By Frank Vikan, senior advisor and psychologist at Habberstad rekruttering og utvikling.
I think we misjudge emotional resilience more often than we care to admit.
There, I said it.
After more than 30 years of leadership assessments, recruitment and psychometric testing, there is a great deal I have grown more humble about. But one realisation has stayed with me: when capable leaders struggle in a new role, it is not always about a lack of competence. Often they knew exactly what to do. They had the experience, the ability and the motivation. Even so, the combined weight of pressure, conflict, exposure and uncertainty became too much.
And I know that we, as recruiters, sometimes see the signs without giving them the weight they deserve.
We have become good at assessing whether the candidate can do the job. We are less good at assessing what the job will do to the candidate.
A candidate who was best at almost everything
I remember a candidate who, on paper, was the clear favourite. A strong CV. Documented results. Excellent references. High capacity. A good grasp of people. Genuine motivation.
Even so, I was left with a slight unease. Not a red flag. Just a few signals that were easy to explain away: a little more worry than the situation called for, some faltering under pressure, and certain answers that gave reason to look more closely at how this person handled doubt, strain and their own sense of worth.
The candidate got the job. Shortly afterwards, they had to throw in the towel.
Looking back, I do not think our main mistake was hiring the wrong person. I think we underestimated the encounter between the person and the demands of the environment. That is a different kind of error from the one we usually calculate when we talk about the cost of a bad leadership hire, and it is harder to spot in hindsight, because everyone involved can point to something that looked right.
The big N
In the five-factor model we tend to talk readily about openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and how people relate to others. The fifth factor is usually discussed more cautiously: emotional stability, or neuroticism.
Perhaps because the language turns brutal so easily. No one should be reduced to “resilient” or “fragile”. No test score on its own can tell us whether a person will succeed, which is one reason structured methods matter more than any single instrument. And emotional sensitivity is not a defect.
Many of those who register unease, risk and social evaluation more strongly than others are precisely the leaders we want: conscientious, empathetic, quality-conscious and alert to consequences.
But professional caution must not become professional avoidance. When the role involves sustained conflict, an unclear mandate, high exposure and little room for recovery, the candidate’s stress response is relevant. Highly relevant.
The uncomfortable question
We spend a great deal of time mapping what the candidate has done. Far less time describing what the job will actually demand emotionally.
- How often will this leader have to stand alone in unpopular decisions?
- How unclear is the mandate?
- How wide is the gap between responsibility and real influence?
- How much conflict is simply the normal state of affairs?
- And is there genuine support when the pressure does not let up?
If we do not know the answers, it helps little that the tests are good and the interviews structured. We are then matching the candidate against a job description rather than against reality.
The biggest mistake is perhaps not choosing the wrong candidate. The biggest mistake is failing to understand what the job may do to the candidate.
This is where we must do better
At Habberstad we believe good executive recruitment has to begin before the search for candidates does. We need to understand what results are expected, but also what we call the demand profile of the role. From there we can examine how the candidate’s experience, personality and documented behaviour are likely to meet this particular reality.
This does not mean ruling out sensitive people. It means we should stop pretending that everyone is affected in the same way by the same surroundings.
Sometimes the answer is to choose a different candidate. At other times it is to shape the role differently, clarify the mandate, put sparring and support in place, or secure genuine backing from the board and the immediate manager.
It is not weakness to react to sustained pressure. But it is weak recruitment craftsmanship to overlook the fact that people react differently.
And perhaps, alongside wondering whether the candidate is resilient enough, we should also ask whether the organisation and the role are set up well enough to bring out the best in the candidate.
How we work at Habberstad
The demand profile is part of the groundwork we do before the search begins, not something we raise only once the final candidates are in front of us. It emerges in conversations with the client, the board and the people closest to the role, and we make it as concrete as the requirements specification.
If you only need an assessment of the candidates you already have, we offer that as a final interview and final assessment. How the full process works is set out in our article on competency-based recruitment.
Get in touch if you are facing an appointment where the role is heavier than the job description lets on.
Frequently asked questions
What is emotional resilience in a leadership role?
It concerns how a leader handles sustained pressure, conflict, exposure and uncertainty over time. It is not the same as being unaffected. It is about what happens to judgement, capacity to work and health when the strain does not ease, and about how quickly the person recovers.
Can emotional resilience be tested?
Partly. The five-factor model measures emotional stability as one of its five main factors, and serious personality instruments give a usable picture of the tendency. But a score on its own says nothing about the outcome. It has to be interpreted against the specific role, against what the person has actually lived through before, and against the support available in the organisation.
Is it discriminatory to assess a candidate’s stress response?
No, provided the assessment is objectively tied to the requirements of the post and carried out by someone qualified to interpret it. The point is not to filter out sensitive people. The point is to be honest about what the role actually demands, so that both the candidate and the employer make the decision with their eyes open.
What is a demand profile?
A description of what the job will require emotionally: how often the leader must stand alone in unpopular decisions, how unclear the mandate is, how wide the gap is between responsibility and real influence, how much conflict is the normal state of affairs, and whether genuine support exists when the pressure does not let up. It is mapped at the client, not in the candidate.
What do you do if the candidate is the strongest, but the role is extremely demanding?
The answer is not always to choose someone else. Sometimes the answer is to shape the role differently: clarify the mandate, narrow the gap between responsibility and authority, establish sparring, or make sure the board and the immediate manager actually show up when things get hard.
About the author
Frank Vikan is a senior advisor and psychologist at Habberstad rekruttering og utvikling. He has more than 30 years of experience in leadership assessment, recruitment and psychometric testing.
