Many people can talk and act well. A manager can only be easily measured by his results (e.g., business P&L, people respect). If you need to hire someone to do A and you find someone who did A' successfully and A & A' are very similar including their encompassing environments, then it is a lucky situation. But most situations in real life are not as lucky. The keys are (I) your ability to determine the gap of a manager performing in a different environment (people, culture and politics) with different kinds and different levels of complexity and (II) your ability to mentor him to narrow the gap. In not lucky situations, I first internalize the complexity of the job then evaluate candidates' experience and skills to determine the gaps. After I find one or more close-enough-candidates, I start to exam the fundamentals of each candidate as follows:
(In priority order)
1. How that person organizes his thoughts (a person doesn't organize his thoughts well doesn't solve problems well, even he is very knowledgeable on certain discipline)
2. How that person manages his study as a student, career as a professional and personal finance as a head of household (a person doesn't manage himself well doesn't manage others well)
3. The person's passion, value system, drive and commitment (whether his motivation is in the right direction and he is persistent and resilient enough to achieve his goal)
4. Whether the person is fair (fair to other people and fair to himself), approaching things constructively (rather than destructively) and handle people's feeling carefully
5. Whether the person can tell a good story (communication skills)
6. Ensure the person is not politically naive
It is important to note that whether a manager is appropriate is also situation dependent. For example, if you, I and 10 more people go to a desert and only you have the knowledge to get out. Even you communicate badly and scold people everyday, people would still follow you because you are the best person to lead the team to get out.
