Leadership & Behavioral Alloys

Recently, I’ve spent an unusual amount of time interviewing candidates for CMO and VP of product marketing roles.

Beyond my standard approach to interviewing PMMs, when I interview people for leadership roles, I look for specific combinations of behaviors – what I call behavioral alloys.

Curiosity & thoughtfulness
People motivated by curiosity outperform those motivated by ambition. 
Even more so when paired with the choice to reflect
– upon how they are perceiving and reacting to a situation.

Emotional diagnosis & prescription
Leadership is about working with other humans, 
and understanding what’s going on inside people’s minds is primarily emotional. 
Being able to perceive/acquire that insight is necessary, but not sufficient 
unless paired with the follow-through of identifying and executing a prescription for 
how to engage with people’s emotional state.

Self-awareness (limitations) & determination
Knowing what you’re NOT good at is critical to getting the most out of other people. 
Being determined to make a thing happen via a team, 
regardless of your own personal limitations, 
is key to execution and to motivating others. 

Self-awareness (strengths) & generosity
Knowing what you ARE good at, and 
being motivated by teaching those skills to others – 
inspires loyalty and performance.

Situational awareness & compassion
Being able to read the room. 
Asking yourself “what’s going on in this meeting, really?” 
Being able to come up with a good enough approximation of an answer 
to guide your own behavior. 
That builds team cohesion and performance. 
The best leaders start from a place of compassion: 
that grumblepuss in the corner taking pot-shots: 
what’s my most generous assessment of what’s driving that behavior?
How can I use that to bring the team into alignment?

Itinerant love of craft
People who love what they do, do a better job of what they do. 
A person who is clear on what she loves doing, 
who loves to do it everywhere she goes, 
inspires others, and is a joy to be around.

Positive fatalism & intent
Being aware that a lot of business success is mostly down to luck, 
that things are usually going to go a different way than you’d like.
That’s important for endurance. 
Turning that into success requires choosing an intention attitude
“if that’s how the wave breaks, then here is how we’ll play it. Let’s go!”

That’s it. That’s what I’m thinking about these days.

A fun part of being in my third decade of interviewing is seeing how my own thinking and approach evolves. I’m sure that ten years from now, I’ll have different things I focus on, but I hope these are helpful today.

From the front porch in Moss Beach,
Tenders