Energy Without Direction

The situation

Candidate A has the strongest results in the company, enormous drive, and speaks fluently about the company's values. Two former colleagues, independently, describe A as someone who tells each audience what it wants to hear and cuts corners when no one is watching; nothing was ever proven. Candidate B delivers steadily, is respected for straight dealing, but is slower and less ambitious. The new market is fast and lightly supervised: the manager will have wide authority and an AI toolset that multiplies whatever they do.

Your decision

Whom do you appoint, and what do you test before you decide?

Make your decision & compare with TRU

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Source context

Will is an operational virtue: it magnifies the telos, it does not choose it. First check the telos, then the will.

Vanguard Leadership, Volume 2 · vl2-027, Will Is an Operational Virtue (vl2-027.c004)

Strong will is good at reading what the leader wants to hear, and values talk is the easiest thing to copy.

Vanguard Leadership, Volume 2 · vl2-027, The Teleology Magnifier, Applied to People (vl2-027.c005)

Never go Machiavellian with Cotruglian vocabulary.

Vanguard Leadership, Volume 1 · vl1-ch02, Section 4 (vl1-ch02.c012)

How would you make your case?

1. State your decision.
2. Explain your rationale in up to 250 words.
3. Identify the evidence and sources you would use.
4. Say what would change your mind within 90 days.
5. Explain what you would not do, and why.

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