Reducing Risk Through Informed Executive Search

July 22, 2026 – As organizations face increasing pressure to make the right leadership decisions, executive search is becoming less about simply filling senior roles and more about reducing risk of a bad hire through better information, stronger alignment, and a deeper understanding of the leadership market. Companies are increasingly seeking search partners that can provide strategic insight before a search formally begins, helping define the mandate, calibrate expectations, and shape a more effective search strategy from the outset.

Informed Search is advancing that approach by emphasizing market intelligence, stakeholder alignment, and shared accountability throughout the search process. Rather than treating executive recruitment as a transactional exercise, the informed search model focuses on helping clients make more informed decisions at every stage—from defining the role and evaluating the market to selecting leaders positioned for long-term success. As organizations navigate greater complexity and heightened scrutiny around executive appointments, the more strategic executive search approach of informed search is becoming an increasingly important differentiator when selecting executive search options.

As the cost of leadership missteps continues to rise, organizations are also taking a closer look at how executive search decisions are made. Research from Heidrick & Struggles, Leadership IQ, the University of South Carolina’s Center for Executive Succession, and McKinsey consistently shows that roughly one-third to nearly one-half of senior external hires fail, are forced out, or leave within 18 months, underscoring the importance of reducing uncertainty before a search even begins.

“I believe there are three critical points in the recruitment process where there is a risk of the searches falling short: during the strategy stage, after a slate of candidates has been delivered, and at the offer stage,” said Kathleen Duffy, president and CEO of Duffy Group. “The strongest executive searches are not simply about finding exceptional candidates. They are about reducing uncertainty at every stage of the process, ensuring better decisions, stronger alignment, and a higher likelihood of long-term success.”

Leadership roles are most frequently mis-specified during the intake process, Ms. Duffy explained. “Before the search begins, it is essential to align all stakeholders, not only on the recruiting process, but on the role itself, its responsibilities, the leadership competencies required, and what success looks like in the first 12 to 24 months,” she said. “When that alignment doesn’t happen, the candidate pool reflects differing expectations rather than the organization’s actual needs.”

“This can lead to long search timelines, repeated recalibration, candidate frustration, and, in some cases, hiring a leader who is not the right fit for the role or the organization’s long-term objectives,” Ms. Duffy continued. “Investing the time upfront to build alignment reduces risk, improves decision-making, and increases the likelihood of making a successful long-term hire.”

Where Things Fall Short

The importance of that alignment is reinforced by Leadership IQ’s landmark study of more than 20,000 hires, which found that 46 percent of new hires fail within 18 months, with 89 percent of those failures attributed to attitude and interpersonal fit rather than technical competence. The findings suggest that organizations are often more likely to struggle with defining leadership expectations and cultural fit than evaluating technical qualifications alone.

With 37 years in the recruiting world, here’s where Sheila Greco, founder and CEO of SGA Talent, sees things often fall short—even when the process looks well executed. “Lacking early stakeholder buy-in leads to drift because there isn’t complete agreement on the role, responsibilities, and success criteria from day one; the remedy is explicit alignment and regular touchpoints with all key stakeholders at the outset and throughout the process,” she said. “Slow or inconsistent feedback causes bottlenecks and frustration, so the fix is a rapid, uniform feedback cadence with clear reasons for advancing or not so candidates move efficiently.”

Kathleen Duffy founded Duffy Group in 1991 to help organizations uncover passive talent using a proprietary informed search model,  Duffy Recruitment Research™. As president and CEO, she enables organizations to make confident, future-defining decisions about their most critical asset: leadership. Her work is grounded in a belief that executive search should deliver insight, not just resumes. Ms. Duffy pioneered informed search as an alternative to longstanding retained and contingent models, giving leaders unprecedented access to market data and a transparent fee structure not tied to a candidate’s compensation.

“Poor visibility and updates frustrate stakeholders who want real-time progress, market context, and next steps; we should deliver regular, transparent updates—market intelligence, shortlist progress, and anticipated timelines—consistently from start to finish,” Ms. Greco explained. “Misalignment with market realities means even a well-run process can miss top candidates if the mandate isn’t continually tuned to market conditions; the answer is to continuously share market insights and be prepared to refine the mandate as data evolves. Fragmented communication channels create silos and confusion, so we centralize communication in a single, collaborative forum for updates, insights, and decisions.”

“Bottom line: the strongest executive searches are driven by proactive, positive communication—early buy-in, rapid and clear feedback, regular updates, and continuous alignment with market realities,” Ms. Greco said. “When communication is great, the process stays efficient, and the best candidates emerge.”

Rethinking Risk in Executive Search

The consequences of getting executive hiring wrong extend far beyond the cost of a search. In a University of South Carolina study of approximately 150 chief human resources officers, 45 percent estimated the direct cost of a failed external executive hire at between $2 million and $5 million, while another 15 percent placed the cost between $5 million and $10 million. Additional research from Gartner, Harvard Business Review, and SHRM suggests the total organizational impact—including lost productivity, disruption, turnover, and replacement costs—can range from 200 percent of annual compensation to as much as 10 to 15 times an executive’s annual salary.

Related: The Structural Shift in Executive Search: Why a Third Model Is Emerging

Depending on the executive search solution, risk is distributed in a different way. “With retained search, the risk is on the client,” Ms. Duffy said. “With contingent search, the risk is on the recruiting firm. With informed search there is little risk because the client is receiving outcomes—market intelligence, access to passive candidates, and the ability to hire as many candidates from the search because fees are not tied to the candidate’s compensation. Ultimately risk should be distributed equally between the client and the search firm; the client needs to clearly articulate the role and responsibilities and the search firm needs to set clear expectations.”

Ms. Duffy also noted that market intelligence should be shared by the recruiter before the search begins. “This is an opportunity for the client to learn about the market to provide guidance and recommendations on the search strategy,” she said. “Once the search begins, additional competitive intelligence will be gathered, allowing changes to be made to the search strategy without jeopardizing the integrity of the search process.”

That emphasis on market intelligence reflects a broader shift toward more data-informed executive hiring. Yet despite the growing availability of talent analytics, recruiting expert Dr. John Sullivan estimates that as much as 75 percent of hiring decisions still rely primarily on human intuition rather than objective data, reinforcing the value of incorporating market intelligence throughout the search process.

In today’s environment, if an organization selects the wrong leader, it will be highly publicized due to social media, especially with the use of LinkedIn, Twitter/X, and Glassdoor. “Success is no longer defined solely by experience or pedigree,” Ms. Duffy said. “It increasingly depends on adaptability, judgment, communication, and the ability to lead through uncertainty. The cost of getting it wrong is higher because the downstream impact reaches further into the organization. A leadership mis-hire can stall strategy, weaken culture, create turnover, delay growth initiatives, and force the organization back into the market when continuity and momentum matter most. Increasingly, leadership selection is no longer being viewed as simply a hiring decision. It is a business risk decision.”

Executive hiring is too important to be guided by tradition alone. As organizations evaluate retained, contingent, and informed search models, understanding how each approach distributes risk, delivers market intelligence, and supports decision-making can lead to strong leadership hires and better long-term outcomes.

Related: How Executive Search Firms Identify True Talent

Contributed by Scott A. Scanlon, Editor-in-Chief and Dale M. Zupsansky, Executive Editor  – Hunt Scanlon Media