When embarking on a global executive search, your company will likely find individuals who have not actually served in a CEO position before but are still worthy of it. How can you tell if someone has what it takes if they haven't been the head of a business before? The key is to determine whether or not they've ever imagined what they would do in a chief executive role.
In a piece from 2012, Jason Nazar of DocStoc said that thinking ahead is an effective way for employees at any level of a company to start realizing their own potential. Something as simple as imagining how they might dress or walk as the CEO could help transform them into a more natural leader.
Conversely, sitting CEOs should do whatever they can to put employees in situations where they have to make leadership decisions. Nazar says this is a crucial responsibility of higher management.
"As the leader of a company, you often don't have a path of what to do, you just need to identify the important things that need to get done and find a way to do it," he writes. "Put someone in a leadership position, give them a meaningful goal, they have to figure out how to do it."
By taking the time to picture themselves in charge, workers think realistically about what the ideal CEO should be like. A person who lacks C-level experience on paper can make up for it if he or she has devoted enough serious thought to the idea.
Use a recruiter to find a candidate who has not only thought long and hard about being a CEO but is willing to help others think about it, too.
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