5 Concrete Ways to Turn Doubt into Clarity
By Mette Babitzkow Boje, Head of Assessment Tools at CfL. January 2026
It’s late in the afternoon. The last candidate has left the meeting room, and the recruitment interviews have stretched across two long days. The hiring manager and the HR partner lean back in their chairs. It’s quiet.
Not because the choice is clear. Quite the opposite.
The candidates were skilled and well prepared. Still, enthusiasm is hard to find. Who will actually deliver results in the role? And who will be able to turn development into better decisions and stronger performance?
This is where many recruitment processes stall: when potential and development become abstract concepts, and when the link to performance remains unclear.
This is also where gut feeling too easily takes over.
“There’s just something…”
“I can’t quite feel the leadership.”
“Is she resilient enough?”
The problem isn’t that intuition or gut feeling exists. The problem arises when it stands alone—because our instincts are shaped by experience, preferences, and unconscious bias. And because they rarely provide a complete picture of a candidate’s actual potential in the role.
One of the biggest challenges in assessing a leadership candidate is that preferences and behaviors only truly emerge in practice. This happens when decisions must be made on incomplete information, when conflicts arise, or when resistance, uncertainty, or emotions come into play.
It’s precisely in these situations that leadership becomes clear:
Does the candidate take responsibility or withdraw? Do they create calm or add to the unrest? Do they show empathy and situational awareness—even when the pace is high?
These qualities are difficult to read in a traditional interview, which is why CfL always recommends working with assessment tools.
Personality assessments and leadership profiles can’t predict everything. But they can provide a qualified insight into the patterns a candidate typically operates from. Among other things, they can help identify:
Not as definitive answers, but as a shared language—a foundation for speaking more precisely about areas that otherwise easily become vague.
When used correctly and supported by follow-up questions, assessments shift the conversation from impressions to behavior:
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“While the conversation is taking place, the intention is not to evaluate the candidate. Nor is it about deciding whether the person is suitable or unsuitable—or whether they are a good or bad leader. That kind of black-and-white conclusion is rarely helpful and often misleading.”
At CfL, we work with conversations that take their point of departure in a personality assessment—but it’s crucial to be completely clear about the purpose of the conversation.
While the conversation is taking place, the intention is not to evaluate the candidate. Nor is it about deciding whether the person is suitable or unsuitable—or whether they are a good or bad leader. Such black-and-white conclusions are rarely helpful and often misleading.
Instead, we use the structured conversation to gather as much nuanced information as possible. We are curious about how the candidate thinks, acts, and responds—especially in situations where leadership is put to the test.
Only once the conversation has concluded and we have a solid, detailed picture does it make sense to compare the insights with the job requirements and the organizational context. That is where evaluation belongs.
In this way, the focus shifts from quick judgments to well-founded insight. And that provides a far stronger basis for assessing how the candidate is likely to act in the role—in practice, in collaboration, and over time.
When doubt arises in the assessment of a leadership candidate, it’s rarely a sign that something is wrong. More often, it indicates that the basis for evaluation is too thin.
Here are five approaches that can help you move forward.
1. Separate evaluation from exploration
Use the conversation to understand—not to judge. When the purpose is curious exploration rather than quick conclusions, you gain access to far more honest and useful information.
2. Talk behavior. Personality without behavior is empty talk
Ask about concrete situations. What did the candidate actually do? What considerations were behind their actions? And what proved difficult in practice? It’s in behavior—not in general descriptions of strengths and weaknesses—that leadership potential becomes clear.
3. Use assessments as a shared language, not as final answers
Persontest er et udgangspunkt for dialog, ikke en sandhed. Den største værdi opstår, når testresultater bruges til at kvalificere samtalen og åbne for nuancer, som ellers kan være svære at få frem.
4. Assess in relation to context—not idealized imagesThere is no perfect leader. The question isn’t whether the candidate matches a generic leadership ideal, but whether they fit the task, the team, and the organization’s reality here and now.
5. Make the decision on an informed basis
Only once you’ve gathered and compared your insights does it make sense to evaluate and compare candidates. The stronger your shared understanding, the less room there is for gut feelings disguised as professional judgment.
When these five approaches are put into play, the nature of the conversation changes. It moves away from impressions and general assessments toward concrete behavior and realistic development pathways.
Let’s conclude with an example from practice:
Imagine an experienced specialist who is being considered for her first leadership role. She is professionally strong, well liked by her colleagues, and known for delivering high quality. In the interviews, she comes across as reflective and engaged—but the hiring committee has doubts:
Will she be able to step into leadership, even when she has to make unpopular decisions?
A personality assessment shows that she scores high on empathy and collaboration, but lower on risk appetite and decision-making speed. She tends to seek more information and multiple perspectives before making a decision—especially when relationships are involved.
That changes the conversation.
Now, the doubt is no longer about a lack of leadership potential, but about what her leadership would look like.
In the follow-up dialogue, she herself explains that she can feel uncertain when she has to set a clear direction toward former colleagues. At the same time, she expresses a strong desire to work on exactly that aspect.
The result is that the organization decides to hire her—with a clear framework: coaching, leadership training, and explicit expectations around decision-making authority during the onboarding phase.
One year later, she stands as a respected leader, known for her human insight and her ability to make well-considered decisions.
It wasn’t the assessment that made the decision. But the assessment made it possible to make a wiser one.
An important point is that assessments aren’t only about selection. They’re also about development.
Leadership potential in a given role is rarely a simple yes-or-no question. More often, it’s a matter of timing, support, and awareness. A candidate may have strong capabilities while also having clear development areas.
A qualified selection process requires more than a good interview. With CfL’s assessment and profiling tools, we make recruitment data-informed and targeted.
Ability and skills assessments: Identify the candidate’s qualifications and task-solving capabilities in comparison to a norm group.
Personality: Reveals the candidate’s work style, team fit, and approach to tasks and challenges.
Leadership behavior: Assesses the candidate’s approach, engagement, and motivation for the leadership role.
Read about the theory behind the JTI profile and gain insight into how it should – and should not – be used.
P: +45 53 67 67 91
E: mba@cfl.dk