On the Radar
Debbie Morrison • February 2, 2022

On the Radar

For senior executives, building and maintaining strong relationships with executive recruiters/search consultants can be an important - and mutually beneficial - way of moving forward in your career and taking it where you want it to go. For job seekers in the earlier stages of their careers, engaging with recruiters is a transactional numbers game: getting as many resumes in the hands of as many recruiters as possible. For senior leaders, though, it pays to be more strategic. For those in Director, or C-suite roles, strong relationships with a smaller number of executive recruiters/search consultants are your best bet. But how do you go about doing this?


At the risk of stating the obvious, the first step is to make sure you can be found, and to optimise what a recruiter will find there. There are several platforms to help you do this, but let’s focus on LinkedIn, since it’s the most widely-used. Your career history on LinkedIn should mirror your executive resume, not only highlighting your progression through increasingly responsible roles, but also showcasing your achievements and accomplishments along the way. The right titles, keywords, and phrases that accurately describe your work will help the right people find and connect with you. Occasionally sharing high-value articles and insights from your industry keeps you visible, and more likely to be top-of-mind for those looking.


Happy with your online presence? Great. But there’s no need to wait for others to find you.


Seek out the right relationships

Once again, this isn’t a numbers game for you; prioritise quality over quantity. Seek out recruiters who’ve done extensive work in your industry or areas of specialty. Search engines can help, of course, but colleagues and business acquaintances are a good source of personal referrals. While specialisation is key, rapport is equally important. As you speak with and meet recruiters, focus on building a relationship with people who ‘get’ you: people who take the time to listen, to understand your experience, and what you’re hoping to accomplish in your career and your life. Being discriminatory at this stage will help you keep the number of key relationships to a number that is manageable, forming foundations for mutually beneficial relationships over time.


Foster your relationships

As you identify recruiters you want to keep in touch with, the way you build and maintain the working relationship is the same as any other in your professional life. In short, keep the lines of communication open at an appropriate frequency, and in a way that adds value.


Naturally, you’ll want to pass along any updates to your own career - a move to a new job or company, changes to your role, notable achievements or recognitions, and the like. But if you only get in touch with updates about your employment situation, you’re missing an opportunity to take the connection beyond a transactional level. For executive recruiters/search consultants, a strong network is the most valuable asset we bring to our work. That being the case, referrals and networking opportunities are one of the highest-value things you can offer: referrals to colleagues who might be a fit for a search the recruiter may be working on, or hiring executives with other companies who might be additional clients for the recruiter.


These kinds of warm introductions are an expression of trust, and are of significant value to any recruiter. Information is also greatly appreciated by those in our field: industry insights, your unique perspectives that can help us better understand your business also helps us to serve our clients - and our executive candidates - better.


It may go without saying, but when you’re working with a recruiter to explore a specific role, it’s especially important to protect the relationship. A good executive recruiter/search consultant understands that you’re very busy, juggling multiple priorities and responsibilities. We’re accustomed to working around those busy schedules, but reciprocating - being as flexible as you’re able to, and as responsive as possible throughout a recruitment process - will keep the relationship strong, whether or not the outcome is your placement in a new role.

 

Build for the long term

If a relationship is only active when one party needs something - for example, if one is actively on the market and seeking a change, or is recruiting for a specific role - it remains transactional in nature. Don’t let a relationship stagnate just because you’ve achieved a short term goal, such as being placed in a new role. Regardless of which recruiter has assisted you in the transition, it pays to keep those lines of communication open. Over the course of a career - a recruiter’s and an executive’s - relationships evolve and change.


One-time candidates become candidates again later, candidates become clients, and clients become candidates as well. Once you’ve formed relationships with several people in the business who understand you, and with whom you have a strong rapport, treating them as career-long relationships will pay dividends.


Relationships with several executive recruiters/search consultants can be a cornerstone in the career you’re building. As with any professional relationship, nurturing and fostering the relationship over time will take it far beyond a transactional level, and position you for greater success.

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.