New World of Work

What Do You Focus on as a Leader?

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“Focusing on problems limits solutions. Focusing on new possibilities and ideas multiplies solutions.” Jeannette Seibly

We’ve all heard the saying, “What you focus on expands.” We nod, but are not clear about what that really means.

Most leaders and bosses focus on:

  • The problem at hand and various ways to fix it in that moment
  • Something someone said and allow it to be replayed over and over, usually perceived as negative
  • An upset with a neighbor or family member who is not behaving according to their standards and allow it to take up mental and emotional space

Yet, the problems persist because we continue to focus on them.

You mistakenly believe by continually replaying the problem in your mind, that you’ll find the answer and will uncover something new. But in truth, your awareness is only focused on right v. wrong, and not on solving the issue.

Why do you keep replaying problems?

  • The issue seems insurmountable and hopeless
  • You tried once and failed
  • The other person isn’t listening and is wrong in their point of view
  • Your boss or team got upset when the issue was mentioned
  • You consider yourself a firefighter, not a solution provider

These patterns keep you stuck in the problem instead of moving toward solutions.

How to Create Solutions

Recognizing the above listed patterns is the first step, and intentionally shifting your focus toward solutions is the next, with each step building on the others to move you from problem‑fixation to solution‑focused leadership.

Engage in Curiosity. Too often, you fail to look at an issue from someone else’s point of view. You don’t ask open‑ended questions and assume you know the answers.

A team member who continually arrives late causes everyone to start the meeting over. This can be very annoying. But when talking with him, you find out it’s a child‑care issue. If you scheduled the meeting a half hour later, he’d be there when it started. This is what focusing on solutions looks like … asking questions to shift from assumptions to understanding.

Address the Core Issue. Once curiosity opens the door, the next step is addressing what’s really going on. It seems easier to place a band‑aid on everything. You and others claim, “We fixed it.” You may have for the moment, but in the very near future, it’ll only get worse since the core issue wasn’t addressed. This costs the company time, money, and retention of employees and customers.

Customer service had to do double entry when a customer called in. The tech people shrugged their shoulders and said, “It is the way it is.” When talking with a testing company, they said, “Look for this core coding issue.” They did, and were able to solve the problem. Productivity and customer and employee satisfaction rose.

Participate in Brainstorming. Once the core issue is identified, brainstorming opens up new possibilities.

As a leader or boss, too often, the following get in the way of true brainstorming, and limits your ability to focus on broader possibilities:

  • You have a false belief you must know all the answers. This is nonsense and limits potential solutions.
  • You’re afraid of the time and energy required to brainstorm, or like most leaders, you lack the skills to be an effective facilitator.
  • When someone makes off‑the‑wall statements, you roll your eyes and shake your head. You just don’t have the patience to listen to another bad idea. After all, you think, “We should be focused on the problem.”
  • Your biases limit hearing what’s possible (e.g., the person offering the idea). This keeps you focused on the problem and leaves your team feeling disempowered to solve it.

Facilitation tips:

  • Consider creating five reasons why any idea could work.
  • Ask open‑ended questions to get people thinking outside the norm.
  • Don’t be afraid of silence. This will force people to offer ideas that they’re afraid to say.

A department was struggling with missed deadlines. During a brainstorming session, one team member suggested eliminating two long‑standing reports. The leader almost dismissed the idea as “ridiculous” since those reports had been required for years. But after asking for five reasons the idea could work, the team discovered no one actually used the reports anymore. Eliminating them freed up hours each week, reduced errors, and improved turnaround time. What looked like a “ridiculous idea” became the breakthrough solution.

Take Action Now. Brainstorming only works when followed by action. Now that you have a proposed solution, assign tasks and get into action. Thinking about or talking more about it only keeps the problem around longer. Yes, there will be fine‑tuning required and needed conversations that were previously overlooked (e.g., getting input from employees who are directly impacted).

As you move forward, be flexible while focused on the solution.

When a large company made a major change to their technology platform, they forgot to ask the users for their input fearing it would take too much time. The results were horrendous and expensive. It was the main reason it took years before another company would buy out their assets.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Ready to shift your focus from problems to solutions? When you take this simple but not easy step, your solutions expand and so does your impact as a leader. It may feel unclear at first, especially when old habits keep pulling your attention back to what’s wrong. Don’t let that stall your progress. Contact me to get into focused action and start now.

Communication Has Always Been Hard

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Quote: “When we fail to take the time to learn the skills required to be effective, we make communication hard.” Jeannette Seibly

What’s hard about communication is that it requires courage, clarity, and care. It takes time, intention, and experience to teach us that communication is not just a skill, it is a responsibility. Legacy‑minded leaders understand that how they communicate today shapes the trust, stability, and direction others carry forward tomorrow.

Leaders who succeed take responsibility for both sides of communication. They ensure they are heard, and they take responsibility for how others hear them. They treat communication as a two‑way process, not a one‑way act. This is the mark of a leader who understands long‑term influence and impact.

The Communication Crisis

Today’s environment makes communication even more challenging:

  • AI, messaging systems, and lower reading levels have weakened clear expression.
  • Emotional reactivity makes people easily offended, afraid of the blow-back, or hesitant to tell the truth.
  • Social media distortions cause people to trust posts over people, even when the post is wrong.

After discovering an obvious online error, one employee asked, “Why would they write something that wasn’t true?” Errors happen for many reasons: multitasking, poor attention to detail, lack of verification, and failure to consider impact. Yet people still believe what fits their comfort zone.

This is why leaders must stay alert. If you weren’t there, you don’t know the facts. And yet people talk as if they do. Legacy‑minded leaders pause, verify, and respond with steadiness.

Common Communication Challenges and Solutions

The myth of “I’ve got it handled.” Effective communication is a lifelong process. If you think you’ve mastered it, you’re already behind. Everyone listens through filters and those filters shift with world changes. Remember, you don’t have it handled.

Leaders who rely on ego fail. “It’s up to them to understand me.”  Leaders who continually improve their communication style succeed. Legacy leaders know mastery is never final; it is sustained through humility and practice.

Know your audience. People learn and process information differently. Your job is to keep it simple.

  • Use words that match the listener’s ability to understand
  • Avoid insider language (jargon)
  • Don’t speak to show your education; speak to create clarity
  • Use open‑ended questions to engage others

 When leaders talk too much, offer no context, or make everything about themselves, people tune out.

  •  Getting everyone on the same page takes responsibility and patience.
  • As one leader said during a listening exercise, “This listening stuff is too hard.” (It may be why he closed his company’s doors.)
  • Legacy leaders know listening is fundamental.

Use tools that help people understand. Legacy leaders use tools to illuminate, not impress. When someone struggles to understand you:

  • Use graphs
  • Use flowcharts
  • Use physical examples
  • And above all, keep it simple

Communication is more than words. Words are only a fraction of communication (research has shown only 7 percent). Over 90 percent relies on tone, gestures, impatience, and emotional expressions that can destroy your message. Legacy leaders understand that self‑awareness is a responsibility, not a luxury.

Brainstorming. Legacy leaders know great ideas often come from unexpected places so they create the conditions for those ideas to surface. Brainstorming generates ideas, solves problems, and elevates people’s sense of value. But it requires strong facilitation.

  • Use Round Robin input (go around more than once)
  • Value each person’s input, even when you disagree
  • Keep examples on point
  • Don’t dismiss off‑the‑wall ideas; they may hold insight
  • Use open‑ended questions to keep people talking and listening

 Avoid communicating “I don’t value you.” Good leaders avoid behaviors that send the wrong message.

  • “I’m too busy.”
  • Multitasking (the brain cannot do two things at once)
  • Talking over someone
  • Having a ready answer before they finish talking
  • Unexamined biases, judgments, and attitudes
  • Dismissing or joking about others’ ideas or questions

Make the commitment to improve your communication style. It starts by hiring the right coach. Communication is often a leadership blind spot and is fixable. Legacy leaders develop and strengthen communication skills because they understand the long‑term negative impact of ignoring them.

Effective communication has always been hard and requires courage, clarity, and care. Also, it requires awareness, emotional intelligence, and the willingness to take responsibility for what you say and how you say it. Legacy leadership demands nothing less.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Leaders must stay alert. You have what it takes to make a difference. It starts with your ability to communicate effectively. Contact me to learn how.

Resolve Lack of Communication Undermines Employees

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“Communication gaps limit company growth, innovation, and employee job satisfaction.” Jeannette Seibly

Employees everywhere are navigating rapid change: new terminology, new protocols for working with others, and rising concerns about psychological safety. Yet many leaders still fall short in communicating expectations, giving practical instructions, and offering the direction employees need to perform well. Leaders unintentionally widen and quietly erode the very employee satisfaction they’re trying to build.

Overcome Lack of Communication to Improved Results

Leaders, the key is awareness! And, the willingness to ask the employee what they need. Yes, it may take more time initially. But saves you lots of time, money, and customers in the long run.

Answer the Request for Help.  When employees ask for help, answer in a manner that supports them to achieve intended results. You may not know the answer yourself. In those cases, refer the employee to team members that may know, or a vendor that knows how the system operates.

When an employee asked his manager for instructions on how to proceed with a project, the boss replied, “Just do it. Ask as you go along.” The employee was confused; he had never done the work before and didn’t know where to begin. He simply needed written instructions, or at least verbal guidance. But the boss didn’t know the process either and expected others to compensate for his lack of clarity. The employee eventually created instructions for himself and others, but those instructions disappeared when he and other team members quit. Lack of communication caused a spike in turnover because no one had the direction they needed to succeed.

Learn How to Listen for …

When leaders fail to listen for how they can help employees excel, they unintentionally widen communication gaps. Many leaders don’t listen for, or genuinely invest in, their employees’ career development. They stay focused on getting the job done with as little stress or disruption to themselves as possible. The real key is to care. Provide career‑development opportunities and encourage employees to apply what they learn, because strong communication and genuine support are what support performance.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

Never assume you, as the leader, have all the answers. Shutting down an employee who is having difficulty explaining what they want only creates more work in the long run. Take the time to ask open-ended questions, look for examples (e.g., pictures, graphs, or flowcharts) to ensure you are aligned, and remain open to others probing and asking questions too.

Never Assume Employees Should Know

When leaders assume employees should already know what resources and company benefits are available, they unintentionally widen communication gaps. Many employees don’t know what to ask for or even realize which benefits exist.

For example, when employee assistance programs (EAP) aren’t clearly communicated, people miss out on support at the very moment they may need it. Sharing information about free tax advice and other available resources builds trust, reduces stress, and strengthens a positive team culture.

All of this is achieved through full and clearer communication.

When employees can count on leaders to communicate clearly about expectations, opportunities, and the resources available to them, trust deepens and great results become the norm.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience guiding leaders and executives to achieve exceptional results. She delivers practical coaching and innovative solutions for hiring, leadership development, and performance success. Successful leaders have coaches—connect with Jeannette to elevate your results and impact in 2026.

If you and team not delivering the results you want, consider your lack of communication is the barrier. Contact me for a confidential conversation to identify the gaps and strengthen your impact as a leader.

Are You Open to Listening?

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“Are you open to hearing what’s being said? If not, you’ll lose out on many new possibilities, opportunities, and solutions.” Jeannette Seibly

Most of you would say, “Of course.”

But earlier today, when a co-worker or employee needed to talk, you played Spider Solitaire or let your thoughts wander while they spoke. Then, when they asked a question, you replied, “Could you please repeat that? I wasn’t listening.” You do that more than once.

I remember coaching a young man whose company had asked me to support his leadership growth. During the call, I suspected he wasn’t listening. I asked what he was doing.

He twitched and said, “Listening.”

“No, what are you really doing?”

He gave a sheepish grin and admitted he was watching a newsfeed on his phone.

“You do remember the purpose of these calls is to prepare you for a promotion, correct?” He nodded.

“As a leader, you need to learn how to truly listen—especially when you don’t want to hear what someone is saying.”

He asked, “Why? If they’re boring or I’ve heard it before?”

I responded, “Because in your listening, you and others can hear something new … a solution … new opportunity … new possibility. It’s how you develop your leadership—and your people. Otherwise, your legacy might be, ‘He never listened.’”

Several years ago, I was walking in the one-mile parklike setting where I live. There are usually plenty of people out with their dogs. Sometimes, they’ll even talk with you!

I recognized a dog, so I stopped to pet her. I asked the woman, “How are you doing? How’s Sadie?” She’d adopted the dog just a month earlier.

She said, “I’m good. Sadie’s doing well, too.” I smiled. Then she added, “I had been visualizing this dog. Other opportunities fell through, but I kept visualizing. Now, here she is.”

Why was this important to me? My cat had just passed away. I wasn’t sure if I wanted another. But in that moment of being open and listening, I knew I did. Later, I started visualizing. Even cut out a picture. Within a short time, I adopted Remy from the local humane shelter.

It happened because I was open to listening.

What Do You Need to Do to Improve Your Openness to Listening?

  • Be Curious. You don’t know it all. You never will. When you bring curiosity to your listening, you learn, grow, and develop ideas or dreams.
  • Ask Questions. There are books filled with conversation starters. They’re helpful. When using these ideas, these prompts can also unlock deeper thoughts you’ve been mulling over. If you don’t have a book with question starters, use your curiosity and ask open-ended questions. This is much better than gossiping—or recycling the same old ideas.
  • Humble Up. Your ego will try to protect you by refusing to listen. When you hear new ideas, you might feel excited… then uncomfortable… then fearful. That’s a good sign. It means the ideas are nudging you forward. Acknowledge your feelings—and keep the ideas flowing. Then, take focused action on one of them! What opened up?

Here’s another way to look at it: Wouldn’t it be better if your legacy said, “He was a great boss because he really listened,” rather than, “I hated going to work each day because he never listened to anything I said.”

©Jeannette Seibly 2025 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy-driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Amazon Best-Selling Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values-based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

Ready to elevate your openness to positively impact your next chapter? Let’s talk.

From Guesswork to Clarity: Hiring with Job-Fit Assessments Improves Revenues and Results

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“Job fit assessments take the guesswork out of your hiring process to improve revenues, retention, and results.”

In today’s hiring climate, speed often masquerades as strategy. Managers are urged to act fast—yet when the “right” candidate doesn’t surface, your hiring strategy often goes out the window.

Beneath the urgency and hesitancy lies a deeper tension:

  • Will this hire stick?
  • Will they elevate the team—or disrupt it?
  • Are we measuring what matters?

When clarity falters, misalignment follows. Promising candidates walk. Loyal customers drift. And retention, revenue, and results quietly erode.

When hiring decisions rely on urgency or intuition alone, managers often struggle to identify candidates who:

  • Have vague or inflated skills – that don’t translate to performance
  • Avoid accountability – by justifying shortcuts or disregarding rules
  • Resist feedback – rationalizing poor choices and showing little willingness to learn
  • Lack the long-term attitude or behavior needed – to support team growth and client retention
  • Require hands-on training – but resist being shown or told how to improve

These blind spots lead to failure and building a resilient, high-performing team. Without objective data from validated job fit assessments, better hiring outcomes remain out of reach.

Tired of interviewing a person and having them change their personality within two to 90 days? Keep reading.

What is a Job Fit Assessment?

It’s a screening tool that helps managers hire with purpose—defining roles, aligning expectations, and selecting candidates who truly fit.

Using “whole person” data—thinking style, core behavior, and occupational interests—reveals who a candidate is beneath the polish, not just how they want to be seen.

A job fit assessment shifts hiring from reactive to intentional, offering reliable, replicable insights that meet Department of Labor guidelines for both hiring and promotion.

Please note: Assessments are just one-third of the decision. Interviews (1/3) and due diligence (1/3) complete the trio.

Why are “qualified” job fit tools often overlooked? Most importantly, not all assessments are equal. A “qualified” job fit tool used for hiring and promotion must meet distinct scientific and legal standards. Most assessments don’t.

To be “qualified” and effective, these tools must:

  • Be scientifically validated and reliable, with proven predictive validity
  • Minimize bias and promote fairness
  • Deliver objective data for consistent, defensible decisions
  • Be easy to interpret and apply across roles and teams
  • Align with actual job performance

Why Are Job Fit Assessments Critical to Your Company’s Success?

Clarify Role Expectations. Most job descriptions list tasks, but few articulate a role’s impact on finances, systems, and people. A qualified job-fit assessment helps managers move beyond vague responsibilities to define true accountability about what success looks like (e.g., hiring salespeople who close deals, not just educate prospects; hiring financial planners who enjoy working with numbers).

Define Success Metrics. Hiring isn’t just about filling a seat—it’s about fueling performance. Job-fit assessments help managers identify what matters and avoid repeating costly mistakes:

  • What are the candidate’s natural strengths?
  • What skills need development?
  • How can we best support their success?
  • Are they coachable and open to feedback?

The insights provided by a qualified job fit assessment shape interviews, onboarding, and coaching—and reduce bias by anchoring decisions in data, not assumptions (e.g., eliminating bias tied to gender, age, education, or experience).

Align with Team Culture. Skills get candidates hired. Culture keeps them. The right assessment reveals how a candidate’s values, work style, and decision-making align with the team, company, and role—revealing synergy or friction before the hire.

Paired with honesty-integrity direct admission tools, managers gain deeper insight into values (e.g., drugs, theft, attendance), supporting trust-building from day one.

When managers hire with clarity, everything shifts:

  • Interviews become focused and strategic
  • Onboarding becomes purposeful and personalized
  • Teams align around purpose—not just performance
  • Objective data drives measurable outcomes (e.g., retention, revenue, results)
  • Employees engage more deeply when their roles fit
  • Customer satisfaction and team cohesion grow stronger

In short, qualified job-fit assessments aren’t just tools—they’re catalysts for sustainable retention, revenue, and results.

©Jeannette Seibly 2025 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly, an award-winning Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author, has guided thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve remarkable success over the past 33 years. Her specialty is delivering innovative solutions for hiring, coaching, and leadership challenges—with excellence and accountability at the core.

How can I help you select the right job fit assessment to improve retention, revenues, and results?

Change Management: The Biggest, Costliest Mistake Many Leaders Make

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“Hiring the right person for the wrong job equals poor job fit. And no amount of training and development will make them a superstar.” — Jeannette Seibly

🔍 Due Diligence for Systems vs. People

Organizations routinely invest time and resources into vetting changes to systems, operations, technology, and financials. Yet when it comes to hiring, promoting, or transitioning employees, decisions are often made based on gut instinct, biased assumptions, or incomplete data—leading to costly missteps.

“Hiring the right person for the wrong job equals poor job fit. And no amount of training and development will make them a superstar.” — Jeannette Seibly

💥 The Cost of a Misguided Promotion

A bank promoted a young man deemed a “future leader” by upper management. What did they fail to uncover? He lacked respect from both clients and colleagues. Within six weeks, he was fired. The fallout included lost trust, team disruption, and reputational damage.

This could have been avoided by using a strategic job fit selection system and a validated assessment to objectively measure leadership potential, decision-making style, and interpersonal effectiveness.

🧠 Hire with Eyes Wide Open

Promotion and transition errors are a hidden, costly drain on performance, trust, and compliance. The uncomfortable truth? Leaders often stumble for preventable reasons:

  • Gut over data. Nearly 62% of hiring decisions are influenced by managerial bias rather than objective performance indicators (Harvard Business Review, 2023).
  • Resumes are increasingly unreliable. With 45% of job seekers using AI tools (ResumeBuilder, 2024), the résumé is often a polished illusion.
  • Performance appraisals are broken. 66% of employees say reviews are unfair, and 95% of managers are dissatisfied with the process (Gallup, 2022). People are promoted due to politics, not performance.
  • Boomerang hires rely on memory, not metrics. Approximately 35% of new hires are returning employees, yet few organizations analyze the reasons for employee exits or their readiness for current roles (Workforce Institute, 2023).
  • Assessments must meet federal standards. The EEOC and DOL require pre-employment tests to be validated, job-related, and non-discriminatory. Many are not.

💸 Fact: 82% of companies promote the wrong person into management, leading to productivity loss, morale damage, and client attrition—costs that ripple far beyond salary figures (Dove Development).

📈 Promotion: Beyond Performance

Promoting someone based solely on past performance—like a top salesperson to a manager role—often backfires. Leadership demands empathy, communication, and delegation, not just technical skill.

Without proper evaluation and coaching, these transitions frequently lead to disengagement, increased turnover, and missed revenue targets. Objective tools give leaders clarity about who’s truly ready to step up.

🔄 Job Transitioning: A Strategic Imperative

When employees relocate, shift roles, or take on new responsibilities, success hinges on job fit. Often overlooked:

  • Career pathing offers a structured roadmap aligned with organizational needs and personal aspirations
  • Personalized development (mentoring, coaching, tailored skills-building) helps talent thrive
  • Onboarding plans bridge early gaps and reinforce role clarity and cultural alignment

Together, these elements form the backbone of a strategic job fit selection system that improves role transitions and strengthens succession planning.

💸 Fact: Poor promotions and misaligned job transitions can cost organizations up to 10x the employee’s annual salary, especially in leadership roles—making clarity and fit essential to long-term success (Lucent Global, HRMorning).

🚀 Call to Action: Elevate Your Leadership with Strategic People Decisions

The alternative isn’t guesswork—it’s strategy. Smart leaders don’t gamble—they build infrastructure that earns trust and delivers results. They implement a strategic job fit selection system that ensures every promotion and talent transition is intentional, data-informed, and compliant.

That includes:

✅ Validated job fit assessments to predict performance, leadership readiness, and interpersonal strengths

✅ Structured, compliant hiring and promotion processes—standardized interviews and role-specific decision criteria

✅ Manager training to reduce bias and support confident decision-making

✅ Intentional promotion and job transition planning to build trust, reduce turnover, and align talent with long-term success

Your systems are only as strong as the people running them. Let’s make sure you’ve got the right ones in the right roles.

© Jeannette Seibly 2025 All Rights Reserved

🔗 Ready to initiate your next chapter—or refine your role as a powerful contributor? Jeannette specializes in coaching leaders who are ready to build legacies, embrace reinvention, and lead with clarity.

Jeannette Seibly, an award-winning Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author, has guided thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve remarkable success over the past 32 years. Her specialty is delivering innovative solutions for hiring, coaching, and leadership challenges—with excellence and accountability at the core.

🔗 Contact Jeannette for a confidential conversation about smart hiring, insightful promotions, and intentional transitions.

🧭 How to Reduce the High Cost of a Poorly Designed Job Fit Selection System

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“Poor fit isn’t just inconvenient—it’s disruptive to morale, momentum, and mission.” Jeannette Seibly

Hiring isn’t just about filling a role—it’s about shaping the future of your organization. When leaders rely on outdated or misaligned selection systems, they invite costly consequences that echo across departments, customer relationships, and organizational culture. A poor fit isn’t just inconvenient—it’s disruptive to morale, momentum, and mission.

When organizations rely on flawed selection processes, the ripple effects extend far beyond hiring missteps:

  • 🚫 Overlooked Talent: Qualified candidates are often missed due to vague criteria or unconscious bias.
  • 📉 Lost Loyalty: Customers leave when service suffers from underqualified or mismatched employees.
  • 💸 Financial & Legal Risk: Frequent hiring and firing cycles damage reputation, increase turnover costs, and heighten liability concerns.
  • 🧠 Bias-Driven Choices: Selection decisions reflect unresolved beliefs and emotional residue, not data-driven clarity.

💡 How to Improve Hiring Precision and Integrity

To build a hiring process that honors both excellence and equity:

  • 🎯 Clarify the Role: Develop clear job specifications and descriptions to define success on the job—not just tasks, but traits and mindset.
  • 🛠️ Use Validated Tools: Employ legally compliant, scientifically sound assessments and structured interviews for hiring, promotions, and transitions.
  • 🔍 Treat Intuition as a Signal, Not the Verdict: Gut instincts offer clues, but they can’t answer who, what, where, when, or why. Let data and dialogue do the heavy lifting.
  • 📅 Prioritize Onboarding: Even returning employees (Boomerangs) need a fresh launch. A 180-Day Plan ensures integration, accountability, and cultural alignment. (See Hire Amazing Employees, Chapter 6 for practical tools.)

🧩 In Summary

A well-designed job fit system is a leadership imperative. When we align roles, tools, and onboarding strategies with clear standards and inclusive practices, we create space for true potential to emerge. The payoff? Stronger teams, greater customer trust, and a workplace built on confidence—not guesswork.

©Jeannette Seibly 2025 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly, an award-winning Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author, specializes in delivering innovative solutions for hiring, coaching, and leadership challenges. Over the past 32 years, she has empowered business owners, bosses, and leaders to achieve remarkable success. With a steadfast commitment to excellence, Jeannette champions those eager to elevate, expand, and excel in their results.

Key Factors to Hire for Job Fit and Avoid Costly Loss of People

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“Job fit is crucial when hiring and promoting people to achieve intended business results.” Jeannette Seibly

Did you know: “Employee engagement in the U.S. fell to its lowest level in a decade in 2024, with only 31% of employees engaged?” (Gallup)

I would assert that many employers are unclear about what job fit is and what it is not. Employees who excel in jobs that fit their thinking style, core behaviors, and occupational interests stay longer and are more engaged.

If you are frustrated and annoyed with hiring great people into the wrong job, this article is for you.

Today, many qualified people are looking for work because they are retiring, being fired, being laid off, or looking for something better. Although there are a lot of great job candidates available – buyer beware – it doesn’t mean they will fit well into the job responsibilities of your company. Outdated hiring practices that rely on intuitive hiring, biases, and inappropriate pre-employment assessments will cause you to lose key customers and top talent while hurting profitability.

“Too often, we hire based on subjective reasons but fire for poor job fit.” Jeannette Seibly

What Are a Few Signs of Poor Job Fit?

• Work assignments are late, with a lot of excuses
• Promises are made without achieving the intended results
• Frequent mistakes occur, and the employee misreads what needs to be done
• Conflicts with team members, customers, and bosses
• Failure to listen, incorporate others’ ideas, and develop win-win-win outcomes
• Lack of business growth (sales) or overrun of expenses
• Constant change in direction – they are easily distracted by “shiny objects” or “crystal ball” syndromes

Why Does Poor Job Fit Happen?

• No real objective data collected (e.g., resumes are more than 80 percent inaccurate).
• Rely on intuitive hiring practices that reflect biases (e.g., the job interviews account for 90 percent of the hiring decision).
• Unwilling to improve the selection process, citing costs for improvement and ignoring costs for hiring mistakes.
• Failure to conduct thorough due diligence (e.g., relying on false data, such as name of employer, education).
• Use inappropriate assessments to determine job fit (e.g., overlook validity, reliability, predictive validity, and distortion factors)
• Believe any known limitations can be overcome with training and development. (Forgetting that no one works that hard to be someone they are not. This is a trap that almost every hiring boss/leader falls into!)

What Is Job Fit?

Job fit refers to the alignment between an individual’s skills, experience, values, and personality with the requirements, culture, and expectations of a specific job and organization. It encompasses several key aspects:

1. Skills and Experience Fit: How well an individual’s abilities and past work experience match the tasks and responsibilities of the role. While these required skills and experience may sound good on paper, the job candidate may not be able to use the skills effectively. It’s why valid job-fit assessments are required. When using highly validated and reliable assessments, you gain insight into the real person and their core behavior, occupational interests, and thinking styles.

2. Cultural Fit: The degree to which an individual’s values, behaviors, and working style align with the company’s culture and work environment. A startup or new business venture is very different from working in a well-established company. In a company that requires thinking outside the box, some job candidates may believe they can … but are unable to design and develop sustainable systems or results.

3. Motivation and Interest: The extent to which an individual’s career goals and personal interests are aligned with the job’s duties and opportunities for growth. With changes in people’s work ethic, their career or life aspirations may misalign with the company’s needs and goals. It’s critical to have very clear expectations: PTO, work-life balance, accountability for following up and following through, etc.

4. Team Fit: How well an individual works with existing team members and contributes to team dynamics and cohesion. Are they someone who can work well with others, be coachable, and keep their ego out of the way?

When job fit is strong, employees are satisfied, business excels, and customers keep coming back.

Strategies to Improve Job Fit

• Create a sustainable strategic job fit selection process.
• Get real about what you need and the type of person who can fulfill the desired results.
• Work with a talent advisor/hiring consultant to train managers on interviewing, due diligence, and using the proper job fit assessment. (Each should account for 1/3 of the selection decision.)
• Remember, many savvy job candidates will tell you what you want to hear, and hiring bosses have a low probability of discerning the truth. It’s why objective data is required.

To recap: Using a qualified job fit assessment that meets the validity and reliability requirements outlined by the Department of Labor, conducting proper due diligence, and structuring interview processes to affirm your intuition/gut will provide clarity and are crucial to improving employee engagement, customer retention, and improving the bottom line.

©Jeannette Seibly 2025 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly, an award-winning Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author, boasts over 32 years of hands-on experience. Working with small and family businesses, her expertise guides leaders and bosses to refine their hiring, coaching, and management practices and achieve their intended results. Along the journey, she has guided the creation of three millionaires and numerous six-figure earners, all while championing those ready to elevate their game to new heights.

Grab her book, “Hire Amazing Employees” — it provides overlooked issues when designing and using a strategic job fit selection system.

Internal Mobility Creates Profitable Companies

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“It’s tough when markets change and your people within the company don’t.” Harvard Business Review

Many employees are staying longer with their current employers, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they are happier (also known as the Great Detachment—employees who are unhappy but not leaving, according to Gallup). In fact, many are simply waiting for new jobs elsewhere. The significant reasons? Many companies are failing to provide professional development and opportunities for growth.

Promoting internal mobility is a key strategy for retaining employees, enhancing both company agility and profitability. Leaders should leverage their employees’ skills by facilitating their movement into new roles and opportunities within the company. Internal mobility can include lateral moves, promotions, project-based roles, and taking on new responsibilities.

By creating a company culture that builds on and utilizes existing skills and knowledge, your company can be ready for change and profitable growth!

Steps to Make Your Company Ready for Internal Mobility

Update Current Policies and Practices

Review existing policies and identify gaps that make it difficult for employees to apply for and get different jobs within your company. Instead of requiring a long list of skills and experiences, focus on their accomplishments. For example, ask them to describe a recent project where they and their team produced intended results.

Create Career Pathways

Not everyone wants to be a manager of people, yet this is often the only way employees can get a pay increase. Instead, utilize their experiences by building different career ladders or pathways. Use a qualified job fit assessment to focus on employee strengths and actual interests. For example, placing someone who excels with numbers into accounting may not be beneficial if they have no interest in accounting or finance.

Train and Develop Your Leaders

Many leaders hold their positions due to their expertise in finance, technology, or operations, but they may lack people development skills. Hire coaches for these leaders and focus on developing them to develop others.

Address Cultural Resistance

Some managers and employees resist internal mobility. To overcome these blocks, understand why. For instance, some companies base career mobility on length of service, which is not always indicative of effectiveness or ability to learn new skills. Address this type of resistance by emphasizing skill and performance over tenure.

Address Skill Gaps

Everyone can be a leader without a title, but it requires leaders to allow employees to work without micromanagement. Encourage employees to share ideas and take initiatives to close skill gaps. Provide workshops, one-on-one coaching, and training programs in communication skills, critical thinking, teamwork, and project management to prepare them for internal moves.

Build a Talent Pipeline

Encourage employees to participate in small-group and company-wide teams, as well as trade and professional associations. These opportunities broaden their awareness and help them learn new skills. When new positions arise or employees leave, look first at your talent pipeline to fill these roles. This saves time and money, while increasing your company’s agility and profitability to meet new market demands.

© Jeannette Seibly 2024 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Talent Advisor/Leadership Results Coach with over 32 years of practical experience guiding leaders to improve their hiring, coaching, and managing practices and achieve amazing results. Achieving business success always starts with having the right people in the right jobs. She has been an Authorized PXT Select® Partner for over 33 years. Contact Jeannette to learn more about state-of-the-art job-fit assessment tools or how to coach and manage your people to achieve incredible results.

A Note from Jeannette: Developing internal mobility in your company increases agility and improves the bottom line. What does it take? What are some of the issues and challenges that must be addressed? This week’s article covers common, yet overlooked, areas that need attention. Contact me for a confidential conversation to resolve what seems unresolvable.

Now is the time to get into focused action! Are there days you dread managing your people, projects, and team’s financial performance? You’re not alone! Everyone has those days. But continuing to hide behind excuses only hurts you and your future promotability. I have extensive experience guiding leaders to hire, coach, and manage their teams successfully, including helping you get out of your own way and working effectively with your team to achieve the required results. Contact me to learn more about my in-depth, one-on-one, customized coaching programs.

The Secret to Overcoming Team Resistance

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“Use a compassionate no-nonsense approach when teams are resistant to change.” Jeannette Seibly

There are many ways to overcome team resistance … but the secret is to strengthen your ability to communicate effectively.

Managing teams that are resistant to change requires patience, empathy, and clear communication. By understanding the root causes of resistance, involving your team in the process, and providing support and resources, you can create the intended results and a process that motivates the team to do more.

Use Effective Communication to Address Resistance Constructively

Use a compassionate no-nonsense approach. This approach blends empathy with clear, direct communication. This style is effective in leadership and interactions as it respects others’ feelings while maintaining focus on results.

• Have empathy (the ability to understand and share the feelings of another – Oxford Dictionary) and be clear by actively listening and engaging with concerns.
• Be direct in your expectations, feedback, and decisions.
• Hold team members accountable by acknowledging feelings.
• Offer support and resources, yet be firm in setting boundaries (e.g., timetable and budget).

When offering new ideas, take responsibility for how you share them. Remember, you’ve been thinking about these changes for a while. It may be the team member’s first-time hearing about them. Hence, resistance. Talk straight in a no-nonsense way. Don’t be cutesy and make jokes to communicate your point … also pay attention to microaggressions you may not be aware of saying. (Talk with your executive coach to distinguish them.) Stick with the issue being addressed and why the change is necessary. Don’t be afraid to hear others’ suggestions, but don’t get bogged down and take the team off-track.

Beware of the “I’m confused” default response. Yes, some employees default to confusion when they resist change or need to step out of their comfort zones. They use this excuse to not be held accountable … why? It works! First, talk with your executive coach to ensure you are clear on how to best present your ideas or suggestions. Use a job fit assessment for objective feedback. If this “confusion” happens frequently, the person may be in a job that isn’t a good fit. For example, if you place a technical person into a customer service role, they may lack the required mindfulness when interacting with people on a frequent basis. (They are actually confused.)

Build trust by being consistent and leading by example. When team members fear playing a bigger game, there will be a lot of resistance! Are you leading by example? Are you willing and able to listen and talk through the concerns without disrespecting the team? Do you allow others’ fears to diminish achieving the goal? (Hint: Goals should be ten words or less and stretch you and your team from where you are now.)

Get back to basics through training … it is critical. Provide ongoing training … one and done does not work when guiding team members to expand their communication, critical thinking, and technical skills (and your communication and leadership skills). Remember, be patient … small steps will always lead to significant gains.

©Jeannette Seibly 2024 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Talent Advisor/Leadership Results Coach with over 32 years of practical experience guiding leaders and bosses to improve their hiring, coaching, and managing practices and produce amazing results! And yes, achieving business success always starts with having the right people in the right jobs! She has been an Authorized PXT Select® Partner for over 33 years. Contact Jeannette to learn more about these state-of-the-art job-fit assessment tools or how to coach and manage your people to achieve incredible results.

A note from Jeannette: Team resistance to new ideas or ways of doing their work can be challenging as a boss/leader. A compassionate no-nonsense approach works best since it includes empathy and talking straight. Contact me to start a confidential conversation and address how to resolve what seems unresolvable.

Now is the time to get into focused action! Are there days you dread doing what is needed to manage your people, projects, and team’s financial performance? You’re not alone! Everyone has those days! But continuing to hide behind excuses only hurts you and your future promotability. I have extensive experience and wisdom guiding bosses and leaders to hire, coach, and manage their teams successfully – this includes getting you out of the way and working with and through people effectively to achieve the results required. Contact me to learn more about my in-depth, one-on-one, customized coaching programs.