When business leaders talk about their biggest challenges, the conversation frequently shifts to this recurring problem: We can’t find the right people. 

Across industries and company sizes, this belief shows up again and again. Talent is scarce. Job candidate profiles aren’t strong enough for the specific open role. 

After years of working with leadership teams, a different pattern emerges: 

The problem usually isn’t talent availability. It’s leadership clarity. 

Leaders struggle because they don’t actually know what they’re looking for, what work needs to be done, or how success should show up in practice. 

“The Right Person” Is Often a Vague Idea 

Most leaders believe they know what they need in a role until they’re forced to articulate it concretely. 

On paper, job descriptions look solid. They list responsibilities, competencies, qualifications, and years of experience. In reality, those documents often reflect an idealized version of the role, not the work that needs to happen day-to-day. Anders Director and Talent Practice Leader, Jacques Lebeau, has seen this play out time and again. “In today’s fast-paced business environment, responsibilities evolve quickly and many tasks are not fully captured in a written description. This is similar to the experience of new graduates, who often discover that their academic coursework does not fully align with the realities of the job in the market. In the same way, a leader may not effectively articulate what their new hire will do or may not have defined the role well”. 

What’s missing is clarity around: 

• How the work really gets done 

• The behaviors required to be effective 

• The way this role needs to operate within the company culture and the leadership team 

As a result, companies hire people who look right on a résumé but struggle once they’re in the role. Leaders then label it a “bad hire,” when the truth is more uncomfortable: the role itself was never clearly defined. 

The Job-on-Paper vs. the Job-in-Practice Gap 

One of the most common breakdowns happens when the job someone accepts is meaningfully different from the job they’re expected to do. 

Leaders often discover too late that: 

• The role requires different technical skills than expected 

• The scope is broader or narrower than advertised 

• The pace, pressure, or ambiguity is far greater than assumed 

This gap creates frustration on both sides. Leaders feel disappointed. New employees feel misled or overwhelmed. The organization absorbs the cost in lost productivity, disengagement, or turnover. 

What makes this challenge particularly persistent is that hiring is rarely where the problem begins. 

As organizations grow, roles evolve faster than expectations, systems, and leadership habits. Work gets redistributed informally. Decision rights blur. The definition of success becomes assumed rather than explicitly defined. By the time a new hire struggles, the misalignment has already been in place for some time — hiring is simply where it becomes visible. 

In that sense, hiring challenges are often a signal, not a root cause. They reveal gaps between leadership intent and day-to-day reality that extend well beyond a single role. 

At senior levels, this mismatch becomes even more damaging. Leadership roles are less about what someone does and more about how they do it — how they lead, influence, collaborate, and make decisions. Yet, those expectations are rarely defined upfront. 

Why Behavior Matters More Than Background 

Many leadership teams focus too heavily on experience and not enough on the right culture-fit and behavior.  

They assume that prior titles, industry background, or technical expertise will translate seamlessly into success. But in practice, performance breakdowns are far more likely to stem from issues like: 

• How someone treats colleagues 

• How they respond to feedback 

• How they navigate conflict or ambiguity 

• Whether their values align with how the organization actually operates 

Time and again, leaders realize that what’s getting in the way isn’t the person’s ability to do the job. It’s how they show up while doing it. Jacques has found that behaviors matter more than background. “I often hear from hiring managers that if they find the right work ethic and intellectual capability, they can teach any job-specific skills that may be missing”. 

The challenge is that behavior, attitude, and working style are much harder to assess than a résumé. Without clarity around what “the right way” looks like in your organization, hiring decisions default to surface-level indicators. 

Clarity Is the Real Competitive Advantage 

When leaders step back, the core leadership question becomes surprisingly simple: 

Do we have the right people doing the right work, the right way? 

That question sounds basic but answering it honestly requires rigor. It demands that leaders understand: 

• What work truly matters 

• Which work isn’t being done (or shouldn’t be) 

• What behaviors drive success in their work environment 

Without that clarity, organizations end up reacting — hiring more people, restructuring roles, or replacing individuals — without ever addressing the root cause. 

That’s why so many hiring efforts feel frustrating and expensive without delivering lasting impact. 

The Hiring Process Isn’t Broken —Leadership Alignment Is 

Talent is not the scarce resource leaders often believe it to be. Clarity is. 

When leaders define the work that matters, the expectations that guide it, and the behaviors that enable success, hiring decisions improve — but so does everything that follows. Performance conversations become more grounded. Development becomes more targeted. Teams spend less time compensating for ambiguity and more time moving the business forward. 

Organizations that get this right don’t magically find better talent. They create the conditions where people can succeed because roles, expectations, and leadership decisions hold together. 

If you’re struggling with hiring, performance, or persistent “people issues,” it may be time to step back and examine where clarity has broken down — not just in open roles, but across how work is defined and supported. Anders’ HR and Talent Transformation team helps organizations bring that clarity back into focus. If you’d like assistance with your HR and talent strategy, request a meeting below.