It goes without saying that some employees are more talented than others. This is a fact that many executives can hardly dispute. These are the people that are regarded as high potential. They significantly and consistently outperform their peers in different situations. They have a high level of performance and can bring up to 91% value to the organization. They are those that are being looked at as people who are capable of leading the organization into the future.
However, how can you identify these high potentials individuals and how can they be developed? This is where the dispute and the challenge lies. The point is high performance does not necessarily mean high-potentials employees. Moreover, there are a lot of hardworking, smart, competent, trustworthy employees whose contribution to the organization cannot be underestimated and are also striving hard to drive their way forward. The good thing is, with coaching, individual skills, competencies, and capabilities required to drive the organization forward can be developed. How can you identify and coach high potentials? Here is Shamir Kumar Nandy, a professional business coach with the zeal of helping forward -thinkers build their personal, professional, and organizational success. He provides expert tips for coaching high potential leaders.
Identify the high potential leaders
You want to begin the coaching process by first defining and identifying the high potentials leaders in the organization. This means you have to first define what high potentials mean to an organization and what they look forward to in the potential leaders. High potentials are people that are good at what they do and are ready to grow, take initiative to meet, and even exceed their current roles.
With this, you might have to look beyond people with excellent degrees or high performance. This means while high performers perform excellently at work, they might lack the zeal, passion, and even abilities to take initiative and assume leadership roles within an organization. This means you also have to look out for the highly engaged ones who demonstrate company values and culture in an exemplary manner and are ready to commit to the growth and success of the organization.
Assess and evaluate to identify and develop high potential
Assessment and evaluation can also be used to identify and develop the rising stars of an organization. From job simulations to personality tests to role-plays to situational judgment tests, there are many tests and various metrics that can help organizations identify and make informed decisions. With talent assessments, organizations are empowered with data-backed decisions that can help them avoid pitfalls in leadership planning and coaching. The aim is to have a clear vision and road map of desired results while differentiating between the hi-performers and hi-pos.
Build deliberate coaching strategies
Coaching is a powerful element that helps in growing high potentials into successful leaders. And while classroom-based learning is great for training the high potentials, there are on-the-field, action-based coaching, personalized to meet individual needs that are proven to yield desired results. This is because being promoted to leadership roles goes beyond only the hard skills and accomplishment, who a person is or become is also developed- engaging, inspiring, calm, can work under pressure, and a whole lot of attributes. The good thing is coaching helps you focus, reframe your pattern and mindset, help you think, and act beyond your existing limits and paradigms. Your coaching strategies should include:
Building a one on one relationship with the employees in order to promote engagement that unlocks opinions, ideas, skills, and high-quality feedback. This means you will have to exhibit active listening behaviors that tell your audience you value them and are ready to help them grow.
Each high potential employee should have a coach that helps provide unique, personalized paths working to explore individual development goals while supporting them towards achieving those goals.
Provide mentorship and support through the learning process while encouraging continuous lifelong learning.
Provide constructive feedback
The importance of feedback in coaching cannot be overemphasized. Feedbacks are critical for self-improvement and this can be achieved through disruptive dialogue. Create an environment that helps employees build strength, develop skills, provide encouragement, and build their confidence. Your audience should be opened to this kind of dialogue, understand the importance of their growth, and welcome it. With this, they will be able to reach the expectations and even exceed them.
Originally published at https://shamirkumarnandy.medium.com/