Question: What makes high potential talent stand out from 'good' talent - please share from your own experience.  How have you approached things differently in your career that led to incredible leadership opportunities?  

The concept of what makes someone high potential is a point of debate across many organizations.  What I’ve found truly distinguishes someone as ‘high’ potential versus someone with ‘some’ potential is the combination of three elements. As you read through this, I’d encourage you to think about someone you’ve experienced who is high potential: 

Proactive Curiosity.   All of us have a choice to learn and seek knowledge/skills from every work experience we have.   Individuals who are high potential are relentless with their curiosity to learn and grow.   They ASPIRE to be the best they can be in their current role, and they are proactive in their efforts to learn independently and from others.   They don’t wait for others to teach them, they don’t worry about ‘stepping on toes’ – they are simply hungry for more.

Humble regarding learning curves.  In combination with being proactively curious and aspiring for more, high potentials are also self-aware and humble.   They seek guidance from those who have been successful in an organization and/or field before them, and they are open to experiences that may be presented to them that may not seem ‘logical’ to a career path.  Being humble about your growth and trusting leadership who may know that an seemingly unlikely role may propel career growth (even if it delays a promotion for a year) illustrates a level of maturity that high potentials tend to exhibit.   For example, a person may be presented with role in a new function or new location that doesn’t seem logical – but the experiences in that function may provide something critical that will help talent leapfrog to leadership. 

Organizational Agility / Relationships.   We’ve all heard the saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’; and I’d say that it also take a village to build a leader.   High potentials recognize this and focus on building relationships across the organizations they are part of and also extend their reach outside to industry and professional contacts.   I often reference the term ‘personal board of directors’ – this is a village of leaders/experts that an individual recruits and puts around them who serve as mentors, feedback providers, and providers of perspective that support growth and development.   Similar to a company, a Board is in place to challenge thinking, bring awareness to potential blind spots, and drive better outcomes.   High potential talent are proactive is putting these types of resources around them to help them grow and find success.    

​I didn’t speak to technical/functional expertise as that’s a given of high performers – that performance combined with the elements above (which are often much harder to teach) provide ways to identify those individuals who have the best chances of rising through the organization into critical leadership roles.

Author: Michael Shelly

Business Development Strategist & Director of Sales at HIHR International