Understanding Leadership Versatility

There is both an art and a science to the high-stakes selection of senior leaders tasked with transforming or scaling privately held, investor- or sponsor-backed businesses. Our firm has made a practice of isolating and assessing candidates’ change management aptitude and performance, as it’s our experience that these traits differentiate PE outperformers from the broader executive labor force. 

Versatility, as a measurable trait, has become a key influence in how The Talent Studios evaluates executive leadership hires on behalf of our clients. Only 20% of executives studied by organizational psychologists Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser were found to be truly versatile. Versatility can be defined as the ability to respond in proportion to the demands of a given situation—to operate effectively across dualities: forceful & enabling, strategic & operational. 

Kaplan and Kaiser’s research established a strong correlation (r = .55 – .68) between managerial effectiveness and their Quantitative Index of Versatility, based on action research and assessment batteries. As they note, “most executive leaders do not move freely between opposing modes; they show a bias in favor of one mode and a prejudice against its complement.” 

We hold ourselves accountable to identifying and evaluating both the observable and unobservable attributes of traits such as Versatility to narrow to the highest-level consideration set of talent.