Importance of Leadership Assessment in the Recruitment Business

In all businesses and organisations, the performance, success and longevity depends on its leaders. Leaders at different capacities are responsible for the running of the business as well as key decision making that either make or break the business. Leadership assessment is the process of identifying and describing individuals’ abilities and skills as they pertain to leading, managing and directing others and how such abilities and skills fit into their leadership positions. Leadership assessment takes account of present and future ability of a given position.

Leadership assessment gives a general idea of your ability as a leader in any capacity and allows the individual or the company to know the kind of leadership skills they have in the most constructive way. Leadership assessment in the recruitment business may focus on personal skills or business management, but it is also used to gauge your leadership strengths and when you need to improve to tackle new challenges in the industry.

The major leadership role in the recruitment business is to continuously scan and analyze the external business environment so as to identify the factors or trends that could affect the business and drive results over a long period of time through people. Leadership assessment provides an accurate evaluation of competence and potential ability of a given individual.

Why Is Leadership Assessment Important?

·         Know More About You Or Your Business Management Skills – An effective leadership assessment will inform you on who you are, or who your management team is. This is one important element towards the growth of becoming a better leader or having better leaders in the business. Self-awareness of personal qualities and skills can greatly improve how you lead a recruitment agency or others who are under you.

·         Regular Assessment At Different Levels – The recruitment industry is rapidly changing and so is the rest of the business world. For this reason, any recruitment business needs global leadership with the ability to change according to the emerging trends. Also employers are looking for leaders who can easily change to adopt to the changes in their specific line of business. This calls for continuous learning, so as to gain new skills for new challenges. Leaders therefore need to assess their ability regularly, so as to identify areas where they need training. This is applicable especially for functional managers, senior executives and other business managers.

·         Developing A Leadership Plan – Leadership assessment is also important in developing a business leadership plan. It allows the company to appraise abilities of leaders at different levels, so as to lead different departments and projects. It also assists the HR to identify any gaps in its leadership team, and helps in building a solid and realistic succession plan. It also ensures that the business has the right people with the exact competence at the precise time to ensure continuity of leadership.

Ensuring Board Effectiveness and Proficiency

Due to the ever-changing and volatile economic environment, the demand for board members has increased. It is therefore important to ensure that the board has the ability to work together effectively so as to succeed in such a hostile global economy. To increase and maintain effectiveness and proficiency of the boarding guiding your recruitment business, you need to consider the following factors:

·         Diversity Of The Board Members – Through a quality leadership assessment, you should ensure that the board has the right mix of members from diverse backgrounds and whose skills, experience and knowledge can be used collaboratively for the success of the business.

·         Board Composition Alignment – With diversity transformation objectives and with a business strategic focus.

·         Inclusion Of Non-Executive Directors – Sourcing, screening and appointment of non-executive directors to the board.

·         Consultancy – Consider specialist input into key board sub-committees.

Other issues may include strong succession plan for the board members through leadership development, talent search and mapping, interim replacement and recruitment skills training among other strategies.

The 360 degree Leadership Assessment

This is a leadership assessment method, which has proved to be very effective in the transformation of executive leaders, hence improved performance of the team and the business. It involves obtaining the perception of individual leadership strengths and areas where they need to improve from a number of colleagues – could be several peers, top managers and the overall boss within the company. To obtain a sincere feedback on the impact you have on the people around you, you need to first create a strong relationships with your people. 3600 assessment helps to identify areas where you need to improve, and you can take your time to analyze and reflect over the feedback before taking a step towards change. From the feedback, you can develop a personal leadership development plan to obtain the skills necessary to create effective work relationships with the people around you.

This is a good way to ensure that you practice what you say, have a strong teamwork, and move in right direction for the better of the business.