Hiring for Heart

“The most important hiring decision is not whether someone can do the job, but whether they care enough to do it well.”

Recently, I began working with a private nonprofit school that does remarkable work serving children with autism. As I spent time with the board, met the leaders, and got to know the school community, one thing became clear almost immediately. Everyone—students, teachers, and staff—was treated with genuine dignity, respect, and care. This wasn’t something you found on posters or heard in a catchy slogan. You could see it in the everyday interactions. It was simply part of who they were as a school.

Naturally, I wondered how they managed to keep a culture like that going. So, I asked the CEO the question so many leaders wrestle with: how do you sustain it?

“How have you been so successful in hiring the right people?”

Her answer came quickly, without hesitation.

“We hire people who care.”

Those four words have stuck with me ever since.

No matter the field — business, education, or social services — every leader eventually faces two decisions that shape the future more than almost anything else: Who do we hire? And who do we choose to advance?

Jim Collins, in Good to Great, famously wrote about getting “the right people on the bus and the right people in the right seats.” That’s excellent advice. But before we can find the right seat, we have to first determine whether we have the right person.

You can teach technical skills. People gain experience and build knowledge over time. But genuine care — for people, for the mission, for the work itself — is much harder to teach.

Research backs up what many seasoned leaders have learned firsthand. Competence tells you whether someone can do the job. But qualities like integrity, emotional intelligence, humility, adaptability, and a willingness to learn are far better predictors of long-term success. Organizations that hire for values and develop for skills tend to outperform those that do the opposite.

The same principle applies to promotions.

Too often, organizations promote their top performer without stopping to ask whether that person is actually ready to lead others. Success in one role doesn’t guarantee success as a leader. Leadership calls for a different set of skills entirely: developing people, building trust, making sound decisions, and putting the team’s success ahead of personal achievement.

So how do you know if someone is the right fit? I’ve found a few questions helpful:

• Do they genuinely care about people?

• Do they embrace the organization’s mission and values?

• Do they show humility and a willingness to learn?

• Do others trust them?

• Will they make the people around them better?

You can’t fully answer these questions with a résumé, or even a great interview. It takes careful observation, honest conversation, thoughtful references, and patience. Hiring is one of the few decisions where it pays to move slowly — and to correct course quickly if you get it wrong.

When leaders look back on their greatest accomplishments, they rarely start by talking about strategic plans, budgets, or org charts. More often, they talk about the people they had the privilege of working alongside. Great organizations aren’t built by extraordinary strategy alone. They’re built by ordinary people who care deeply about an extraordinary purpose.

Maybe that CEO summarized it better than any leadership textbook could.

“We hire people who care.”

Sometimes, the simplest answers really are the wisest.

Reflection Questions

• What qualities do you consistently look for when hiring or promoting someone?

• Are you selecting people primarily for competence, character, or both?

• How well do your hiring and promotion decisions reinforce the culture you hope to create?

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