Rainmakers
Developing High-Potential Talent
By Dr. Clifford Ferguson
Right now, companies are facing a severe crisis in leadership bench strength. Recent research revealed that only 20 % of companies have a strong bench. Why is this happening? One of the problems is that companies aren’ t appropriately accelerating their high-potential talent for the challenges we face today.
And to be sure you have the talent you need at higher levels of leadership, you need to identify high potentials early, starting with your emerging leaders. In this column, we’ ll help you identify key challenges in identifying your highpotential emerging leaders and how to start investing in them.
What Is High-Potential Talent?
First, let’ s define high-potential talent. Simply, high-potential talent is someone who has the likelihood and ability to accelerate their growth to rapidly develop toward a future leadership role. The term can be used for people at any level, from individual contributors up to high-level executives. What’ s important is that these are the people you are identifying to invest differentially for growth to fill your leadership pipeline.
Performance vs. Potential vs. Readiness
One of the key challenges is aligning the organisation to understand the difference between performance, potential, and readiness. Performance is a measure of how someone is doing in their current role. Often, however, managers confuse performance and potential. They assume that a high performer automatically has growth potential and future ability to excel as a leader.
While sometimes that’ s true, often high performers are experts at their current level. They don’ t have the motivation, temperament, and / or skill to lead. Yet, many organisations invest in their top subject matter experts only to find that both the individual and their teams are dissatisfied in a leadership role.
Readiness is more straightforward as it relates to how well someone fits a specific role or job type right now. That said, many organisations, and their leaders, struggle mightily with determining when someone is“ ready.” A better question to ask is if the individual is“ ready enough with support” to stretch into the next assignment. You need to do a proper assessment to help you see beyond current performance to identify and
To ensure that the C-suite reflects varied ways of thinking and problem solving, companies must start by developing diverse talent at lower levels. When high potentials gain the right opportunities early on, they bring a wider range of experiences, fresh approaches, and sharper insights to senior roles over time.
develop leaders ready to take the next step.
Additionally, you need to ask how far out you are attempting to invest in your top talent. Some organisations will confuse readiness, the likelihood to perform well in the next level, with potential. Unfortunately, this mistake leads to investment in those who are likely“ ready enough” and leaves out the“ diamonds in the rough” who will see tremendous growth over longer periods of time.
Understanding these definitions and adopting a common language is one of the most critical steps in developing high-potential talent. If you don’ t select the right people in your high-potential employee program today, you have almost no chance of having the great leaders you need for the future.
Diversity in Your High-Potential Pool
Before we dive into the challenges of identifying and developing emerging leaders, it’ s important to consider the role of diversity in developing highpotential talent.
One reason companies struggle to build diverse leadership teams is that their high-potential talent pools often lack a broad mix of perspectives. To ensure that the C-suite reflects varied ways of thinking and problem solving, companies must start by developing diverse talent at lower levels. When high potentials gain the right opportunities early on, they bring a wider range of experiences, fresh approaches, and sharper insights to senior roles over time.
But what do we mean by diversity? At its core, diversity is the range of identities and experiences that shape how people think, collaborate, and lead- both as
72 MAL70 / 26 ISSUE