Chapter 11 of 14 · Months 3–6
Hiring People Better Than You
- Should I hire people who know more than I do?
- What if I hire someone and they make me look bad?
- Do I fix the team I have before I hire?
Yes, hire people who are better than you at their job. Your team's strength is the limit of what you can deliver. A leader who only hires people they can outshine builds a team that needs them for everything, and that leader becomes the bottleneck in every incident.
The question you might not ask out loud
What if they make me look bad?
They make you look good. Your job is judgement, direction and cover for your team. Theirs is depth. When a strong hire solves something you could not, the credit flows to a team you built. The leaders who look bad are the ones whose teams cannot act without them.
Start with the team you have
Before you post a single job, understand the people already there. Some will have been waiting years for someone to listen. Some are in the wrong role. A few may be ready to leave. Changing the team too fast tells everyone that loyalty to the last leader counts against them.
- Meet each person one to one, more than once.
- Ask what they would work on if nobody stopped them.
- Look at who others go to for help. That person may not be the most senior.
- Only then decide what gaps hiring should fill.
Writing the role
Describe the problems the person will solve, not a wish list of every certification. Long lists of requirements filter out good people who read them literally and let in people who do not. Be clear about what is essential and what can be learned.
- What will this person own in their first six months?
- What decisions will they make without asking you?
- What does good look like at the end of year one?
What to look for
Curiosity, honesty about what they do not know, and the ability to explain a hard thing simply. Skills can be taught. Those three are much harder to teach.
Plan for how a strong person will grow, too. Good people leave when they stop learning. Give them room to own decisions, credit them in front of senior leaders, and talk openly about what their next step could be, even if it is somewhere else. A team known for growing people finds it easier to hire the next one.
Rule of thumb:Rule of thumb: if your team could not run the next incident without you, your next hire is a deputy.