Are You Growing Your Potential Leaders?

Are you growing your potential leaders at your organization? We are experiencing a ton of turnover in our job market today due to the Baby Boomers retiring and the great resignation surging. Plus, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit individuals for positions, both at the entry-level but also in mid-management and executive level positions. So, how can you ensure that you have bench strength at your organization and motivate your potential leaders to stay?

One idea to develop your potential leaders has been gaining in popularity recently – the emerging leaders program.

What is an Emerging Leaders/High Potentials Program?

An emerging leaders/high potentials program is similar to a succession plan, however you aren’t planning for a particular position. Rather, you are planning and preparing for people to become leaders within your organization. Compare this to when you do succession planning, you generally are planning for a specific position and then deciding on the competencies that someone would need to fill that position. This process is slightly different in an emerging leaders program.

Step One: Competencies

First, your current leaders would get together and come up with competencies that they think are important on the leadership team within the organization. This means that the emerging leaders program looks at skills needed to be in a leadership position, but also what kind of leadership culture do you want within your organization? Determining the competencies you want your next leaders to possess is the first step in developing this program.

Step Two: Identify

Then you would need to identify the people who you think have high potential to be leaders within your organization. There are two primary avenues through which you could do this:

1. Asking people if they would be interested in becoming a leader in the future and would want to join the program. By directly asking indivudlas if they aspire to become leaders, and if they are interested in participating in the leadership development program, you gain insight into their ambitions and willingness to take on such responsibilities. This approach encourages a sense of self-driven growth among employees, as they are given the opportunity to express their career growth aspirations.
2. Having your mid-managers and executive leadership team identify people who they feel would be really good leaders in the future.These indivudlas possess valuable insights into the day-to-day operations at your organization and have a keen eye for recognizing potential in their colleagues. These experienced leaders can identify the individuals who consistently demonstrate the desired qualities or who have the potential to grow and develop those qualities.

Regardless of how you choose the individuals included in the program, you need to identify people who will be good leaders in the future.

Step Three: Develop

Then you need to create development plans for each of the potential leaders in the program. There are several ways you could develop these individuals. You could have part of the program be training that all of the participants do and then specialized training for each individual based on the competencies that they need to work on.?

The emerging leaders program could also have various levels within it. Maybe the first level could focus on your entry-level leaders – the people who have no supervisory or managerial experience. Then maybe a higher level would focus on the mid-manager individuals who would like to get to the executive level. With the level system, you would be able to tailor the development plans so that they are effective at the level each individual is at.

The Importance of Bench Strength

Because of all of the turnover that is happening right now, the emerging leaders program is something that you should think about and consider implementing at your organization. This will encourage individuals to stay within your organization and ensure that you have bench strength.

Additionally, do you know if you have bench strength at your organization to have smooth and successful transitions? Find out now with our Bench Strength Builder?. In the builder you will discover The Succession Planning Solution? framework, learn the steps to create a complete management succession plan, and complete a checklist to ensure that you have proper bench strength! Download The Bench Strength Builder? now!