Should Employees Be Allowed to Interview Their New Boss or Future CEO?

When hiring a new leader for your organization or team, how you structure your interview sequence and who you include matters just as much as the questions you ask. For search committees hiring a CEO or hiring teams recruiting senior executives, one common question is: Should employees be allowed to interview their new boss?

The short answer is: no.

Why Direct Reports Should Not Interview a Prospective Boss

There are several reasons subordinates should not formally interview a CEO or senior executive candidate:

• Junior team members aren’t qualified to interview those above them. The most effective interviews are conducted by interviewers with a track record of successful hiring and a deep understanding of the position and competencies required to succeed.
• It’s an awkward power dynamic. The new manager can’t ask about team deficiencies, and the direct report can’t ask tough follow-up questions. The whole conversation devolves into a dance of avoided topics.
• Staff can have biases about past leadership. If previous leaders failed to hold employees accountable, staff may resist change and give negative feedback about a candidate who emphasizes oversight, even if that’s what the position requires.
• Direct reports can misunderstand your hiring goals. Search committees and hiring teams often seek leaders with different skills, perspectives, or management styles to add to or shift culture. Staff may view new leadership styles as a “bad culture fit.”

Because direct reports cannot fully understand your strategy behind hiring a new leader, their evaluation can skew toward personal preferences rather than an objective assessment of the skills needed for the success in the role.

Better Ways to Include Staff in the CEO or Senior Executive Interview Process

You may want (or need) to involve staff in the hiring process due to internal politics or cultural norms. In that case, think about their role more as participation than decision-making. Direct reports should never interview a prospective boss, but they can play a meaningful part.

Include Direct Reports in Panel Interview Discussions

Invite direct reports to meet the candidate and give them discussion prompts to guide the conversation. This is typically done in a panel interview setting with several team members. Here are some sample prompts:

1. Introduce yourself and describe the work you do.
2. Share a few current projects and challenges your team is working through.
3. Ask the candidate if they’ve encountered similar issues in past roles and how they’ve handled them.

In a panel setting, it’s helpful to have someone else from your hiring team present to moderate and ensure the conversation focuses on understanding the candidate’s leadership style, not evaluating their qualifications.

Collect Feedback From Panel Discussions Individually

Following the panel discussion, invite direct reports to share their feedback about the candidate individually to avoid the tendency toward groupthink. Give specific prompts for feedback like:

• Would the candidate’s work style add to or elevate our organization’s culture?
• What are their strengths?
• Are they a strong mentor who provides opportunities for staff development?

With this approach, staff participation in the interview process accomplishes three things:

• Subordinate team members feel valued and included, which is important for morale during a leadership transition.
• The candidate learns more about the team and what they are working on.
• You’ve established guardrails to ensure direct reports don’t misunderstand their role in the hiring decision.

This is all part of developing an effective interview strategy, something that the Staffing Advisors team does with every client during an executive search.

For Employees Asked to Interview a Future Boss

If you found this article because you’ve been asked to interview a potential new boss, frame your questions to provide context about your role and the team’s work rather than aiming to formally evaluate the candidate’s skills. For example, try questions like:

• “These are the challenges my team is working through right now … have you handled something similar before?”
• “What is your approach to developing staff and mentoring team members?”

These questions help you get a genuine understanding of your future boss’s leadership style and how they’ve supported teams in the past. That is the most valuable feedback you can provide to the hiring team. And if the new leader is hired, this approach helps you establish a good working rapport and show your value on the team.