Y Scouts

Hiring leaders: Are you really using AI in your hiring process? Or just exploring it? We're building a short benchmarking report based on real feedback from mid-market companies. 100% anonymous. 2 mins. → forms.gle/GuHfdDsTStprGZ…

If this resonates, there’s a reason behind it. We didn’t build this model in theory. It came from years of seeing where leadership hires succeed, and where they fall short. Hiring On Purpose walks through the thinking, the patterns, and the behaviors that actually predict performance at the executive level. If you’re trying to make better leadership decisions, it’s worth the read:  bit.ly/45r3Bze

Most leadership failures aren’t surprising. They’re just missed. Companies hire based on experience, confidence, and how well someone interviews, then act shocked when things don’t scale. At Y Scouts, we take a different approach. We don’t evaluate how leaders present. We evaluate how they operate. Because the gap between a good hire and a great one is rarely technical, it’s behavioral. Our Leadership Model focuses on three predictors of performance: 1. Drive Results This leader owns outcomes. They know what matters, what doesn’t, and where to focus first. Execution isn’t a personality trait, it’s a discipline. 2. Develop Others The real test of leadership is what happens when they’re not in the room. They build people, create leaders, and leave the organization stronger than they found it. 3. Relentless Learning They don’t rely on past wins. They adapt, evolve, and sharpen how they lead in real time. Because if they haven’t changed in the last 12 months, they’re already behind. Most hiring processes miss these signals. We don’t. This model gives our clients clarity on who can actually deliver, not just who looks the part. Because hiring without a leadership model isn’t strategy. It’s risk. Where do you see leadership breaking down most often: execution, people, or growth?

Want to see how great leaders attract the best hires? Get a free copy of my book, Hiring on Purpose, here: bit.ly/45r3Bze

Hiring isn’t an HR task.  It’s your most important business strategy. But most companies treat it like any other "to-do" task. They hand hiring off to a manager. Or they delegate it to HR. That makes no sense. If you want to build a company that actually scales, hiring has to be one of the CEO’s main jobs. In a fast-growing company, the CEO should spend 10-20% of their time on hiring. Most leaders say they believe that. But when you look at their calendar… they’ve delegated it. Here’s the reality: Great leaders don’t join companies because of HR. They join because of other great leaders. And if the CEO isn’t involved in hiring, the best people won’t show up in the first place. Hiring isn’t an HR function. It’s leadership. What's one other task you could delegate to free your time to bring in great leaders?

Every company wants to hire charismatic leaders. But charisma's not what you need. That's just a shorthand for... - Can this leader handles themselves in tough situations? - Are they interesting and will they reflect well on us? - Do they talk well, look good and know how to work a room? All day long on social media we see talking heads who say everything perfectly, have the perfect life, perfect family, perfect vacations. But they’re so interesting and charismatic that sometimes people feel small next to them. That's why the REAL trait you need is reverse charisma. Leaders with reverse charism make other people feel interesting. They let other people do the talking. They ask questions that might seem dumb on the surface, but only to help somebody start thinking in a different way. The leaders who inspire loyalty, who know how to bring out the best in people and make change really stick… they make other people feel big. They make us feel important and like our ideas matter. Reverse charisma means setting aside your own achievements in order to highlight your team’s. Creating an environment where learning and curiosity are rewarded. Upholding the standards you know your team can rise to. Who are the leaders in your life that show up with reverse charisma? Tag ‘em in the comments & let’s show them how much they’re appreciated.

Looking for leaders who are aligned with your company’s mission, values, and culture? Get a free digital copy of my book here:  bit.ly/45r3Bze

Hard truth: You have to go looking for exceptional people; they won’t come looking for you anymore. You are not going to find great leaders for any level of your company by posting to job boards, then reading the resumes that happen to roll in. Exceptional leaders know their value, and they are almost exclusively being recruited by savvy companies on the basis of that value rather than applying for jobs. Let’s face it: The power has shifted to the talented. Exceptional leaders know that companies are desperate for new leadership… exceptional people will, from now until forever, find it easy to both find and leave positions. Which means the typical job description has itself become hopelessly outdated. It gets packed with more and more laundry list items which mean less and less to everyone involved and look increasingly unappealing to candidates. That’s why you need to get your whole leadership team involved. The more stakeholders you collect input from when you define a role, the more your chances of success increase. Any number of stakeholders inside or outside the company may have valuable opinions about what matters most in the role. Here’s what I’m seeing: in general, important leadership positions are filled too quickly. It’s that simple. Doing it wrong means doing it in a hurry, without involving enough stakeholders, making the right preparations, or completing the required homework. Hiring managers too often assume that if they have an up-to-date org chart, solid job description, a thoughtful business process, and a good resume, then presto, they can plug any qualified person into the job. But that’s not reality. The most important decisions that businesspeople make are not what decisions, but who decisions. When you hire leadership, you must lead not with skills but with culture. You must put leadership qualities ahead of experience. Great skills and talent proven with hard stats are not enough to go on when you hire a leader. That’s because leadership qualities cannot be read on a resume. I’m curious: Which hiring mistakes do you see most often?

Looking for leaders who are aligned with your company’s mission, values, and culture? Get a free digital copy of my book, Hiring on Purpose, here: bit.ly/45r3Bze

Work addiction is the only addiction people congratulate you for. If someone drank four bottles of alcohol in a night, people would be concerned. But when someone works nonstop… sacrifices relationships… chases achievement every waking hour… We call them driven. We applaud them. Ambition is powerful. But ambition without identity can take a dark turn. And the world celebrates it—even when it quietly destroys the relationships that matter most. I’ve seen this happen with founders. Someone builds a company. The business grows. The stakes rise. The hours stretch longer. From the outside, it looks like success. Inside their life, something else is happening. The people closest to them start experiencing their ambition as absence. That’s the strange thing about ambition addiction: The people who feel it the most… are the people who matter the most. And when those relationships are finally needed, they’re gone—because they were never cultivated. Here are three signs ambition may be turning into addiction: 1- Your achievements are growing faster than your relationships. 2- The people closest to you experience your ambition as absence. 3- Your business is expanding, but your life outside work is shrinking. Ambition builds incredible things. But without identity to anchor it, ambition can become a socially acceptable addiction. The real irony? Many people chase wealth hoping it will give them time for relationships. But the people who are truly wealthy already understand something different: They’re not in a hurry. They spend time with the people who matter most. They cultivate the relationships that actually make life meaningful. So I’m curious: Where do you think the line is between healthy ambition and ambition addiction?

If you’re rethinking how leadership hiring should actually work, this book goes deeper into the model and thinking behind it. Take a deeper dive into the Y Scouts process in our book, Hiring On Purpose: bit.ly/45r3Bze

Hiring leaders shouldn’t feel like a gamble. And yet, many companies still rely on résumés, interviews that reward confidence, and processes that focus more on pedigree than real leadership capability. Over time, we’ve seen how costly that can be not just financially, but in lost momentum, broken trust, and teams that struggle to perform at their full potential. That’s why we believe executive hiring needs a clearer lens. Not just can this person do the job? But how do they lead when outcomes are on the line? Do they drive real results? Do they develop people who make the business stronger? Do they keep learning and evolving as the company grows? Because at the senior level, competence might open the door but leadership behaviors determine whether the hire actually works. When companies get aligned on what great leadership really looks like, hiring becomes less about guessing… and more about building a future that can scale. Pause to read ⬇️

At Y Scouts we believe in the 3 Elevated Behaviors of Leadership: relentless learning, developing others, and delivering results. How you show up in each of these areas defines the scope of what you and your teams can achieve. Want to know more about how we think about transformative leadership? Check out our book, Hiring On Purpose:  bit.ly/45r3Bze

Your identity determines your leadership ceiling. No great leader will follow a mediocre one.  You cannot hire great leaders if you are not becoming one yourself.

Real wealth is not about maxing out your time and money. Real wealth is the absence of economic stress that allows you to focus on relationships. When you can invest deeply in the relationships that are healthiest and highest leverage for you, that’s when things really start to take off. And it’s when your purpose really starts to become clear. A lot of people think that purpose comes first and drives how you make your money and spend your time. But in my experience, making money and spending time with things that don’t truly light you up starts to reveal what matters most to you. For a lot of folks, that’s relationships, and purpose comes from figuring out how those relationships can be even better. That becomes the flywheel. We’re energized by our best relationships. We enjoy spending our time and energy making them better and seeing what they can produce. This is what the right hires can help you achieve. Putting leaders in place who get your vision and can bring it to life can let you double down on the relationships and purpose that drive you most. That’s why we do what we do. More connection, more purpose, more freedom. Grateful to be building it with people who care as deeply about this as I do: Sara Pizarro, Megan LaPlante, CJ DuBe' and the rest of the team at Y Scouts.

A lot of leaders know how to talk a big game about transformation. The most successful hiring teams know how to get to the core of their real experience. It almost always comes down to 3 Elevated Behaviors — and you can learn about those, and the other frameworks we use to find truly transformative leaders — in our book, Hiring On Purpose: bit.ly/45r3Bze

“We need someone who can transform the business.” That word, transformation, shows up constantly in recruitment. But transformation isn’t just about vision. It’s about execution. The leaders who actually succeed in these roles know how to turn ambition into progress.  They clarify strategy.  They identify the few levers that will truly move the business.  And they simplify what success looks like so the entire organization can move in the same direction. Execution brings alignment. Who’s doing what. By when. And how progress is measured. That’s what allows change to happen faster than the organization thought possible. Most companies already know the way they’ve done things in the past won’t be enough for the future. Change is coming either way. The real question now is speed. The organizations that will win aren’t just hiring visionaries. They’re hiring leaders who can turn transformation into motion that keeps pace with the market.

Clarity on success outcomes is what attracts the leaders who actually scale your business. If you want to understand how purpose alignment and leadership behaviors shape stronger executive hires, this book breaks down the exact framework we use in our searches. Learn more: bit.ly/45r3Bze

At some point, every visionary leader hits the same wall: You can’t scale the business alone. Execution, accountability, and leadership alignment become non-negotiable when growth is on the line. Scott Roberts knew stepping into the integrator role himself wasn’t the long-term answer. With Y Scouts’ transparent, purpose-driven search process, his team secured a COO who could truly drive results and help the company move forward. Because scaling isn’t just about hiring experience. It’s about hiring leadership behaviors that show up when it matters most.

30 years in entrepreneurship and over 50,000 hires have taught me a few things. One of the most important? You're only as good as your systems and the people who support them. That's why Y Scouts has a set of processes that are defining how the executive search industry operates at the highest level. Learn more about those in our book, Hiring On Purpose: bit.ly/45r3Bze

“What’s the fastest way we can destroy this business?” Not the question most people start with for their quarterly planning.  But it should be. Too often strategy meetings have no constraints.  There are too many things you could focus on and not enough guardrails to make it productive.  You end up with buzzword soup for your next quarterly goals and not much else. Vague strategy is how good businesses slowly die. But if you think about what could kill the business overnight — and then start mapping out everything you could do that’s the complete opposite — then you’ve got real traction.  You’ve got specific tasks and goals that everyone can start tracking towards. Defining what you don’t want is often more productive than trying to narrow down what you do want.  When you actively explore how your business could fail, the priorities that keep it alive become obvious.