5 Most Common Traits Of High Potential Employees

Did you know?75% - 90%?of the population consider themselves better than average in positive personality traits and performance? While the exact percentages can vary based on context, this tendency consistently shows itself in a wide range of areas including intelligence, possession of desirable personality traits, and on-the-job performance. This fact combined with the reality that many companies still choose not to share information about their selection process for being identified as a high potential employee makes it difficult to assess if we are truly someone who should be identified as being high potential.

It is natural for an employee to want to be seen by their organization and peers as someone who has high potential for career advancement. Being selected as a high potential employee can create many advantages for career advancement which usually include one or more of the following benefits:

• Inclusion on strategic work projects
• Prioritized consideration for promotion
• Senior Level Mentoring
• Organizational commitment for their career growth
• Participation in leadership development programs

Having a clear understanding of the criteria organizations use to select high potential employees allows you to be more deliberate in the skills and abilities that matter most.

5 Most Common Traits Companies Use To Select High Potential Employees

1. Strategic Skill Set

One of the primary lenses organizations uses to identify their high potential employees has nothing to do with the employee’s effectiveness or ability to take on more responsibility. The first rule of these programs is to align the identification of high potential individuals to those who can have the biggest impact on accomplishing strategic goals. Employees with roles and skills that are seen as critical to the organization’s success, or that deliver a disproportionate level of value in accomplishing strategic goals, have a distinct advantage in being seen as high potential.

2. Performance?

Research shows that performance is still the most common selection criteria companies use when identifying high potential employees. If an employee is not seen as continually delivering strong results in their current role, then he or she typically won’t be considered when the organization is identifying high potential talent.?

3. Potential?

Performance is only part of the equation. Companies also look for behaviors that display an employee’s?potential to succeed?in taking on greater levels of leadership and responsibility. Unfortunately, potential is not always clearly defined for employees. Most organizations use one or more of the following attributes to identify employees’ potential to take on significantly greater levels of responsibility.

• Quickly master new types of expertise
• Reflect culture and values in an exemplary manner
• A drive to excel
• Advanced learning agility

4. Self-Leadership Skills

The World Economic Forum surveyed chief HR officers at some of the world’s leading companies to share their perspectives on the top 10 skills employees need to be successful in 2025. You will notice that 9 of the top 10 skills are Self-Leadership skills which require employees to demonstrate self-awareness, emotional regulation, resilience, empathy, skills for engaging in quality conversations, and continuous learning. This marks a tremendous change for employees and their employers.

1. Analytical thinking and innovation
2. Active learning and learning strategies
3. Complex problem-solving
4. Critical thinking and analysis
5. Resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility
6. Creativity, originality, and initiative
7. Leadership and social influence
8. Reasoning, problem-solving, and ideation
9. Emotional intelligence
10. Technology design and programming

Success in today's workforce requires employees to engage with more people, navigate matrixed structures, address rapid change, and perform in uncertain situations. The most successful employees share a pattern of foundational Self-Leadership behaviors that enable them to demonstrate self-awareness, emotional intelligence, inclusion, mindfulness, empathy, social intelligence, and learning agility during challenging and complex situations.

Since our educational system primarily focuses on technical skill development (finance, IT, science, math, etc.) and, in comparison, neglects to invest in the critically important Self-Leadership skills development, employees need to be deliberate in developing these skill sets. In my book,?Getting It Right When It Matters Most?(Gambill and Carbonara, 2021), we introduce the SOAR Self-Leadership Model which is a person-centric, practical, replicable, and research-backed roadmap for developing your Self-Leadership abilities.

5. Organizational Values

The Harvard Business Review shares in its article, How Toxic Colleagues Erode Performance, the following research on the negative impact of tolerating toxic employees.

• 80% of employees stated they lost work time because of the offending employees’ rudeness
• 78% said their commitment to the organization declined
• 66% said their performance declined
• 63% lost work time in avoiding the offender

This is why one of the key measures criteria for determining which employees will be future leaders is how their behaviors align with the organization’s values. Employees need to excel at both the “what” and the “how” of doing their work. The “what” of a person’s role focuses on the employee’s ability to utilize their technical skills to accomplish tasks and the “how” focuses on the demonstration of the organizational values and ethics when performing these same tasks.??

An aspiration to grow into advanced levels of leadership or responsibility is not a requirement for career success. If you do have a desire to take on the additional responsibilities that accompany being identified as a high potential employee, then understanding and accurately assessing yourself against these 5 criteria is critical for your success.

_______________________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:?Tony Gambill is the President and Founder of ClearView Leadership, an innovative leadership and talent development consulting firm helping organizations, executives, and managers bring their best leadership selves to their most challenging situations. He is the author of,?Getting It Right When It Matters Most: Self-Leadership For Work & Life. You can also follow Tony on?Forbes?to see his latest articles on Self-Leadership and Leading Others.