Hiring is one of the most strategic acts of leadership, because it reveals how you think, what you value, and what kind of future you’re designing for your brand.
For some companies, hiring is treated like an administrative chore. Scan a few CVs, ask about strengths and weaknesses, and plug someone into the empty seat. It’s fast, it’s familiar and far too often, it’s flawed. As we venture further into 2026, many organisations are setting ambitious growth targets and making bold declarations about what the “future of work” will look like. This year offers an opportunity to rethink how we approach hiring, not as a quick fix for vacancies, but as a deliberate act of leadership that determines the trajectory of a company’s culture.
According to a 2023 report by the Society for Human Resource Management, a single bad hire can cost a company up to 30 percent of that employee’s first-year earnings, not including the hit to morale, productivity, or retention. Even worse? 82 percent of hiring managers admit to making a bad hiring decision, often due to “rushed processes” or “overreliance on gut instinct.”
Hiring is one of the most strategic acts of leadership, because it reveals how you think, what you value, and what kind of future you’re designing for your brand. Many leaders agree in theory: “Get the right people in the right seats.” But the common challenge is not intention, it’s execution. Leaders know they need stronger teams. What they often lack is a clear methodology for attracting and retaining high-caliber talent.
Firstly, a great hire isn’t someone who simply blends in, they elevate the team. They multiply collective energy, introduce constructive tension that fuels better thinking, and help uncover blind spots you didn’t know you had. The goal isn’t to find someone who fits the culture. It’s to find someone who adds to it.
Secondly, to attract top tier talent requires thinking like a product manager. When building a product, you don’t design based on your own preferences, you design based on what the market demands. Talent attraction should follow the same logic. Instead of asking, ‘what do we want in an employee?’ the more strategic question is, ‘what does top talent want in an employer?’
When this alignment is off, even meaningful missions can struggle to retain high performers. To achieve company-talent fit, organisations must audit their current infrastructure through the lens of top-tier candidates by asking:
What are the benefits and growth opportunities we offer? Top talent doesn't just pursue compensation, they pursue possibilities. So when people consider joining your organisation, they’re not only asking “What will I be paid?” but “Who will I become here?” Career growth is part of the value proposition that high performers expect.
How strong is our culture of trust, flexibility, and purpose? Performance thrives in environments where people feel safe to speak up, stretch themselves, and contribute meaningfully. Psychological safety is a prerequisite for innovation. When employees have autonomy over how they do their best work, motivation increases.
Are we building systems that enable excellence or inhibit it? High performance is rarely the result of heroic individual effort. More often, it's the product of thoughtful design. Systems shape behaviour. If your policies, workflows, and expectations make it harder to succeed than to stagnate, then even the most talented individuals will underperform.
If your hiring criteria is “someone easy to manage,” you’re already shrinking your impact. If your ego needs to feel smarter than the person you hire, you’re not leading, you're performing the role of a leader. Resist the pressure to fill ASAP, yes, a vacant role hurts, but a wrong hire hurts worse and may take time to recover. Consider the hiring process as a method of future-proofing the vision and mission of your business.
