Hire for character
Jul 24, 2026Stop Hiring for Skills. Start Hiring for Character.
I recently watched a short clip from entrepreneur Brad Jacobs that reinforced something I’ve seen repeatedly over the last 25 years working with leadership teams.
His message was simple: A players don’t just have capability, they have character. (YouTube)
Too many organisations hire for experience and technical expertise, only to discover months later that they’ve brought someone into the business who damages trust, creates politics, or simply doesn’t align with the culture.
The truth is this:
Skills can be taught. Character is much harder to develop.
When I work with executive teams, we rarely start with strategy.
We start with trust.
Why? Because the quality of your leadership team determines the quality of every decision that follows. You can have the best strategic plan in the world, but if your leaders don’t trust one another, avoid difficult conversations, or compete instead of collaborate, execution slows and performance suffers.
That’s why one of the first questions I ask leadership teams is:
“Would you hire every member of your leadership team again today?”
It’s an uncomfortable question—but an incredibly revealing one.
High-performing teams don’t happen by accident. They intentionally recruit people who demonstrate:
- Integrity over ego.
- Curiosity over certainty.
- Accountability over excuses.
- Collaboration over competition.
These are the foundations of trust.
At Ask Shivani, this is the work I love most. Helping founders and executive teams build leadership groups that trust one another enough to have the hard conversations, make better decisions faster, and create cultures where great people choose to stay.
Because strategy is important.
But trust is what makes strategy executable.
As you reflect on your own team this week, ask yourself:
Are you rewarding competence… or are you building a leadership team people genuinely trust?
The answer may determine whether your next strategic plan succeeds or simply becomes another document on the shelf.
Shivani Gupta
Founder, Ask Shivani
Helping founders and leadership teams build trust so they can scale
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