By Chris SwanMANAGING DIRECTOR | PRACTICE LEADERLeadership development and executive recruitment are both getting harder, for the same underlying reason: the market for talent keeps tightening, and the expectations of the people you want keep rising. Understanding the recurring challenges, and the patterns that separate a hire that works from one that does not, is what lets an organization stay ahead of it rather than react to it.
To ground this in more than one firm's view, our founders Chris Swan and John Ryan gathered perspectives from across the industry through a series of LinkedIn polls, collecting a wide read on what leaders are actually wrestling with. The picture that emerged lines up with what we see across our own searches, where 90% of the leaders we place are still in the role two years later.
Organizations keep running into the same set of hurdles. Attracting talent has grown steadily harder as the candidate market gets more competitive and job seekers raise their expectations.
Developing diverse leaders remains a stated priority that many struggle to operationalize. Succession planning gets deferred until it becomes urgent, which is the worst time to do it.
And building a genuine learning culture, where development is continuous rather than an annual event, is harder than it sounds.
Underneath all of these sits employer brand. In a competitive market, how an organization is perceived by the leaders it wants to attract is no longer a marketing concern, it is a recruiting one.
Positioning that brand well, and backing it with real development, is increasingly what tips a strong candidate toward saying yes.
When we look at which executive hires thrive, the qualities that predict success are consistent. Industry experience matters, but on its own it is not enough.
The stronger signals are strategic thinking, cultural fit with the organization, strong communication, and the adaptability and resilience to lead through change rather than only in calm conditions.
The role of technical fluency has grown too. For specialized positions, capabilities like data analysis, familiarity with AI, cloud computing, and cybersecurity have moved from nice-to-have to essential.
The best executives increasingly pair leadership judgment with enough technical literacy to make good decisions in a digital business.
The final piece is knowing what success looks like once a leader is in the seat. The useful metrics are practical: are business goals being met, is the team's feedback positive, is the leader staying and growing in the role, and are they solving problems in ways that move the organization forward.
Longevity in particular is a quiet but powerful signal, because a leader who lasts is usually one who fit.
Getting these judgments right before the offer is where assessment earns its place. We use Hogan assessments to read leadership potential and derailers objectively, and the Orxestra method to evaluate cultural fit across multiple dimensions, which together reduce the risk of a confident hire that turns out to be the wrong one.
Development does not stop at the hire either, which is where our broader leadership development work continues the story.
The organizations that navigate this well treat development and recruitment as one connected system, not two separate events. Attract and hire against the qualities that predict success, measure honestly once the leader is in place, and keep developing them afterward.
That is how a hire becomes a leader who stays.
Attracting talent in a more competitive market, developing diverse leaders, planning succession before it is urgent, and building a genuine learning culture. Candidate expectations keep rising, so employer brand and development have become part of the recruiting equation.
Beyond industry experience, the signals that matter are strategic thinking, cultural fit, strong communication, adaptability, and resilience. Increasingly, technical fluency in areas like data and cybersecurity matters for specialized roles too.
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