Hire for Emotional Maturity

Let’s be real. It is almost impossible to know what you’re getting when you hire someone.

Candidates are, of course, doing their best to figure out what interviewers want to hear. They come seemingly convinced they’re the right person for the role, and this after simply reading a job description.

References are all hand-picked by the candidate. Those references understand the unspoken social contract: that it should be a good reference, thank you.

I’ve led or been involved in more than 50 hiring decisions over the course of my career to date. I’ve honed a thoughtful, professional approach to interviewing. And it still amazes me that I often don’t know whether the hire was a good choice until more than a year in.

"Soft Skills," Eh?

Every job performance sings or falls flat based on a combination of technical skills and soft skills, big-picture perspective and attention to important details.

You may see lists of soft skills that include things like the ability to communicate and emotional intelligence. I define soft skills as all the things necessary to be in healthy human relationship, with emotional maturity at the top of the list.

Let’s assume all the candidates in your final round of interviews have the technical skills you require. The buzzy business news for a decade-plus has been “hire for cultural fit.” I promise you'll do better if you hire for emotional maturity.

Someone who fits the culture may blend in socially and know that in this organization emails start with “Dear [somebody]” and not a stream-of-consciousness, uncapitalized sentence. Of much greater importance is their immediate impulse when they face an unexpected situation. Or how they respond the first time they encounter resistance or a straightforward “no” from a supervisor or from someone they lead.

What's Emotional Maturity Look Like?

An emotionally mature person pauses, notices, and manages their initial emotional response.

An emotionally mature person reviews what is fact and what details they’ve instantly created in their mind and treated like facts.

An emotionally mature person formulates good, neutral questions and schedules a time to ask these directly of the person with whom they’re experiencing tension.

If a group begins speaking negatively of decisions made by others, an emotionally mature person interrupts the groupthink and invites them to converse with the person who can authoritatively respond to genuinely curious questions.

On the other hand, an emotionally immature person quickly paints himself or herself as a victim. An emotionally immature person triangles by complaining or gossiping with others. Or they believe they need to lead a campaign against whatever person or policy they perceive is affecting their ability to __________ [fill in the blank.]

I don’t need to tell you that emotionally immature team members can quickly take up a ton of your energy.

As a CEO, every minute you spend managing emotionally reactive, immature team members is a minute docked from the unique work only you can do in leading the org.

How-to in the Interview 

OK, we’re at the how-to stage. Hiring often feels like a crap shoot. The person you thought was just the right fit turns out to spend three-fifths of their time constructively sharing their expertise and doing their job and the other two-fifths creating whisper campaigns about made-up injustices. How can you craft an interview process that probes a candidate’s emotional maturity?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments section. What has worked for you?

My best efforts have centered around case and scenario questions during interviews. A case is a true experience related from a candidate’s past professional roles. A scenario is a hypothetical “What would you do in this situation?”

Interviewing for emotional maturity:

A Case Question

Describe a time, in a previous role, when you learned about a decision you initially misunderstood or didn’t agree with, and how you responded.

A Scenario Question

You hear that a team member collaborating on a project with you and others has been sharing confidential information beyond the project team. What are the first three things you do?

With these questions you get an expansive view of how the candidate thinks and how self-aware they are about their own automatic assumptions and emotional functioning.

Here's what you want to hear:

• That the individual chooses to pause and “get neutral” in order to rationally evaluate a situation before acting, rather than diving straight into anxious functioning

• That the candidate directly and respectfully engages the individual whose actions or decisions concern them, and they don’t triangle or lead a gossip campaign (if they reference "venting," run away!)

• That they expect challenges in their work, and they're most interested in taking responsibility and solving for progress, not assigning blame

Hiring for Emotional Maturity Beats Hiring for Cultural Fit, Any Day

In a team of emotionally mature people, each person can hear feedback without becoming defensive, stay appropriately connected and collaborative without taking over others’ roles, and bring concerns directly in a timely and neutral way.

When a candidate shows these characteristics, whether they are an exact cultural fit becomes much less important. You can be confident that no matter the situation, they will bring their thoughtful, mature self.

Hiring and training takes significant time, energy, and money. With a capable, emotionally mature hire, you’re well on your way to building team morale and saving all three.

What if you were able to consistently hire and retain skilled, growing, emotionally mature leaders? How would that affect your work culture, your results, you? Companies who train their team and are committed to using Core4 management experience this success every day.

(Image credit: Canva)