This question was the topic of an interesting article on the Harvard Business Review website written by three leading organizational psychology experts: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, CEO at Hogan Assessment Systems; Seymour Adler, Partner at Aon Hewitt; and Robert Kaiser, CEO at Kaiser Leadership Solutions.
They pointed out that companies shouldn't ask who has potential, but what the potential is intended for. Very often, high potential means the potential of individual career growth. However, the ability to climb the career ladder doesn't mean making a significant contribution to the company. High-potential employees should therefore be selected on the basis of their potential of becoming key drivers of the organization's performance.
Today's science already knows that regardless of the field or type of work, there are certain measurable indicators of high potential making a major contribution to the performance of the organization. These are:
1. Ability to perform the job
You can asses it best when you observe workers performing tasks related to their job. It's also necessary to assess the potential for success in future bigger and more complex roles. The key here is the ability to learn, which involves not only cognitive functions, but also the motivation to learn and apply new knowledge in practice.
2. Social skills
These include two basic skills - the ability to manage yourself and the ability to manage others, respective to your relationships with them. Both these abilities are key elements of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence, which can be measured using tests and further developed, is a key indicator of high potential.
3. Drive
The influence of the two assumptions about employee high potential mentioned above is further enhanced by work ethic and ambition, the will to work hard and achieve ever better results. This kind of drive can be evaluated using tests that measure conscientiousness, motivation to accomplish tasks, and ambition. It can also be proved by behavior such as the willingness to take on more tasks and responsibilities, to accept some degree of discomfort, and to sacrifice something.
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