Blog
From gut feeling to hard data: leadership deserves due diligence too
Date
24 Sep 2026
Author
Redacteur
Private equity investors take a sharp look at numbers, markets and operational performance. People & leadership are considered important, but they are still far from always given the same systematic attention.
Research by Schelstraete Delacourt shows that 80% of the investors surveyed say they intervene more slowly on people issues than on other factors. As a result, problems risk only becoming visible once they are already starting to weigh on the business case. According to the research, six to eighteen months of potential value creation can be lost to corrective action rather than acceleration.
Schelstraete Delacourt conducted fifteen in-depth interviews with private equity investors on the topic. “Investors know very well that people and leadership are decisive for the success of a portfolio company. The question, however, is this: why does that factor still not receive the same structural attention as financial or commercial due diligence?”, ask CEO Vanessa Delacourt and Fréderic Lehembre, Partner at Schelstraete Delacourt.
If investors know that people & leadership are so decisive for value creation, why do they still intervene later on problems in this area than on financial, commercial or operational issues?
Vanessa Delacourt: “Because people issues are far less tangible than financial or operational problems. When revenue falls short, margins decline or a commercial KPI is missed, it shows up in the numbers relatively quickly. With leadership and team dynamics, it is different. Warning signs can remain below the surface for a long time.
On top of that, intervening at leadership level is often perceived as particularly drastic. Replacing a CEO is not something you do overnight. It takes time, creates uncertainty and can temporarily disrupt the business case. That easily creates a tendency to wait a little longer, especially when results are still good at that point and potential problems therefore seem less urgent.
That is exactly where the risk lies. The longer you wait, the greater the likelihood that you end up mainly correcting rather than accelerating. According to our research, six to eighteen months of potential value creation can be lost as a result.”
How, then, can investors make people & leadership parameters more objective?
Fréderic Lehembre: “By embedding them far more systematically in the investment process. Today, we still often see that the people lens remains limited pre-deal: relatively few people are interviewed, team dynamics are barely visible and there is heavy reliance on the picture painted by the CEO. Post-deal, too, there is often no structured moment to sharpen roles, culture and collaboration early on.
According to the research, six to eighteen months of potential value creation can be lost to corrective action rather than acceleration.
That is precisely where we want to make a difference. With our toolbox, we aim to make people & leadership as objective as possible: not reducing it to gut feeling or a stand-alone assessment, but working with clear criteria, validated methodologies, analysis of leadership and team dynamics, and a sharp translation into the business case. The goal is to be able to say much earlier: this management team is strong enough for the next growth phase, these are the risks, this is where development is needed and this is where intervention is required. This brings people & leadership to a level where you can make earlier and better-founded decisions about it.
At the same time, how you approach this matters. Our interviews show that investors are sometimes reluctant to dive deep into people & leadership shortly after a deal, because it may come across as threatening to management: as if the arrival of private equity automatically means that positions are up for discussion. Yet that need not be the intention at all. Such an exercise can just as well serve to highlight strengths, identify development areas, better align roles and help the management team enter the next growth phase from a stronger position. That is precisely why you do not want to wait until issues become visible and then have to restructure. You want to align and adjust early enough, in a way that not only monitors but also supports.”
Isn’t there a paradox here? At the time of the investment, many investors believe that people & leadership have been properly mapped, yet they regularly have to restructure or adjust afterwards.
Vanessa: “Exactly. What struck us in the research is the gap between perception and reality. A large majority of investors say that after a deal they have a clear view of the future gaps in people & organisation, as well as a clear action plan. Yet at the same time, management teams regularly still need to be restructured in the first two years after a deal.
That is an important reality check. Apparently, the picture we have at the outset is not always sharp enough to predict what the next phase will really demand of the leadership team. And in a sense, that is logical, given how differently it is assessed. Finance, legal and commercial are analysed on the basis of hard audits, granularity and benchmarks. If a budget deviates, corrective action is taken immediately. For people & leadership, the evaluation is far more often based on impressions, gut feeling and unstructured observations: ‘I think the CCO can handle it’ or ‘it seems like a driven team’.
That is where a structural vulnerability lies. If you approach the human aspects with the same discipline and objectivity as finance, you can identify much earlier where the real risks and development areas lie, and therefore also make decisions earlier.”
What advice would you give potential investors on how to measure people & leadership in the right way when assessing a business case?
Fréderic: “Our research shows that the intention to look at the human side is generally there today. Investors know that people & leadership matter, but what is mainly lacking is structure and rhythm. What we aim to do with our advisory approach is to treat people & leadership as an explicit lever for value creation. That starts with a sharp picture before or shortly after the investment, followed by consistent monitoring throughout the entire investment cycle.
In doing so, we always look at three levels simultaneously: the individual, the team and the organisation as a whole. At individual level, it is about leadership, potential and development areas. At team level, it is about collaboration, complementarity and potential friction. And at organisational level, it is about structure, roles and culture.
Through assessments, individual deep dives, team and strategy workshops and targeted leadership planning, we make those insights concrete and actionable. The end point is not a traditional report, but a clear action plan. Depending on the situation, it may include different scenarios, with a clear weighing of options, concrete priorities and clear next steps for implementation. This gives an investor better insight not only into what is going on, but also into what needs to happen next: where development is needed, where alignment is required, where a role needs to be adjusted and where structural intervention is called for.
The goal is to make decisions faster, better founded and also executable. Ultimately, this should lead to fewer unexpected restructurings, stronger collaboration between investor and management team, and greater predictability throughout the investment cycle.”
