Ethos Issue 7, Jan 2010

In Search of the New Public Leader
Claudio Fernández-Aráoz

5. Educate senior leaders for making great people decisions
Finally, Singapore should also lead the way when it comes to educating their senior leaders for making great people decisions. Great people decisions do not just happen by chance, but by following a proven process to decide when a people change is needed, what to look for in a candidate, where and how to find the best candidates (inside and out), how to assess them, how to attract them, and how to integrate them into the new job. My evidence indicates that most senior leaders in Singapore have not been trained in this key discipline. This is not a problem unique to Singapore, but a telling blind spot in educational systems all over the world, and in most organisations both public and private. When 70% of the value of a typical large organisation comes from intangibles, and knowledge and talent are the most important assets in today’s economy, the ability to make great people decisions becomes the key for career success, organisational value, and for building a powerful nation. In spite of what most people think, making great appointments is not an art, the result of an intuition or a gut feeling. Making great people decisions is a craft and a discipline that can be learned and should be learned by the new public leaders
in Singapore.

Claudio Fernández-Aráoz is the author of Great People Decisions (NJ: Wiley 2007). A Senior Adviser of the executive search firm Egon Zehnder International, he was a member of its Global Executive Committee for over ten years, as well as the leader of its Management Appraisal practice, Professional Development, and the development of the firm’s Intellectual Capital. An advisor to several progressive governments, he is a frequent keynote speaker at major business gatherings globally.

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