Air New Zealand · Leadership assessment
Assessing leaders for a new operating model.
- My contribution
- Co-develop the framework and own the assessment structure.
- Outcome
- A shared basis for placing approximately 70 leaders and identifying recruitment gaps.
A new operating model needed a new way to assess leadership. I helped translate unfamiliar requirements into a practical structure for comparing evidence across senior roles.
A common basis for unfamiliar leadership roles.
Air New Zealand’s enterprise Agile transition changed what senior leaders would be accountable for. With McKinsey supporting the organisational redesign, leaders needed to be considered for new roles across different disciplines.
The challenge was to compare relevant evidence fairly across business leaders and leaders responsible for a discipline’s craft, people and professional standards.
Turn leadership requirements into usable assessment.
I co-developed the competency framework with the organisational design manager, drawing on enterprise leadership requirements, McKinsey’s input and the organisation’s values. I owned the final assessment structure.
I designed competency-based interviews and simple scoring guidance, with examples of stronger evidence, then briefed the executive interviewers. Candidates could draw on their own functional experience while being assessed against common requirements.
Bring evidence into executive calibration.
Approximately 70 leaders were assessed, with two executives interviewing each person. The evidence informed a full-day calibration discussion with the executive team, a McKinsey lead and senior HR colleagues.
I contributed and interpreted assessment evidence and challenged aspects of the thinking. McKinsey’s lead facilitated the discussion; hiring leaders retained responsibility for appointments.
Support placement and identify recruitment gaps.
The process gave executives a shared basis for placing leaders into the redesigned roles and identifying gaps requiring external recruitment, including Customer Touchpoints.
This was a structured selection process, not a validated psychometric instrument. Subsequent performance data was not available to assess appointment quality.