A: As a manager, one of the things you might want to look for in a subordinate is the ability to self-direct. And why not? Having a team of self-starters makes your job as a manager nice and easy, right?

Actually, not so fast. Before we dive into the tactics of what to look for when hiring for the “self-starter” competency, consider first how having an intrinsically motivated individual on your team will impact things:

1. This person will act on limited information, seeking forgiveness, not permission.
2. This person will expose others on the team who do not work as hard.
3. This person will build relationships with your peers and possibly even your superiors.
4. This person may make you work harder just to keep up with your subordinate.
5. This person may take an informal leadership role on your team.
6. This person may not need you as much as you will need this person.

In short, this person may make you feel threatened in your current job, as s/he causes previous practices to be called into question while building powerful relationships around you and demonstrating superior results.

Generally, I find that most people think they want self-starters because they have this image for themselves of sitting back and relaxing while their team of self-starters do all the work… then, during the interview, when looking at a self-starter, many of them begin to realize, intuitively, what’s in store; it takes a courageous manager with ambitions of his or her own (or a strong teaching orientation) to tolerate strength below in the hierarchy. Managers who are not so secure in their own roles, when faced with the self-directed candidate in person, may start to find behaviors that sounded good in theory to look “annoying,” “pushy,” and “arrogant.”

But now, I’m an optimist; in my world, managers are fearless, and they truly want the best and brightest for their teams, even at the expense of their own security. So, ye manager, if you are going to assume the risks that come with building the absolute best team possible, you’re going to want the following information:

When looking at a job candidate and considering whether the person is a self-starter, watch for the following:

1. How does the person respond to you in the interview itself? Does the candidate repeatedly wait to be asked a question before offering information? Do they repeatedly ask for clarity about their answers? Do they constrain their answers to the bare minimum? Do they avoid small talk, relationship-building, and other non-Q&A interactions? Or, do they take the interview and run with it, leaving you with the slight feeling that if you don’t jump in, they may take the process slightly off-course from where you want it to go? Do they offer well constructed, thorough answers that have “hooks”—points of interest that provide easy segues to follow up questions? Do they gently challenge you? Do they show as much energy at the end of the interview as at the beginning?
2. How does the person behave outside the interview? We don’t care so much how the person describes himself or herself, because we don’t know how self-aware the person is and therefore can’t trust their interpretations of their own behaviors, but we do care about how they say they will act. For instance, how will they decide on which job offer to take? Who else will be part of their decision process; are those people counselors who will aid them or authorities who will give them implicit permission? How did they make decisions in the past—can you find a theme that this person consistently had decisions “vetted” by authority figures before making them? I know parents are becoming a more integral part of the hiring process, and one of the questions that raises for me is, does this candidate know how to make a decision alone? The involvement of parents clouds the issue, making it more difficult to know if the candidate is truly self-directed… or is having his or her strings pulled by mom and dad.

One other thing you can do is narrow down what you mean by self-starter. There are a number of competencies you could look for that cluster around that same concept, such as decisiveness, comfort with ambiguity, ambition, forward-looking, action oriented, results oriented… sometimes, being able to tease these competencies apart can make it easier to understand what exactly you are looking for, and can help you distinguish between two candidates who both seem to have the quality you are looking for, but who express it differently.

Posted under Q&A, Coaching & Consulting, Job Interviews, Gen X & Gen Y