I was discussing how to hire a senior manager with a colleague the other day, and he said, “How do I know I'll hire someone with integrity?” Good question.
In my experience, a person requires at least dozen or so years of experience, taking on successively more technical leadership and/or more management tasks before the person is faced with a conundrum that taxes their integrity. Once a person has reached middle management, integrity problems become more frequent. And, from my coaching, I think integrity issues are a source of many of the problems of senior management.
For any of these people a good starting question is: “Tell me about a time you had to make a difficult choice about which action to pursue. Why was the choice difficult and what did you choose?” You may hear any number of possible answers. If you heard a technical choice, ask a question like this, “Have you ever been in a position where a senior manager asked you to do something that you felt was inappropriate?” (You can substitute illegal or unethical for inappropriate, if you want to cut to the chase.) “What did you do?” Sit back and wait for the story.
For senior managers, also consider questions in this vein:
- “Have you ever been in a position where you worked with a manager who asked you to do something unethical or illegal? What did you do? Would you do the same thing again, or would you do something different?” This is a behavior description question, followed by a hypothetical question. You can't always believe the hypothetical answers, but you can ask more questions about how a person changes behaviors based on events in their lives.
- “Have you ever asked one of your staff to do something slightly shady (or unethical or illegal)? What was it? Why did you ask?” I have to admit, I've only asked this question twice, but both times I heard enlightening answers.
You can create auditions that deal with integrity. Place a management candidate in a position where the easy out is to give you information that the candidate doesn't have or can't obtain. See if the candidate can tell that he or she doesn't know. Beware of creating an audition that allows you to spy on a candidate in an office. Once, someone described an audition that left the candidate alone with some papers on the desk and was gone for several minutes. Some candidates will look at the papers, thinking it's information about the interview, such as who the candidate will see next, or some interim evaluation. That's a trick audition, where if you can have several interpretations about the candidate's behavior. I'd rather create an audition that judges the candidate's actions in a particular situation.
Evaluating integrity isn't always clearcut. You can only ask these questions after you've built rapport with a candidate and the candidate is relaxed. But, you can always ask this question of a reference, “Can you give me an example of the candidate's integrity in action?”
Integrity is crucial for management candidates — especially the most senior management candidates. So think about how to ask the questions, and then ask. Consider an audition to check on integrity. Check on the answers with reference questions.