Companies that do not invest enough in their emerging leaders are making a big mistake, no doubt about it. However, even companies who try to nurture the talents of their employees may fail if they deploy the most common approach to leadership development. Where new leaders are concerned, there is often a survival of the fittest approach. The management.about.com website, however, warns against this.
Top talents need looking after and high potentials identified as early as possible. You must then provide these employees with appropriate support and training. Coaching and opportunities to reflect are also important. Don’t just assign difficult tasks to them and call that proper development.
Standards today are relatively poor
Common practice is to assign possible future leaders challenging assignments and observe who is successful and who fails. Alternatively, these workers go through rotations, spending two years in different departments to build their experience and develop new capabilities. Do you think this is the best way to develop leaders? Many people are genuinely convinced that going through a period of demanding challenges guarantees you will become a great manager.
Don’t lose your high potentials
Companies want to test their employees, which is why they run them through the afore-mentioned challenges. Then, however, there must be some developmental catalysts, without which there will be no learning experience. People need to be tested and at the same time encouraged to develop. The classical approach would be effective only in an environment with many talented individuals. If your firm lacks such people, you need to keep and develop staff who show potential.
-jk-