5 ways to screen executives for strategic thinking
Debbie Morrison • February 14, 2023

As an employer, you want to hire the best leaders for your organisation. And these days, it's not enough for executives to simply be good at what they do—they also need to demonstrate that they can think strategically about how they will lead an organisation, and take a long-term view of how their role fits into the bigger picture. 


However, effectively assessing whether an executive candidate is a strategic thinker is difficult. Most leaders claim to be strategic, and most assessments give you false positives. Yet, the ability to think strategically was ranked the most in-demand skill amongst future board members and company executives, with leadership and management skills and experience ranked second according to research by the Governance Institute of Australia. 


This demonstrates that future board members will be valued for a skillset that goes beyond sector-specific experience. This is because people who are able to think strategically add value in a number of ways. By looking to the future, forward-looking boards help an organisation prepare for the unexpected. Second, their big-picture perspective can help an organisation avoid major problems and potential conflicts by understanding the interrelationships between different business elements and how they relate to one another. Third, their external focus and desire to learn and understand the world around them ensure that the company remains aware of emerging trends in the economy and the industry. And fourth, they have a global perspective.


Executives that are strategic thinkers have a global perspective. They understand the importance of looking at the big picture and how every action they take impacts the company as a whole. They're able to see how their role as an executive fits into the overall operation of the company, and they know how to use their expertise to make decisions that will help grow the company.


When searching for business leaders or executives that are strategic-minded, a good starting point is to consider looking for candidates who have worked at companies with international expansion plans or those who have experience working in multiple countries. A candidate with these skills has typically had to understand how his or her role as an executive fits within a larger plan for growth, which is something all good strategic thinkers do well.


Here are 5 ways you can screen for that kind of thinking:


Explore their Failures rather than their successes.

It stands to reason that most executive resumes detail a candidate's performance in terms of their success. The problem is this doesn’t give much of an indication as to how these individuals will perform in times of difficulty, nor does it give much insight into their ability to think strategically. 


By asking them about their previous appointments in terms of what lessons they learned from each one, and how those lessons have helped them grow as a professional we can gain an insight into how they challenge conventional thinking, analyse what is changing and predict where the business is going versus where it should be going. 


For example: "What was the biggest lesson you took away from your last executive position?" or "What was the most interesting project you worked on there?" These questions will help you determine if this candidate has been able to learn and adapt over time or has been stuck in a rut repeating past mistakes over and over again; either way could indicate a lack of strategic thinking skills.


Give Them a Real Problem to Solve.

The most effective approach is to give applicants a problem to solve during the interview. You can use a real unsolved problem, which has the advantage of allowing several potential solutions. You can also use a problem that you have already solved as an example, which means that you will already know the steps necessary to solve it. 

The best problems are ones that are complex enough to require some thought, but not so complex that they’re impossible to solve. For example: “Why is our supply chain team failing at maintaining reliable and profitable supply?” This question will test whether your candidate can think strategically about how the issue relates to other parts of the organisation, as well as what solutions could help resolve it.


To properly evaluate the candidate's skills and abilities, ask them to walk you through the steps they would take to investigate and resolve a problem. The key to a successful response depends on the nature of the problem you have asked them to solve. But every answer should include:

  • Information gathering
  • compiling a list of potential problems
  • checking the strategic plan
  • review company and industry multiyear forecasts
  • identify and track key industry and economic environmental factors
  • identify and consult with key stakeholders across departments and business units


In addition to searching for these steps, you may also look for the following in their answers:

  • identify interconnected and interdependent functional areas, including predictive metrics
  • pretest solutions with your customers
  • measure success after implementation and use data to make adjustments


In most cases, failing to perform critical procedures (e.g., checking with the customer) would be a clear knockout factor for any candidate. You should look for an answer that does not rely too heavily on tactical actions and contains a strategic focus.




Ask Them to Review a Flawed Strategic Plan and Identify Potential Problems.

You can also have executive candidates review a flawed strategic plan that outlines your company's goals and objectives. After they've read your company’s current strategic plan, ask them to identify potential problems with it, recommend solutions and present their findings. They should also be able to explain how they came up with their recommendations in the first place. This is a good way to identify their capability to problem solve but will also highlight whether they think strategically about the problem.



Ask Specific Interview Questions. 

There are several questions that can reveal whether a candidate has strategic thinking skills, we have outlined some examples below:

  • How would you go about identifying the interrelationships and interdependencies in a proposed strategic plan?
  • When working on a strategic project in your current role, how do you identify the relevant stakeholders across the company?
  • What steps have you taken during your career to improve your strategic thinking skills?
  • What measures or indicators do you use to track and assess your growth in this area?
  • How would you identify which candidates for a job are strategic thinkers? (The answer to this question will give you insight into the candidate's depth of understanding about the topic, as well as how they describe themselves against the criteria. It can also be useful in revealing ideas for how to improve your own assessment.)


Make sure you ask them to think about their own experience and give examples of how they have solved problems in the past, or adapt to change.

Finally, ask for examples of when they had to deal with conflict - this is important because it shows that they can problem-solve effectively under pressure and make decisions based on what's most important for the team or organisation.



Ask Questions That Reveal How Much They Value Strategic Thinking.

Many executives believe there are strategic in their thinking but do little to evaluate this. Therefore, it can be difficult to understand how much value these executives place on strategic thinking compared to conventional approaches to problem-solving. The best way to determine how much a candidate values strategic thinking is to ask them directly. You can do this by asking questions like:

  • What do you think is the most important thing to do in order to achieve your goals?
  • How would you solve a problem that you have encountered in the past?


Alternatively, you can ask the candidate to list their capabilities from most to least important. This will provide insight and an understanding of how important they think strategic capabilities are.


Consider the Questions They Ask You.

To assess a candidate's strategic mindset, consider the questions they ask you. If they are asking about your company’s goals or challenges—or if their questions show an interest in how their role contributes to the organisation's strategic goals—they are likely demonstrating a strategic mindset.

When interviewing, the best candidates may ask questions related to planned changes in the company’s strategy, the opportunities they’ll have to contribute to strategy, and what’s happening in the department. Because the best thinkers are typically action-oriented, they will likely ask questions related to how ideas will be implemented. This can often be a good indicator of someone who is strategic in their thinking.



If you want to know whether or not executive candidates have strategic thinking skills, it’s important to ask them the right questions. Those listed above will help you determine if they have what it takes. However, there are other ways of screening for these skills as well: look for strategic phrases within the answers to your standard interview questions, ask questions that reveal how much they value strategic thinking, consider the questions they ask you and lastly; examine their past work experience carefully for strategic approaches to problem-solving and goal attainment.


At ELR Executive we have refined our screening process over the course of 20 years, ensuring we identify the right leadership talent for our clients. If you'd like to learn more about how we can help you hire the right leadership talent, who can navigate your business forward, securing its competitive advantage to thrive in new markets, speak to us today.

Your Culture Report Won’t Show You This

By John Elliott • June 6, 2025
On paper, they were fully resourced. No complaints logged. No formal red flags. Delivery metrics holding steady. But behind closed doors, the signs were there. Delays. Fatigue. Silence in meetings where pushback used to live. And a growing sense that key people were leaning out, emotionally, if not yet physically. When the cracks finally showed, the conclusion was predictable: “We need more people.” But that wasn’t the real problem. The problem was trust. And most organisations never see it until it’s too late. The Hidden Cost of Disengagement In Gallup’s 2023 global workplace report , only 23% of employees worldwide reported being actively engaged at work. A staggering 59% identified as “quiet quitting”, psychologically detached, going through the motions, doing only what their job description demands. Source: Gallup Global Workplace Report 2023 Disengagement is expensive. But it’s also quiet. It doesn’t show up on a balance sheet. It doesn’t send a Slack message. Disengagement isn’t new, just silenced. And in executive teams, it looks different. It looks like polite agreement in strategy meetings. It looks like leaders shielding their teams from unrealistic demands, instead of confronting the system causing them. It looks like performance metrics still being met… while people emotionally check out. The issue isn’t always capability. It’s safety. Psychological, political, and professional. Many senior leaders don’t raise concerns, not because the problem isn’t real, but because they don’t believe they’ll be heard, supported, or protected if they do. And this is where the failure begins. The Leadership Lie No One Talks About We talk a lot about leadership capability. About experience, commercial acumen, execution strength. But we don’t talk enough about context. Every leadership hire walks into a culture they didn’t create. They inherit unwritten rules, quiet alliances, and legacy power structures. If those dynamics are broken, or if trust is fractured at the top, no amount of capability will compensate. According to a 2022 Deloitte mid-market survey, 64% of executives said culture was their top strategic priority. But only 27% said they actually measured it in a meaningful way. We say culture matters. But we rarely structure around it. And so new leaders walk in with pressure to perform, but little real insight into what the role will cost them emotionally, politically, or personally. We Don’t Hire for Trust. And It Shows. In executive search, the conversation is often dominated by pedigree and “fit.” But fit is often a euphemism for sameness. And sameness doesn't build trust, it maintains comfort. We rarely ask: Does this leader know how to build trust vertically and horizontally? Can they operate in a low-trust environment without becoming complicit? Will they challenge inherited silence, or unconsciously uphold it? Instead, we hire for confidence and clarity, traits that often mask what’s broken, rather than reveal it. And when those hires fail? We call it a mismatch. Or we cite the usual: “lack of alignment,” “wasn’t the right time,” “they didn’t land well with the team.” But the truth is often uglier: They were never set up to succeed. And no one told them until it was too late. The Cultural Infrastructure Is Missing One of the most damaging myths in leadership hiring is that great leaders will “make it work.” That if they’re tough enough, experienced enough, skilled enough, they’ll overcome any organisational dysfunction. But high-performance isn’t just personal. It’s systemic. It requires psychological safety. A clear mandate. The backing to make hard decisions. The freedom to speak the truth before it becomes a PR problem. When that infrastructure isn’t there, when the real power dynamics are unspoken, good leaders stop speaking too. And the silence spreads. What Trust Breakdown Really Looks Like Often, the signs of a trust breakdown don’t show up in dramatic ways. They surface subtly in patterns of underperformance that are easy to misread or excuse. You start to notice project delays, but no one flags the root cause. Teams keep things moving, quietly compensating for the bottlenecks rather than surfacing them. Not because they’re careless, but because they’ve learned that early honesty doesn’t always earn support. New leaders hesitate to make bold calls. Not because they lack conviction, but because the last time they did, they were left exposed. Board reports look flawless. Metrics track nicely. But spend five minutes on the floor, and the energy tells a different story. These are not resource issues. They’re relationship issues. And the data backs it. According to Gallup’s 2023 State of the Global Workplace report , just 23% of employees worldwide are actively engaged. Worse, around 60% are “quiet quitting.” That’s not just disengagement. It’s people doing only what’s safe, only what’s required, because trust has quietly eroded. Gallup also found that managers account for 70% of the variance in team engagement, a staggering figure that reinforces just how pivotal leadership trust is. When people don’t feel psychologically safe, they shut down. Not dramatically. Quietly. Invisibly. What’s breaking isn’t the org chart. It’s the ability to speak plainly and be heard. And by the time it’s visible? The damage is already done, and someone calls for a restructure. “Low engagement is estimated to cost the global economy $8.8 trillion, 9% of global GDP.” Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2023 So What’s the Real Takeaway? If you’re seeing performance issues, before you jump to headcount, ask a different question: Do the leaders in this business feel safe enough to tell the truth? Because if they don’t, the data you’re reading isn’t real. And if they do, but you’re not acting on it, then they’ll stop telling you. Leadership doesn’t fail in obvious ways anymore. It fails in the gap between what people know and what they’re allowed to say. And the price of that silence? Missed opportunity. Reputational damage. Cultural decay. Sometimes, the problem isn’t who you hired. It’s what you’ve made it unsafe to say.

The Energy’s Gone, But Everything Still Looks Fine

By John Elliott • May 27, 2025
Why Culture Decay in FMCG Is a Silent Threat to Performance It doesn’t start with resignations. It starts with something much quieter. A head of operations stops raising small problems in weekly meetings. A sales lead no longer defends a risky new SKU. A team member who used to push ideas now just delivers what they’re asked. Nothing breaks. Nothing explodes. It just... slows. And from the outside, everything still looks fine. The illusion of stability In food and beverage manufacturing, where teams run lean and pressure is constant, performance often becomes the proxy for culture. If products are shipping, if margins are intact, if reviews are clean, the assumption is: we're good. But that assumption is dangerous. According to Gallup's 2023 global workplace report, only 23% of employees worldwide are actively engaged, while a staggering 59% are "quiet quitting ", doing just enough to get by, with no emotional investment. And in Australia? Engagement has declined three years in a row. In a mid-market FMCG business, those numbers rarely show up on dashboards. But they show up in other ways: New ideas stall at the concept phase Team members stop challenging assumptions Execution becomes rigid instead of agile Everyone is "aligned" but no one is energised And by the time the board sees a drop in revenue, the belief that once drove the business is already gone. The emotional cost of cultural silence One thing we don’t talk about enough is what this does to leadership. When energy drains, leaders often become isolated. Not because they want to be, but because the organisation has lost the instinct to challenge, question, or stretch. I’ve seen CEOs second-guessing themselves in rooms full of agreement. Seen GMs miss red flags because nobody wanted to be "the problem". Seen founders mistake quiet delivery for deep buy-in. The emotional toll of unspoken disengagement is real. You’re surrounded by people doing their jobs. But no one’s really in it with you. And eventually, leaders stop stretching too. We train people to disengage without realising it Here’s the contradiction that most organisations won’t admit: We say we want initiative, but we reward obedience. The safest people get promoted The optimists get extra work The truth-tellers get labelled difficult So people learn to conserve energy. They learn not to challenge ideas that won’t land. They learn not to flag risks that won’t be heard. And over time, they stop showing up with their full selves. This isn't resistance. It's protection. And it becomes the default when innovation is punished, risk isn't buffered, and "alignment" becomes code for silence. Boards rarely see it in time Boards don’t ask about belief. They ask about performance. But belief is what drives performance. When culture begins to fade, it doesn't look like chaos. It looks like calm. It looks like compliance. But underneath, the organisation is hollowing out. By the time a board notices the energy is gone, it’s often because the financials have turned, and by then, the people who could've helped reverse the trend have already left. In a 2022 Deloitte study on mid-market leadership, 64% of executives said culture was their top priority, yet only 27% said they measured it with any rigour . If you don’t track it, you won’t protect it. And if you don’t protect it, don’t be surprised when it disappears. The real risk: you might not get it back Here’s what no one likes to admit: Not all cultures recover. You can try rebrands. You can run engagement campaigns. You can roll out leadership frameworks and off-sites and feedback platforms. But if belief has been neglected for too long, the quiet ones you depended on, the culture carriers, the stretchers, the informal leaders, they’re already checked out. Some have left. Some are still there physically but not emotionally. And some have started coaching others to play it safe. Once that happens, you're not rebuilding. You're replacing. So what do you do? Don’t listen for noise. Listen for absence. Absence of challenge. Absence of stretch. Absence of belief. Ask yourself: When was the last time someone in the business pushed back? Not rudely, but bravely? When did someone offer an idea that made others uncomfortable? When did a leader admit they were unsure and ask for help? Those are your indicators. Because healthy culture isn’t silent. It’s alive. It vibrates with tension, disagreement, contribution and care. If everything looks fine, but no one’s really leaning in? That’s your problem. And by the time it shows up in the numbers,t might already be too late.