Ideas for making better leadership decisions.

Before a search starts, leaders should be able to answer five questions: What must change? What outcomes define success? Which decisions will this leader own? Which stakeholders can make or break the mandate? What leadership pattern will fit the situation?

If those answers are vague, candidate evaluation tends to become a contest of impressive backgrounds rather than a comparison against the work that actually matters.

When two candidates are credible, the answer is rarely found by counting years of experience. Compare the evidence against the specific environment: pace of change, operating complexity, stakeholder expectations, scale, ambiguity and the leadership team already in place.

The question is not who is “better” in the abstract. It is who is more likely to create value in this mandate.