The High Stakes of Managing High Potentials

Despite the increased focus on high potentials, many organizations struggle to effectively engage and support these future superstars. And when they fail at this task? Top talent leaves, and companies lose.

From my observations, I believe it’s because we over-rely on HR Departments or Program Managers to craft and manage high-potential programs.

In larger companies, extensive training programs are frequently implemented without the input, understanding, and full support of the leaders who are managing the high potentials. For smaller organizations, the managers may not receive any structure or guidance on how to provide high potentials with the most valuable opportunities or experiences. Either way, polishing these “diamonds” is often left to chance—and that’s a problem.

When these high potentials are well managed, the company can end up with a huge pay-off over time: a steady stream of exceptional leaders who give the organization a competitive edge. Should things go wrong along the way, these promising superstars can easily become bored or frustrated—and take their budding talent elsewhere.

If you are responsible for high potentials, you know how important they are to the company. There’s a lot of money riding on YOUR success in helping them to grow and develop (and to stay with the company!). There’s also the excitement of knowing that you are molding and mentoring the next generation of leadership for your organization.

The point is, this pivotal management task should never be neglected or delegated to someone else. When leaders groom their high potentials in a more focused and strategic way, they can dramatically increase the odds of success for their high-potential programs, employee retention, and long-term financial performance. 

Analyze the strength of your high-potential management strategy by answering the questions that follow:

·      Have you developed solid relationships with your high potentials?

·      Do you understand their strengths, weaknesses, and unique motivations?

·      Do you seek out ways to keep them challenged without overwhelming them?

·      Do you know when to guide or correct them versus when to let them figure things out on their own?

·      Do you know specifically how they want their careers to progress?

If your job is to grow leaders (and if you’re a manager, I would argue that it is), then take an active role in your company’s high-potential program. Support it. Or if it doesn’t exist, create one. Be a voice for high potentials who are anxious about keeping their status as subject matter experts while simultaneously being expected to contribute at a higher level. Spend time figuring out how to help or re-prioritize and/or redistribute work so that your high potentials can fully engage in company-wide initiatives designed to broaden their perspectives.

Whether your company has a formal program for high potentials or not, you can do your part to fuel their growth. Provide them with experiential learning. Pair them with senior leaders for added exposure and mentoring. Look for special assignments that can expand the scope of their work. And give them plenty of opportunities to test and apply their expertise and approaches.      

I recently launched a new course about this topic on LinkedIn Learning and Lynda.com, and I hope you’ll check it out.

Leadership speaker, Sara Canaday works with clients to help them accelerate their careers and enhance their leadership impact. Sara is the author of the business book, “You--According To Them: Uncovering the blind spots that impact your reputation and your career.

#LinkedinLearning #career #professionaldevelopment #highpotentials #leadership #successionplanning