The executive profile companies ask for has changed more in the last five years than in the previous twenty. This is what we see from inside the search processes.
There is one way to know what is really happening in the leadership market: listening to how companies describe the person they need. We do it every week, and the script has changed. Not cosmetically: structurally.
The first novelty is what is no longer asked for. Encyclopaedic sector knowledge, which for decades was the first filter, has slipped down the list. Companies have learned that sector experience can be acquired in months, but the ability to lead a transformation cannot be improvised. More and more clients explicitly ask us to look outside their industry.
The second is the weight of versatility. Boards no longer look for the brilliant specialist in a stable context, because the stable context no longer exists. They look for executives who have proven they can learn fast, operate in ambiguity and change their mind when faced with new evidence. The perfect, linear career now raises more questions than the career with turns — as long as the turns tell a story.
The third is the deepest: culture has gone from being a soft section of the assessment to being the deciding criterion. When a process reaches the final stage with two or three technically valid candidates — and almost all of them do — the decision comes down to cultural fit and the ability to build a team. Companies have paid dearly to learn that an executive who is excellent on paper can switch off an entire organisation.
And there is a fourth constant running through all of the above: managing across generations. For the first time, four generations coexist in the workforce, with different expectations about work, authority and purpose. Executives capable of making that coexistence add up — rather than merely managing its friction — are scarce, and companies know it.
None of this means the technical bar has dropped. It means it is taken for granted. The difference between the candidates who reach the final round and the one who receives the offer is now played out on ground that CVs do not capture: judgement, self-awareness and the ability to make others better. That it is hard to measure does not make it less real. That is precisely why our profession exists.
