Hiring Is an Early Act of Leadership

Too many leaders unknowingly undermine it.

Earlier this week, my dog sitter asked if she could put me down as a reference for a job she’d applied for.

Of course, I said yes.

The next evening, I received a text from the hiring manager asking if I’d be available for a quick phone call sometime the following day or later that week. I responded almost immediately: tomorrow mid-to-late morning would work—what time should I expect the call?

At 11:28 a.m. the next day, she texted that she was available now if I was. I didn’t see the message until 11:50, at which point I replied that she could call anytime.

At 3:30 that afternoon, she texted again, apologizing that something had come up and asking if around 10 a.m. the next morning would work. Forty-five minutes later, I confirmed that it would.

I never heard from her. That was Friday.

If the purpose of a reference check is to assess whether a candidate is dependable and responsible, the irony is hard to ignore. In the course of evaluating those traits in someone else, this hiring manager didn’t display them herself.

That may seem like a small thing. But leadership is built on small, repeated behaviors.

What Hiring Really Teaches

It’s likely my dog-sitter’s experience is this: She interviewed on Monday. By midweek, references were being contacted. And now? Silence. At least a week will have gone by without closure. Employers frequently complain—loudly—about candidates “ghosting” them, but employers do it, too. And dragging out the hiring process like this isn’t just inefficient. It’s unfair. And, frankly, inhumane.

I say this often: a leader’s job, no matter where they sit in the organization, is to model and coach the behaviors they want to see in their people.

Hiring is the first place leaders get to do that.

Long before onboarding or performance reviews, candidates are already experiencing your culture—not through what you say, but how your hiring managers act. They’re learning what “normal” looks like through what happens to them.

The Conditions Leaders Create

Yet in many organizations, hiring is treated as an administrative task—a burden, really. Something that belongs to HR.

And when that’s the prevailing view, hiring managers are left to believe they have little real role or influence beyond showing up for interviews. Whether or not the process works is seen as someone else’s responsibility.

That belief doesn’t come from nowhere—it’s reinforced by what leaders at the top of the organization do and don't do. What they prioritize, reward, and ignore.

In this environment, no one should be surprised by the outcomes.

Most hiring managers don’t do this on purpose. Many have never been taught what good looks like in the hiring process. What they’re doing now is copying what they experienced themselves, what they’ve watched others do, and what’s been modeled—again and again—across the organization. I guess this is how we do things around here.

And rarely does anyone in senior leadership (outside of HR) say this about hiring: This matters. This is leadership. This is part of your job.

Certainly not the CEO.

On top of that, hiring is almost always something managers are expected to squeeze into their “real” job. No protected time. No clear expectations. No coaching. No feedback. Just one more responsibility layered onto an already full plate.

So who could blame them for producing a sh*tty outcome?

Understanding why this happens matters. But it doesn’t erase the impact.

The Cycle Leaders Rarely Examine

Whether hiring managers intend to or not, they teach people what is acceptable—through missed calls, vague timelines, delayed decisions, and silence. Those lessons don’t disappear once the person is hired. The behaviors the leader modeled in the hiring process are the same behaviors they get back on the job—creating a cycle they rarely examine.

Employers often complain about retention challenges, talent shortages, and the high cost of replacement hiring. What leaders in these organizations rarely examine is how their own personal hiring behaviors contribute to those very outcomes.

This isn’t about “talent attraction.” It’s a leadership consistency problem.

HR plays an important role here—but it’s a supporting one. Hiring managers—not HR—should own the accountability for hiring outcomes. And CEOs, in particular, need to look hard at the culture they create—or allow to develop—around hiring by what they do and do not do.

Do they give leaders the time and space to hire well? Have they defined—and do they themselves model—what “good” looks like? Do they see hiring as core work, or as a distraction from it?

I often hear senior leaders respond with some version of, “That’s all well and good—but they need to get back to their real jobs.”

But this is the real job.

You can’t reasonably expect someone to run a high-demand operation—whether that’s a customer care center, a production floor, or a frontline service team—and thoughtfully hire their next team member at the same time. During the hiring period, the work is hiring. Once it’s done, they return to everything else.

Here’s how it goes: Executive leaders create the conditions for hiring. Hiring managers produce the outcomes within those conditions.

Are you getting the outcomes you want?

Long before someone accepts an offer, they’ve already experienced what it’s like to work for you—and learned what behaviors are acceptable.

So here’s the question I can’t shake: Are these the behaviors you want?

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Andrea J. Applegate is a leadership consultant, coach, and creator of LeaderShift™, a collection of practical, immediately implementable insights and deeper dives designed to shift mindsets and strengthen skillsets of leaders at all levels. Her work is rooted in the Mutual Learning Approach, where clarity, trust, and accountability aren’t abstract values—they’re daily practices.

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