How Leadership Assessment Can Help You to Select and Onboard High-Performing Leaders

Selecting the right senior leaders is one of the most crucial responsibilities for boards of directors and their businesses. Senior executives set the tone for the organisation, shape company culture, guide strategy, and directly influence performance. Despite this, many organisations continue to rely on outdated selection processes, informal ‘interviews’, and gut instincts to choose successors for key roles.

Using robust, evidence-based leadership assessment is vital in ensuring organisations select high-performing leaders who align with their specific needs and values. A comprehensive leadership assessment looks beyond a candidate’s career history and headline successes to uncover key attributes such as leadership styles, decision-making abilities, emotional intelligence, and role and culture fit. This approach enables more informed decision-making and significantly reduces risks associated with senior appointments.

Key Benefits of Leadership Assessment

Leadership assessment brings a range of benefits, including:

A clear view of candidate strengths to leverage
Insights into any risks or gaps, allowing better management
The ability to quantify performance, role-fit, and potential for easier candidate comparison
An assessment of cultural alignment with the organisation’s values
Insights useful for onboarding, development, and succession planning
Data to support succession planning and talent management efforts

The very best executive leadership approaches incorporate leadership assessments into the hiring process. This benefits not only the hiring company but also the candidates, who receive in-depth feedback, underscoring how seriously the organisation approaches senior hiring and onboarding.

Benefits of Leadership Assessment in Senior Hiring

1. Ensure Cultural Fit

One of the most significant benefits of a leadership assessment is the ability to evaluate a candidate’s alignment with your company’s mission, values, and culture. Leaders who resonate with company culture will integrate more effectively, inspire teams, and drive positive outcomes. Without this fit, even the most technically skilled leaders may struggle to lead effectively and thrive in their new role.

2. Evaluate Objectively

Leadership assessments provide objective data, reducing the potential for unconscious bias in the hiring process. Structured assessments like behavioral interviews, psychometric tests, and case studies offer a comprehensive view of candidates, grounding decisions in facts rather than gut feel. Third-party assessments also enable fair comparisons between internal and external candidates, highlighting that all talent receives serious consideration.

3. Predict Leadership Impact

A robust leadership assessment process helps predict a candidate’s future performance by evaluating their ability to handle complex scenarios, make critical decisions, and lead effectively. By employing science-based tools, organisations can better predict leadership impact and reduce the risk of hiring for senior roles based solely on interview performance.

4. Optimise Onboarding and Compliance

Leadership assessments provide valuable insights into a new leader’s strengths and developmental needs, helping to craft a personalised onboarding plan. For regulated industries, these assessments also offer data to evidence why a particular candidate was chosen and to document a structured onboarding plan.

Actions to Integrate Leadership Assessment into Your Hiring Process

1. Define Key Leadership Competencies

Before beginning the search, define both technical skills and leadership qualities required for the role, such as emotional intelligence, resilience, adaptability, and cultural fit. There will typically be a long list, but the key is to focus on the five to seven most critical behaviours above all else – the things that will separate outstanding from average performance. The Boyden team draws on our proprietary Boyden Leadership Framework which comprises nine leadership competencies that have the biggest impact on performance at senior levels, based on research by leading academics from the University of St Gallen in Switzerland. The framework is informed by more than 500 interviews with CEOs and board members.

2. Use Psychometric Testing

Introduce standardised psychometric tests to assess each candidate’s cognitive abilities (abstract reasoning is most relevant for senior roles), personality traits, and emotional intelligence. These profiling tools can provide insight into a leader’s behavioural preferences and how they are likely to approach problem-solving, manage stress, and interact with and lead others. The Boyden team uses a range of tools including PROPHET, a unique, business-focused psychometric that provides insights into motivation, decision-making styles, and inclinations for different business ‘roles’.

3. Incorporate Behavioural Interviews

Semi-structured behavioural interviews that ask candidates to describe in fine detail how they’ve handled specific leadership challenges in the recent past are a strong predicter of future behaviour and performance. They must be conducted by trained, accredited leadership consultants who are experienced at navigating in-depth, confidential conversations. The insight provided from this type of interview is invaluable and unparalleled whilst creating a positive candidate experience – important for your (and Boyden’s) employer brand.

4. Use 360-Degree Feedback

For internal candidates, 360-degree feedback can provide a more holistic view of their leadership impact, identifying blind spots or hidden strengths that can be cross-referenced with psychometric and behavioural interview data.

5. Utilise Case Studies Focusing on Leadership

Case study presentations often form part of the selection process for senior roles. However, these typically focus on technical ability and solutions – for example how the candidate would develop new products, manage risk or optimise operations. Design case studies with an equal focus on leadership, change management and cultural alignment to get a comprehensive understanding of each candidate’s potential to drive growth and transformation.

6. Plan Post-Hire Onboarding and Development

After hiring, provide feedback to all candidates and use the leadership assessment data to shape the onboarding and development of successful hires. By identifying the leader’s strengths and areas for growth, you can provide targeted, practical support during their first months beyond the standard onboarding process. One example is the PROPHET Pivotal Relationship Report which looks at the successful candidate’s personality profile compared to their new line manager – helpful for identifying common traits and complementary strengths.

Conclusion

Incorporating robust, expert-led and evidence-based leadership assessment into the hiring process is essential for selecting and onboarding senior leaders who will drive growth and long-term success while enhancing company culture. These tools will help you to make objective, informed decisions whilst managing the substantial risks associated with senior appointments. Assessment will help you strengthen your employer brand – ultimately candidates will appreciate a company’s commitment to evaluating talent thoughtfully and ensuring they have the best possible candidate for the role.

At Boyden, leadership assessment is a core area of expertise. We specialise in defining competencies, benchmarking leaders and providing insights to inform hiring, succession planning, and leadership transitions.

Contact us to learn more about how Boyden’s leadership consulting services can help your business navigate hiring and succession planning.

About the Author

Richard Waddell

Managing Partner, Leadership Consulting, United Kingdom

Richard Waddell brings two decades of experience in leadership consulting, focusing on leadership assessment, development, team performance and succession planning. With a background in the British Army and as a human capital consultant, Richard provides clients across diverse sectors with insights and actionable ideas to maximise leadership performance and develop high-performing teams.