recruiting new hires, it’s important to have them ask candidates about instances where they fell short of their goals. How did they move forward? Their response will be telling of their personal relationship with failure and overall attitude when confronted with setbacks. Making an in-depth questionnaire with the help of a staffing agency service can guide you in making qualified hiring decisions.

Prioritizing Positivity and Praise

Teams look to a leader that inspires action and acknowledges the workforce’s accomplishments as often as they acknowledge areas of improvement. This quality is crucial on an individual level as well. Respect is a foundational aspect of team synergy, and it’s important that each member of a workforce feels respected. The practice of praising where a fellow co-worker is excelling should not be taken for granted, as it is just as effective as acknowledging shortcomings. Practices such as these start from the top. A great leader knows how to set the tone and mold the company’s culture to include, benefit, and showcase everyone’s value.

When looking for a new hire, it’s important to inquire about what qualities of your company they admire. Specifically, what about your company’s culture do they align with? What value do they find in praise and positive feedback? 60% of recruiters value how a potential employee might fit in with the culture of the company above all other prerequisites. If you fall into this percentage of recruiters, consider working with a staffing agency service to create a recruitment process that tests these qualities.

The skills required of a strong leader are not exclusive to managerial positions; they are developed throughout the entirety of one’s career. Leadership prioritizes growth, for those they lead and for the business as a whole. Assessing how well a candidate can express their current leadership skills, and how they plan on developing them even further is a key component in your future hiring decisions. If you’re looking for one of the best staffing agencies in Philadelphia for your business’s hiring needs, contact Kane Partners today. We are a staffing agency service that guarantees high-quality search assistance that will help you fulfill full-time positions at your great company.