Resolve the Executive Role Before You Open the Search

A vacancy can conceal an unresolved business decision

As boards and executive teams finalize 2027 plans, a leadership vacancy can become the proposed answer to several different problems. The CEO wants faster growth. The CFO wants tighter investment discipline. Business-unit leaders want more support without surrendering authority.

Everyone approves the search. They have not necessarily approved the same job.

Consider a proposed chief operating officer. One sponsor expects the person to standardize operations across divisions. Another expects a coordinator who leaves divisional autonomy intact. Both may ask for a “collaborative operator.” That phrase conceals a material disagreement about who can change the business.

A strong candidate may satisfy both groups during interviews because each hears a different promise. The conflict surfaces after arrival, when the executive must make an actual choice.

The hiring risk is not simply poor selection. It is selecting against a role that does not yet exist in a workable form. Better interviews will not repair that defect. Nor will a more impressive shortlist. The sponsors must first resolve the business decision they have placed inside the vacancy.

Define the decisions before the credentials

Before discussing experience requirements, identify the three to five consequential decisions this executive must make in the first year. Use business language: close an underperforming operation, redirect investment, change pricing authority, consolidate suppliers or replace a fragmented planning process.

For each decision, specify who proposes it, who contributes, who approves it and who carries it out. Identify any veto explicitly. HBR’s work on decision roles makes the underlying point: participation and decision authority are different responsibilities, and ambiguity between them impedes execution.^[1]

Then test whether the proposed role has the means to deliver. An executive accountable for margin improvement may need authority over staffing, purchasing or service levels. If those levers remain elsewhere, explain how disagreements will be resolved.

This is not an argument for giving every executive unrestricted authority. Some decisions should remain with the CEO or board. The OECD’s corporate governance principles place strategy, risk oversight and the selection and oversight of key executives among core board responsibilities.^[2] The task is to make those boundaries visible before the appointment, not renegotiate them through conflict afterward.

Test the sponsors before testing the candidate

Ask each internal sponsor to answer four questions independently:

• What must be different twelve months after this person starts?
• Which trade-off must this executive be willing to make?
• What decision can this person make that you could previously make?
• What support will you provide when that decision becomes unpopular?

Compare the answers in a working session. Do not merge contradictory responses into a longer job description. Resolve them.

If the CEO expects enterprise standardization while divisional presidents retain an unrestricted veto, there are only a few honest choices. Change the authority. Narrow the expected outcome. Or acknowledge that the organization is not ready for this hire.

McKinsey’s research on organizational decision-making examines both decision speed and quality.^[3] Apply that distinction to the search itself. A fast appointment is not a sound decision if the organization has avoided defining what success requires.

Record the agreement in a short role brief. Include outcomes, decision boundaries, available resources and the route for resolving disputes. Record unresolved issues separately, with an accountable executive and a deadline. A polished position description is not evidence of agreement.

Assess judgment against the role you actually approved

Once the role is clear, use its real tensions to structure candidate conversations. Give candidates the same job-relevant scenario, using sanitized information. Ask what they would need to know, which trade-offs they would surface and when they would seek a CEO or board decision.

For a transformation role, describe a situation where an enterprise-wide change improves overall economics but reduces one division’s near-term results. Explore how the candidate would establish the facts, involve affected leaders and proceed within the agreed authority.

Keep the assessment grounded in evidence. Interviewers should document what the candidate said and the reasoning they observed. Humans make the hiring decision. Disagreement among interviewers should trigger a discussion about the evidence and role requirements, not assumptions about personal style.

Before an offer, return to the approved brief. Confirm that sponsors still support it. Reconfirm resources when the executive starts. Review the arrangement after the first consequential decision, when hidden constraints are most likely to surface.

The test is simple: can the organization support the executive making the decisions it hired them to make? If not, the search is ahead of the business.