Why Speed Is Now a Leadership Capability (and How PE Firms Keep Hiring Too Slowly)

In private equity–backed environments, speed has long been treated as an operational concern. How quickly can we integrate a new acquisition? How fast can we rationalize costs? How soon can we hit the first value-creation milestone? Yet one of the most consequential forms of speed—how quickly an organization identifies, secures, and deploys senior leadership—has often remained stubbornly slow.

As we move deeper into 2026, that disconnect is becoming harder to ignore. Markets are shifting faster, regulatory environments are more volatile, and competitive advantages are increasingly temporary. In this context, speed is no longer just about execution. It is a leadership capability in its own right, and one that many PE firms continue to underestimate when it comes to executive hiring.

This is not an argument for recklessness. It is an argument for preparedness. The firms that move fastest are rarely those cutting corners. They are the ones that have designed their leadership strategies for velocity long before urgency sets in.

The Cost of Slowness Is No Longer Abstract

In prior cycles, slow executive hiring was often treated as a tolerable inefficiency—inconvenient, perhaps, but rarely framed as a material risk. That framing no longer holds. In today’s environment, prolonged indecision at the leadership level compounds exposure across operations, capital deployment, and competitive positioning. The cost is not theoretical; it accumulates quietly but relentlessly as opportunities narrow and execution gaps widen.

What has changed is not simply the pace of markets, but the degree to which decision speed itself has become a performance differentiator. Research from Bain & Company on decision effectiveness shows that organizations with faster, more effective decision-making processes significantly outperform peers on key financial metrics, including revenue growth and total shareholder return. Speed, in this context, is not about recklessness; it reflects clarity, alignment, and the ability to mobilize leadership around well-defined priorities.

In manufacturing and industrial businesses, the consequences of delay are particularly pronounced. Leadership gaps can slow capital deployment, defer operational improvements, and quietly undermine digital transformation efforts that depend on sustained executive sponsorship. We explored this dynamic in The First 100 Days: What PE Firms Should Expect From a Newly Recruited Manufacturing CEO, where early momentum emerged as a critical determinant of long-term success. When it takes six to nine months to fill a role that should be driving change from day one, that momentum rarely materializes, not because the strategy is flawed, but because the window to establish authority, cadence, and direction has already closed.

This is why slow hiring has become indistinguishable from slow decision-making more broadly. Both signal uncertainty at precisely the moment when decisiveness creates advantage. Strategic initiatives remain half-formed. Integration timelines stretch. Accountability blurs. In PE-backed environments, where value creation windows are finite and sequencing matters, these delays do not simply pause progress; they reshape outcomes.

The firms that outperform are not those that rush indiscriminately, but those that have built the internal conviction—and external partnerships—required to move with confidence when leadership gaps emerge. Speed, when anchored in clarity and rigor, is no longer a tactical preference. It is a structural advantage.

Why Speed Has Become a Leadership Capability

Despite widespread recognition that speed matters, many PE firms continue to run executive searches as if time were neutral, relying on fragmented processes, misaligned stakeholders, and legacy assumptions that quietly reintroduce delay at every stage.

Speed, in this context, is not about how fast a search firm can produce resumes. It is about how quickly an organization can recognize what kind of leader it needs, align stakeholders around that profile, and make confident decisions when the right candidate emerges.

The most effective executives today are distinguished not only by what they know, but by how quickly they can orient themselves, absorb complexity, and act with incomplete information. Leaders who thrive in volatile environments tend to exhibit three speed-related traits:

• Cognitive velocity: the ability to process new information and identify implications rapidly.
• Decision fluency: comfort making high-stakes decisions without waiting for perfect data.
• Organizational acceleration: the capacity to mobilize teams and resources quickly once direction is set.

Ironically, many PE firms seek these qualities in executives while relying on hiring processes that undermine them. Extended timelines, diffused accountability, and overly rigid assessment frameworks can all slow decision-making precisely when speed is most needed.

The Structural Reasons PE Hiring Moves Too Slowly

Private equity firms are not slow because they are inattentive. They are slow because their hiring processes were built for a different era.

Traditional executive searches often assume that roles are stable, requirements are fixed, and success profiles can be exhaustively defined upfront. In reality, many PE-backed roles evolve significantly within the first year. A COO hired to drive cost discipline may quickly find themselves leading a digital modernization effort. A CEO recruited for turnaround expertise may soon be navigating growth and acquisition integration.

When firms insist on perfect alignment against a static role description, searches drag on as candidates are disqualified for not matching yesterday’s needs. Meanwhile, the business continues to move.

We see this pattern repeatedly in our work with manufacturing clients, particularly those undergoing digital transformation. In From Data-Poor to Digitally Fluent: Finding Leaders Who Can Turn Manufacturing 4.0 Into ROI, we noted that digitally mature organizations prioritize learning velocity over narrow technical experience. Yet many searches still overweight past exposure at the expense of adaptability.

Speed vs. Urgency: A Critical Distinction

One of the most common objections we hear is that faster hiring increases risk. This concern typically stems from conflating speed with urgency.

Urgent hiring is reactive. It occurs when leadership gaps become painful enough that action can no longer be deferred. Decisions made under urgency are often compressed, politicized, and driven by fear of further delay.

Speed, by contrast, is proactive. It reflects an organization’s readiness to act decisively because the groundwork has already been laid. Fast-moving firms invest early in understanding their future leadership needs, mapping potential talent pools, and aligning stakeholders around what “good” truly looks like.

This distinction is particularly important in PE-backed environments, where leadership changes are often anticipated but postponed. By the time a search is formally launched, the cost of delay has already been incurred.

How the Best Firms Build for Hiring Velocity

The PE firms that consistently move faster on leadership share several characteristics, not tactical tricks, but structural advantages.

First, they treat executive hiring as a continuous discipline rather than a discrete event. Leadership planning begins during diligence and evolves alongside the value-creation plan. This allows firms to anticipate inflection points rather than react to them.

Second, they maintain clarity around capabilities, not just credentials. Instead of debating whether a candidate has operated in an identical environment, they focus on whether the individual has demonstrated the ability to scale, adapt, and lead through change. This mindset dramatically expands the viable candidate pool.

Third, they streamline decision authority. When too many voices weigh in too late, speed suffers. High-performing firms establish clear governance for hiring decisions, ensuring that feedback is incorporated efficiently rather than sequentially.

These principles are echoed in our analysis of regulatory complexity in Leading Through Regulatory Whiplash: How PE-Backed Manufacturers Can Hire Executives Who Thrive Under Policy Volatility. Leaders who succeed in uncertain environments are those empowered to act decisively, an attribute that begins with how they are selected.

Why “Waiting for the Right Moment” Is a Strategic Error

Another common reason searches stall is the belief that conditions will soon become clearer. Perhaps the next acquisition will redefine the role. Perhaps market volatility will subside. Perhaps regulatory direction will stabilize.

In practice, clarity rarely arrives on schedule. The organizations that outperform are those that hire leaders capable of navigating ambiguity, not those waiting for ambiguity to resolve.

This dynamic is particularly evident in capital-intensive industries, where delays compound quickly. A postponed hire can mean deferred capex decisions, slower operational improvements, and missed opportunities to differentiate.

From an investor perspective, this creates a paradox: firms spend months searching for leaders who can move fast, while the search itself becomes a source of drag.

Reframing Risk in Executive Hiring

If speed is a leadership capability, then slow hiring represents a form of unmanaged risk.

The risk is not merely that the wrong hire will be made. It is that no hire is made at all while the business continues to evolve. Leadership gaps are filled informally, accountability blurs, and strategic initiatives lose momentum.

In contrast, organizations that hire decisively—and support those hires effectively—are better positioned to course-correct if adjustments are needed. A leader who enters early, with clear mandate and backing, has far greater opportunity to shape outcomes than one who arrives late into a stalled organization.

What This Means for 2026 and Beyond

As we look toward 2026, the question is not whether markets will continue to change quickly. They will. The question is whether leadership strategies will keep pace.

PE firms that treat speed as a leadership capability—something to be designed, assessed, and reinforced—will be better positioned to capitalize on volatility rather than be constrained by it. Those that continue to rely on slow, episodic hiring models risk falling behind competitors who are simply more prepared.

This shift does not require abandoning rigor. It requires redefining it. Rigor is no longer about exhaustive consensus-building or perfect foresight. It is about clarity, alignment, and the confidence to act.

A Strategic Imperative, Not a Tactical Adjustment

Ultimately, faster hiring is not about moving resumes more quickly through a pipeline. It is about recognizing that leadership itself has changed.

The executives who will succeed in the years ahead are those who can absorb complexity, make decisions under pressure, and mobilize organizations at speed. Firms that want those leaders must be willing to reflect those same qualities in how they hire.

Speed, in this sense, is not a concession. It is a signal  that tells candidates, investors, and employees alike that the organization understands the pace of the world it operates in.

What Comes Next

If your hiring process feels misaligned with the urgency and complexity of your operating environment, it may be time to rethink not just who you hire but how. The firms that win in 2026 will be those that treat leadership velocity as a strategic asset, not an afterthought.

To explore how your executive hiring approach can better support speed, adaptability, and value creation, connect with Kersten Talent Capital. We help organizations design leadership strategies built for the realities ahead.