7 traits that make a good Head of Growth
What companies should be recruiting for (but they aren’t).
Hi there,
The last five years have seen an explosion of Head of Growth roles, with every startup wanting one.
But when I dived deeper and started analysing different Head of Growth roles, I found an endless list of both job responsibilities and job attributes.
I set about trying to help correct this, first by clarifying in articles when you should hire a Head of Growth and then by explaining what to look for in a Head of Growth.
There is still a lot to be covered, and based on the feedback I received from the growth community, the first step was diving into what makes an incredible Head of Growth.
So here are the top 7 skills I recommend looking for or focusing on developing:
Here is the full article diving deeper into those skills
After I last shared this on Linkedin I got three additional trait suggestions I wanted to share too:
Growth mindset (specifically curiosity) - Shared by Ruben de Boer. Curiosity is such a crucial skill, you can tell someone has this by the questions they ask.
Resilience - Shared by Dawn Andreas, she said “Unfortunately with hypothesis and testing comes failure and lots of opportunities for learning. Need to integrate and keep your mind right!”
Iterative - Shared by Kate Syuma, she said “Flexibility is required to achieve impactful results through continuous iterations and strategy pivots, and it's not the most common skill set in a more traditional product development approach.”
End of the day, you can get someone with loads of hands-on skills and experience, but it is these softer skills that make all the difference.
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Recommendation
In every edition of Growth Waves, I also share a related book, individual or newsletter to check out related to the week's topic.
If you are hiring for a Head of Growth (or starting out as one), I’m going to be cheeky and recommend mine and Rosie Hoggmascall’s Growth Onboarding Checklist.
It’s not enough to just look for someone with those traits, you need to help structure those first three months optimally to set them up for success. For £95 you get a full guidance on every week (and you can give them free access too, just drop me an email after you purchase it).
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I’ll leave you with a challenge:
If you are a founder, ask more questions about these traits when interviewing candidates.
If you are a Head of Growth, ask your team how you perform on these seven attributes and choose one to focus on improving the coming quarter. Rather than trying to up your Google Ads game.
Till next time,
Daphne