There’s a common belief and practice in a lot of companies that the best way to develop leaders is to run your high potentials through a gauntlet of challenging assignments, then step back, and watch “the cream rise to the top”. Another way is to move high potentials from job to job every two years or so in order to build functional experience, learn new businesses, develop global capabilities, etc…
So what’s wrong with this approach? Isn’t this what growing leaders through job changes and challenging assignments is all about? Well, not really. In many cases, what we’re really doing is putting our high potentials through a series of assessments, or tests, to see if they really have the “right stuff”. With none of the developmental catalysts required to turn experience into development, we run the risk of culling away our high potential pool until there’s hardly anyone left. In a talent rich environment, where we have too many aspiring leaders and too few positions, that would be an OK model. However, in most companies, we don’t have enough high ready-now candidates to fill current and future opening. The bench is woefully thin.
What we need to do is identify high potentials early in their career, provide them with developmental jobs and assignments, and then support them with training, coaching, feedback, mentors, and opportunities to reflect. Our objective should be to help them be successful, not put them through hell and then cast them aside the first time they screw up. It’s like growing a garden. We can’t just toss the seeds in and walk away. We need to constantly water, feed, prune, and nurture in order to produce an abundant and healthy crop. It’s an agricultural approach to leadership development.
The “sink or swim” approach is more of a “Darwinist” approach to leadership development. It rewards and promotes people who are the most adaptable, not necessarily the smartest, most talented, and possibly, the very best leaders. And by the way - one of the most adaptable creatures in the world is the cockroach. Do we really want a bunch of cockroaches running our companies?
So what’s wrong with this approach? Isn’t this what growing leaders through job changes and challenging assignments is all about? Well, not really. In many cases, what we’re really doing is putting our high potentials through a series of assessments, or tests, to see if they really have the “right stuff”. With none of the developmental catalysts required to turn experience into development, we run the risk of culling away our high potential pool until there’s hardly anyone left. In a talent rich environment, where we have too many aspiring leaders and too few positions, that would be an OK model. However, in most companies, we don’t have enough high ready-now candidates to fill current and future opening. The bench is woefully thin.
What we need to do is identify high potentials early in their career, provide them with developmental jobs and assignments, and then support them with training, coaching, feedback, mentors, and opportunities to reflect. Our objective should be to help them be successful, not put them through hell and then cast them aside the first time they screw up. It’s like growing a garden. We can’t just toss the seeds in and walk away. We need to constantly water, feed, prune, and nurture in order to produce an abundant and healthy crop. It’s an agricultural approach to leadership development.
The “sink or swim” approach is more of a “Darwinist” approach to leadership development. It rewards and promotes people who are the most adaptable, not necessarily the smartest, most talented, and possibly, the very best leaders. And by the way - one of the most adaptable creatures in the world is the cockroach. Do we really want a bunch of cockroaches running our companies?
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