Importance of Selecting High-Potential Leaders in an Organization


It goes without saying that employees are the building blocks of an organization. However, here’s the catch! To achieve long-term success, an employer needs to ensure their teams comprise high-potential leaders to keep their employees on the same page! Pruning your team members and investing in upskilling their personal and professional abilities is one of the major responsibilities of your leaders.

Management is a crucial entity of a company and plays a vital role in maintaining a healthy work environment within the organization. Therefore, the managerial hierarchy should include high-potential leaders who can bring innovation in their team handling techniques and multiply your revenue and profit growth. In short, high-potentials (HiPos) are twice as valuable as your company, so invest in your human resources smartly!

High-Potential Vs High-Performance: There’s a Fine Line!

People often confuse high potential with high-performance employees, but the two are quite different. High-performance employees excel in their exciting roles, stay focused on their tasks, and exceed their goals, such as surpassing their sales targets. On the other hand, the HiPos are strong assets who can perform management roles too.

The major difference between high-performance and high-potential employees is that the former do not possess soft skills like leadership, while the latter have soft skills, including communication skills, interpersonal skills, listening skills, and other abilities like problem-solving, time management, leadership, creative thinking, networking, and conflict resolution. These soft skills are necessary to help teams connect and collaborate efficiently, thus proving HiPos as one of the most useful in attaining company goals as responsible leaders.

How to Identify High Potential Leaders?

High-potential leaders are not just stakeholders of a company; they are its assets! They are productive, self-motivated, and an inspiration for others. They can even strive to exceed their current roles and deliver results beyond expectations.

However, identifying and developing high-potential employees is an art. Check for these signs before bringing a high-potential team member on board.

  • Takes Initiatives and is Willing to Lead − First and foremost, high potential employees are ready to take the initiative to help other team players, thus motivating all to work towards a common goal. HiPos will also identify the gaps in your company and work towards filling them.

  • Makes Quick and Accurate Decisions − HiPos can make quick and effective decisions, and works towards implementing and executing them in a constructive manner. They will delegate the required tasks to the right members to accomplish the tasks well in time.

  • Flexible in Adapting to Changes − Modern-day businesses are forced to work at a bullet speed to survive the growing market competition. This requires employees to quickly adapt to this constantly changing work environment and adopt new skills to help the company stand out and remain competitive. High potential leaders can remain flexible in such fast-paced work environments.

  • Possesses an Entrepreneurial Mindset − Entrepreneurs do not just lead their teams; they have a purpose and a long-term vision, which drives them towards achieving their goals. HiPos have an entrepreneurial mindset as they are forward-thinkers. They love to look at the big picture rather than focusing on meeting short-term targets. You will need them to visualize where your business stands 5–10 years down the line.

  • Committed to Company Goals − High potential leaders are loyal to the organization’s goals and will ask questions to clarify doubts on time. They will go the extra mile to gain an in-depth understanding of their projects and tasks. In short, they have the innate willingness to learn and upgrade their skills to develop a highly-efficient team.

  • Performs Leadership Roles − High potential employees can excel in their leadership roles, thus becoming a vital asset to the company. Also, you will need to spend little to no time training your HiPos, thus receiving high-value returns.

  • Develops Positive Relationships − HiPos can foster meaningful internal and external relationships to develop a positive work culture. A positive work environment helps team members stay motivated and work more efficiently.

Your company needs more leaders and employees like that! You can also save your resources by hiring high-potential members for your team.

Benefits of Hiring High-Potential Leaders

Now that you know how to identify your high-potential leaders and employees, learn about the benefits of bringing them on board.

  • Increase Productivity − High-potential leaders, as we know, are highly efficient and productive, and therefore, you can expect great outputs. They set strong goals for themselves and their teams and maintain the discipline to achieve goals faster. They also motivate other team members to develop goal-oriented and purpose-driven work strategies.

  • Save You Time and Money − Your main aim would be to save valuable resources, like time and money, in training and developing high potential leaders. They are self-motivated to upgrade their skills and knowledge, thus proving themselves important assets to the company. You need not waste time and money pushing them toward completing their tasks. They are also willing to acquire new and innovative professional skills and self-development strategies.

  • Allow Successful Planning − Every successful team has a success road map, which includes plans, backup plans, and effective execution strategies. Your company needs high-quality executives to implement the devised plans as per expectations. By recruiting a high potential leader, you can also identify the loopholes that may be present in a particular project or task, thus solving them with confidence and deriving outcomes quicker.

  • Enable You to Identify Employees’ Strengths − Every employee has strengths and weaknesses, and team leaders must master the art of work delegation. HiPos are born leaders, and hence, they will know whom to assign what to get the work done more efficiently. This would be particularly helpful in times of crisis, when you may need to decide who can carry out a specific task within a deadline. So, hire leaders who understand team members well and identify their strong and weak areas.

  • Boost Business Growth − Since HiPo leaders can develop efficient and motivated teams, you can expect high-quality outcomes. Therefore, your clients and customers can receive their expected deliverables well in time, or sometimes the results surpass their expectations. As a result, high-potential leaders can bring in more business and open wider opportunities for closing higher deals in the upcoming years.

Conclusion

To conclude, we hope to have helped you make better recruitment decisions, especially while looking for high-potential leaders. Think of your long-term goals and measure the value-added benefits they may offer in the long run. So, appreciate their unique skills and give importance to their soft skills, ultimately creating strong teams in the coming days.

Updated on: 10-Mar-2023

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