How to Identify and Develop Future Leaders in Your Organization

by Megan sashyl Blogger & Content Writer

Every organization needs a succession plan. In fact, one of the hallmarks of leadership is the ability of leaders to duplicate themselves in others and have them carry on long after they are gone.

In essence, one of the most important abilities you can possess is the ability to see ability in others. In the first part of this piece, we will look at how to identify potential leaders in your organization, then in the second part, we would examine how to groom them for the future.

Part 1: Identifying potential leaders for your organization

Below are tips to help you identify future leaders of your organization among the lot.

Make a list of the qualities you are looking for in a potential leader

Making a list of leadership qualities will force you to reflect deeply, help you focus, and mentally alert you when you spot one. Generally speaking, the list should include having a passion for what your organization does, a conviction in your vision, values, and philosophy, self-discipline, and loyalty. The list should not be set in stone, you should add and subtract from it as time goes on and as you gain a deeper insight into the process.

Use periodic performance review as a tool in the process

In addition to using performance review to set expectations, promote workers, increase salaries, decide layoffs in the workplace, you should also use it to identify employees with the leadership qualities in your list. Make sure you keep records and watch out consistencies and inconsistencies in behaviour and performance in each potential candidate.

Look beyond job competence

Job competence is already a given, look beyond it as an indicator of future-fit leaders. Look out for job-unrelated yet important characteristics such as level of commitment, emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, resourcefulness, collaboration ability, and so on.

If all that’s needed is competency in the job, then you probably don’t need to engage yourself in the process of looking for future leaders, because it is assumed you hired competent people.

Deliberately challenge and test potential leaders with important assignments

As you embark on identifying future leaders for your organization, you will make many assumptions –they are part of the process. To succeed in actually identifying these leaders, you need to test your assumptions.

How? By testing the potential leaders you have identified. Give them assignments beyond the scope of their work and see how they will perform. Test them with work that will require them to go above and beyond for the company and see how many of them will actually do so. Do not base your judgement on mere assumptions. You might be disappointed if you do so. As the saying goes, trust but verify.

Beware of cognitive biases in the identification process

In the process of identifying future leaders for your organization, you will definitely have biases. It is natural. Here are some insidious biases you need to be wary of as they apply to the process of identifying leaders:

●        Halo effect – the belief that if a potential leader is successful in one area then he or she will be successful in other areas.

●        Sunk-cost fallacy – continuing to stick with the leaders you have identified because you have invested so much time, money, and energy in them even when there is overwhelming evidence that you should let go of them.

●        Affect heuristic – when evaluating potential leaders you like, you tend to accentuate the things you like about them and play down or even completely ignore their bad sides. Similarly, when evaluating future leaders you dislike, you ignore their good sides and make a mountain hill of their weaknesses.

You need to stay as objective as possible to make the process of identifying future leaders work.

Part 2: Developing Future Leaders

You have learned how to identify potential leaders of the future, now let’s look at how to groom them to lead. 

Expand their roles and responsibilities

The best training you can offer your future leaders is giving them practical, on-the-job training.  Expand their roles and responsibilities to include tasks that will help them to learn and grow. Put them in real situations where they need to make difficult decisions.

Create a training programme for your future leaders

A well-designed training program sets the roadmap for the development of your future leaders and brings organization to the grooming process. More than that, it helps you visualize gaps in their growth plan so you can close them. The training programme should be continuously improved based on feedback and impact.

Create a climate that encourages people development

No training program within or without will compensate for an environment where people’s imagination and creativity are stifled. You need to set audacious goals, embark on creating innovating products that solve problems in the real world – these are things that compel people to upgrade their knowledge, call on their thinking faculty, and bring out the best in them.

Establish a support system

No process is perfect. There are issues that will arise in the process of developing future leaders for your organization that you never thought of. This is where a support system will be needed – create one for your leaders-in-training. Your support system should include coaching and peer mentoring.

Consistently measure and evaluate progress

What cannot be measured cannot be improved. You need to measure and evaluate the progress of the future leaders you have identified for your organization. You can do this in performance review meetings. When people know they are being evaluated, they perform better.

Give them incentives to stay

You want your future leaders to stay with your organizations and not tempted to seek greener pastures elsewhere. To make them stay you must not depend on the goodness of their heart, but rather give them reasons to stay. Creating a climate for personal growth and development is part of the incentives. You need to augment it with things that are tangible such as equity in the company (assuming your organization is for-profit), gym, bonuses, more time-offs, and so on.

When done right, the process of identifying and developing future leaders for your organization should be exciting and worthwhile. 

Sponsor Ads

• Ad Space Available - Rent it Now!

Created on Feb 26th 2019 11:25. Viewed 1,196 times.

Comments