Know the Leaders You Have: Leadership Talent Visibility is Critical to Your Organization’s Performance

Do you know what your leaders can really do?

That is a critical question to ask—and to answer with a resounding “Yes!”—as performance expectations rise for businesses across sectors in an increasingly volatile and unpredictable economy and market.

Leadership is a key driver of performance, so you need to know what kind of leadership talent you have in place at any given time and the gaps you may need to fill now and in the future.

Leadership talent visibility is critical on key dimensions when it comes to your organization’s performance. In order to get that visibility, utilizing technology is key to providing an optimal solution to see your organization’s executive leadership talent in the most efficient, informative way.

The Power of Leadership Talent Visibility

Leadership visibility gives you a holistic view of your current set of established and rising leaders. The ability to view and assess your leadership quickly and with little bias, can inform key processes in your organization, including:

• Understanding alignment of current leadership capabilities with primary strategic objectives for your organization
• Developing strong leaders internally to address the current and future needs of your business, or what we at Heidrick & Struggles think of as “Future-Ready” leaders
• Going through restructuring as a result of M&A or other drivers
• Finding the right people in the face of expected and unexpected leadership attrition
• Anticipating and managing potential organizational structure conflicts, such as overlapping areas of focus or responsibility, or competition for scarce resources

Many businesses assume they already know the leadership talent they have, only to find out that’s not the case when faced with an unexpected challenge such as a large market shift (like a new competitor or regulations) or the departure of key leaders.

The low leadership visibility then leads to a scramble to find the right people through internal or external sources. The priority becomes filling an urgent gap rather than taking the time to develop a more systematic approach to leadership assessment and development.

Even businesses that have a good idea of the leadership talent they currently have may not be able to see the big picture of this leadership talent. How leadership capability is evolving (or devolving) over time often goes unnoticed, and a creative approach to leadership is underutilized, like creating unconventional but high value matches between people and positions.

Heidrick Navigator: The View You Need for Executive Leadership Talent Assessment 

Heidrick Navigator by Heidrick & Struggles provides a dynamic digital solution: a research-based leadership view to help you make data-driven leadership decisions using measurable outcomes that emerge from ongoing, multidimensional executive talent assessment.  

Specifically, Heidrick Navigator delivers key reports, metrics, and insights for leadership-related decision-making. Among these high-value outcomes are: 

Leadership Overview Report

This provides a snapshot of your current leadership talent across key dimensions, to understand how it aligns with current and future needs.

Successors 

Heidrick Navigator presents rising leaders in three categories—Ready Now, Ready Soon, Ready Later—to prepare strategically for natural and unexpected attrition.

Updated resumes

Keep on top of leadership talent and experience from multiple data sources.

Assessment results

Instantly available results of ongoing leadership assessments on leadership talent dimensions, including business impact, leadership capabilities, leadership potential, and culture impact, in line with the Heidrick Leadership Framework.  

Matching algorithm

Match people to roles more efficiently and effectively with Heidrick Navigator’s proven, AI-driven algorithm.

Unconventional matches

Sometimes the best fit for a leadership role is a surprising one.

Heidrick Navigator unlocks these high-value matches more easily than traditional systems. In this way, the platform’s outputs and insights will help you with key leadership-related activities, including: 

• Defining leader role profiles needed and establishing new roles necessary to enable business impact under current and future objectives and strategies 
• Utilize objective, data-driven matching for leaders to roles, to ensure the right internal placements—expediently and without bias 
• Initiate an audit of leadership talent and map the top cross-functional leaders against newly defined leadership roles resulting from restructuring related to M&A or other events and milestones 
• Enable more effective, value-driven decision-making by establishing the right leadership talent for each role, managing redundancy, and promoting internal mobility 
• Boost individual performance, engagement, and motivation by placing people in optimal roles for them, including stretch roles and unconventional fits 

Identifying, developing, and placing the right leadership talent within your organization can make all the difference in an increasingly challenging business context.  Heidrick Navigator provides a research-based holistic view of your current and evolving leadership talent to prepare you for any challenge your business may face—now and in the future.