WANTED: GREAT LEADER. NO EXPERIENCE REQUIRED.
Sep 22nd, 2008 by admin
Over the years, I’ve met hundreds of people in transition, and they share a common frustration. No matter how successful and skilled, they can’t get past HR for an interview because they lack the exact experience the position requires.
Well, here’s an executive position where they don’t seem to be too hung up about experience. Check out these qualifications.
You must be a natural born citizen, and you have to be at least 35 years old. And get this…you don’t qualify if you have experience! That’s right. If you held the same job before, you can’t do it again.
While it’s not a requirement, everyone who has held the job until now has been a white male. I hear that’s changing, so some of you could lose that advantage soon.
I have to be honest with you. It does have a down side. The interview process is grueling, and it takes a couple of years. The funny thing is that the interview questions are really easy, and they ask the same one’s over and over.
All you have to do is make promises – lots of them. You don’t even have to say how you’ll get it done. Just keep promising things you really have no control over much less any real intention of ever accomplishing.
If they don’t like your answers, just change them and flip to another position. Some people will grumble about that, but they don’t really have any more say about the final decision than you or I do.
What is really fascinating is that this selection process has resulted in hiring a number of outstanding leaders; some would even say great leaders. There have been a few slip in who weren’t really up to the demands of the job, but almost all of them performed admirably.
Several have even been noted as being among the greatest leaders of all time, and very few of those had any relevant experience. What did they have? They had characteristics like integrity, ethics and trust. They had qualities like courage, perseverance, and compassion.
They were skilled in influence, relationship management, collaboration, and negotiation. They were brilliant visionaries and strategists who could compel others to join them in a great cause.
They were far from fault free, but they all were deeply self-reflective and learned from their mistakes. So maybe George Bernard Shaw had it right when he said, “Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.”
