Talent Makers

Expert Insights: Maia Josebachvili

Maia Josebachvili has had a long career around great winning teams. She's worked at a number of companies, started her own company, joined Greenhouse and was instrumental there, and was Head of People at Stripe.

What is it that a great leader does that others don't do?

I've been fortunate in my career to work with some exceptional leaders. Though their working styles vary, there is a common thread I've observed in all—they have the consummate “tell me how I can help” attitude.

We had a great new leader join the company and in his first week he emailed me and our head of recruiting and asked simply, “What can I do?” He attended our recruiting all hands in his first month, introduced himself, and said, “I'm here to help. We're going to build this amazing team together.”

Another woman came in and right off the bat wanted to know the history of the recruiting process. “What's a sacred cow that I should be aware of? Where's the room to innovate?” She clearly wanted to partner with us on the recruiting process and build the best team together.

Those are just two examples out of many. I've found that the best leaders see themselves and recruiting as true partners.

Let's say you've been in recruiting a long time but you're new to your company and the leader is not fully onboard with these concepts of great hiring. How do you effect change upward to the leader?

Evidence-based approaches often work best in these cases. If you look at the strongest teams ...