Identifying future leaders
Are you spotting leadership potential for the future of your team/ organisation? And what are you doing about it when you have identified a potential future leader?
In the latest episode of how to take the lead, we talk about identifying future leaders and all that comes with this. One of the areas we explore is the assumptions we make about the ambitions, desires and capabilities of others in the leadership space.
I know I’ve been in the position before when I have found a brilliant person who I think has great leadership potential, started planning their development and how they might reach this potential without actually checking in with them. I’ve definitely been guilty of getting carried away before I’ve worked out whether the person in question actually wants to develop into a leadership role!
We also talk about the recruitment processes and if these help or hinder our identification and recruitment of leaders for the future. Our experiences have been a bit of a mixed bag in this area and there is clearly more work to be done to ensure that recruitment processes and recruitment professionals are leaning into their expertise and supporting organisations to recruit the people who have the potential to go further than the role they are being recruited to.
While recruiting new people with potential into your organisation is important, as leaders it is also our job to spot potential within the existing workforce. Not withstanding my earlier point about making sure the people you are spotting actually want to develop as leaders, being able to identify any potential pipeline internally will help to retain and grow colleagues as well as your organisation.
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Ensuring that you are not identifying leaders who are going to be “mini-mes” is something you need to be aware of. It’s easy to spot future talent that reminds you of yourself earlier in your own leadership journey, and while that is not always a bad thing, you want to ensure you are creating a pipeline of future leaders who will help to create diverse thinking, bring different skills and experiences and provide constructive challenge.
If you’ve never considered it your role as a leader to start considering and supporting the next generation of leaders, or you just want a refresh on what you should be thinking about then this episode will help you.
Until next time…Carrie-Ann
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prompts to help you identify future leaders
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