Conduct Background Screening Of A Leader Differently

By Author: Naman Vohra
Total Articles: 42
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Senior Leaders hold the most critical position in an organisation as they are the ones who decide the future of the organisation by making strategic decisions. They are responsible for driving the organisation towards growth by managing other resources of an organisation including the workforce. Therefore, it is necessary to select leaders with required intellect and expertise for the top management. Leaders should have an inclination towards honesty and integrity so that they can build up a positive environment in the organisation. What if there is a dishonest leader in the top management of a company?

There are many cases of high-profile corporate frauds wherein senior leaders of reputed organisations involved in serious fraud like money laundering, theft of sensitive information etc. These incidents victimise the organisation not only in monetary terms but also in terms of brand image. Therefore, background screening of a senior leader is of utmost importance. As these positions are very important positions of an organisation, so one cannot conduct background check at a generic level. There should be a dedicated and focused screening process which is designed to identify the key information about the candidate. There should be a full financial regulator screening report as a part of the background screening process as there is a possibility that the leader involved in any sort of financial crime.

Most of the employees in senior leadership position have an experience of more than a decade. During their decade old career span they might have worked in different organisations, states or countries. Therefore background screening of a leader should be of an in-depth analysis of the background of the leader that should be capable of bring out each and every details about the leader.
Apart from the common checks like education, employment, address, reference and criminal checks, other important checks like global database check, drug abuse test, Overseas verification, Court record check and credit and Integrity Risk Database check should be conducted on leader to mitigate the risk of hiring a wrong leader. A thorough due diligence on a candidate for senior leadership position will bring out the authenticity of the information stated by the candidate and it will also extract the underlying information about the prospective leader which will help the organisation in taking an informed hiring decision.

Thus, organisation can reduce the risk of hiring a dishonest and unworthy leader to a large extent by conducting executive background check on their prospective leaders.