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A top C-suite headhunter who's placed more than 100 execs in major companies shares 3 key traits he looks for in CEO candidates

Published by Business Insider on Fri, 21 Feb 2020


Roger Duguay is a managing partner and global practice leader for CEO and board services for Boyden, one of the world's top executive-search firms.Through placing more than 100 senior executives, CEOs, and board members, he has found that good CEO candidates are a particular type of person.He says the ideal CEO is someone who has a degree of humility that allows them to manage a board and is both self-aware and transparent.C-Suite Insider is a collection of exclusive interviews with leaders of the world's largest companies.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.As a managing partner at Boyden, one of the world's top executive-search firms, Roger Duguay has interviewed countless people with big egos. Those people do not make for good CEOs.What does make for an excellent chief executive, the headhunter told Business Insider, is someone who is humble, able to admit mistakes, and self-aware.Boyden told us that a few years ago, he felt he had developed a keen sense for distinguishing bravado from earned confidence. But when he met one of his heroes, Matthieu Ricard, a Tibetan Buddhist monk and confidant of the Dalai Lama, he was expecting a deservedly bold answer to one of his favorite interview questions: "On a scale of 1 to 10, where are you versus the person you want to be'" Ricard, he said, responded: "Oh, maybe a 4 out of 10."Duguay was shocked. The reply further enforced his idea that a senior executive referring to himself as a 9 should be a major red flag.Over the past five years at Boyden, Duguay has developed a knack for looking through the nonsense in an interview. Last year, Boyden CEO Trina Gordon recognized his talent by naming him, in addition to his current role, leader of the firm's global CEO and board services practice. Since then, Boyden has incorporated his talent-placement practices across its 65 offices around the world.During his time at Boyden, Duguay has placed more than 100 people into executive, CEO, or board roles in both the private and the public sector. (He estimated he'd gone through 1,000 candidates.) In that time, he's determined what qualities are necessary for a chief executive. He gave us the three most important traits he looks for.They are able to both manage and respect a boardDuguay said that it is important to remember that CEOs are not only in charge of companies' operations, they have to report to a board."If you're the CEO, you have to manage a full board, and you have to manage your C-suite. It's not the same skill," he said. "We've seen so many CEOs with big egos not be able to manage a board or play with the board."As Duguay sees it, a CEO's role is to have a continuing dialogue with a board that is mutually beneficial, as well as to inspire the entire company. He said his experience had shown him that CEOs struggle when they lack respect for their board, considering them an unfortunate but necessary team of people who don't get it rather than a team of experienced leaders to use.Duguay said that when he's trying to find someone with this capacity, he searches for evidence of some level of humility.They have 'scars' and don't hide themA few months ago, Duguay had an interview with a candidate for a CEO position. Duguay said he asked him, "If you had to do it all over again, is there anything in the last five years you would do differently'" The candidate said he wouldn't."Well, that's a pretty bad sign!" Duguay told us."If you're not able to tell me five to 10 big mistakes you've done in the last five years, something's really wrong with you," Duguay said.He likes to refer to these mistakes as "scars." This isn't to say he wants a candidate to explain all the ways they'd be terrible for the job, but he wants to see evidence of how failures became learning experiencesand he does not want a CEO who tries to cover up those moments.They are self-aware and authenticDuguay interviews CEO candidates for two hours and is primarily focused on assessing their personality; the skill-set qualifications are a requirement for even being in the room.Duguay said that at the end he always says, "Tell me the exact reason why I will not hire you if you don't get the role.""Now I can see in their eyes 'Oh, do I tell him the truth, because maybe he doesn't know this' Those two flawsand I really know they are my flawsam I going to tell him' He's going to add them to this count of flaws ... Or do I just play that answer''"As you can probably tell by now, Duguay is looking for a genuine assessment of weaknesses, and not of the "my flaw is that I work too hard" variety.Still, Duguay has found that about half the candidates give a "wrong" answerthat is, a disingenuous one. He wants to find a CEO who is honest, confident, humble, self-aware, and authentic."I always make the parallel to personal relationships and work, because I think the key is to be the same individual," he said. "You should not play a game when you go to work."This is an updated version of an article that originally ran on April 12, 2019.SEE ALSO:A top C-suite headhunter who's placed more than 100 execs in major companies shares his favorite job-interview questions ' and the answers he's looking forJoin the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: A former Navy SEAL commander on how to handle stress
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