This article is from Training Industry magazine written by Andrew Harrison and Sylvester Taylor. February 17, 2025
The best executives have a strong pulse on what is important in their organization. A recent human resources (HR) priorities survey conducted by Gartner says the No. 1 priority for 2025 is leader and manager development (the same No. 1 priority as 2024). The other top priorities noted in the survey include organizational culture, strategic workforce planning, change management and HR technology.
In the near term, for organizations to grow, they need current and future leaders to understand their people better, be able to navigate change, and be adaptable to different scenarios and environments. For an organization to sustain itself over the long term, it needs the ability to grow their team members that are seen as high potential and transition them into advanced leadership roles. Doing both near term and long-term development at the same time is complicated for most organizations.
In the current state, the survey said 69% of HR leaders think their managers are not equipped to lead change. This means that the people who are seen as the best of the best, those who are rewarded for their performance with promotions and added responsibilities, are not ready for navigating work complexities. This is bad news. In today’s world, change is around every corner. We need our leaders to be adaptable and prepared to handle various scenarios. This gap impacts their productivity, their team’s performance and the sustainable retention of key people.
Building on our combined 60 years in the organizational and talent development field, here are three principles we have seen help organizations build the capacity of their high potentials.
Principle 1: Use the 70-20-10 rule to focus on experience-based development.
The 70-20-10 rule says that the most effective development comes from:
- 70% challenging experiences and assignments
- 20% developmental relationships
- 10% coursework and training
Providing high-potential employees the opportunity to be challenged and then learn from those challenges goes a long way. It helps for the high potentials to have a mentor, coach or peer group to be able to unpack and discuss those challenging scenarios, in particular the areas they seem to thrive in, struggle with, and where they have questions or would like advice.
Principle 2: Build the experience portfolio.
Leaders need to be well rounded and nimble. As a high-potential employee grows and is being looked at for a promotion, it’s beneficial to have a wide-ranging spectrum of experiences for them to draw from. This helps the future leader be more prepared when promotional opportunities are presented. Their experience portfolio should push the high-potential employee out of their comfort zone and expose them to people and areas of the organization they would not normally be in. If not, the high-potential employee will have a narrow perspective in the organization.
As an example, one engineering organization we know makes sure to expose their out-of-the-box thinkers to stints in budgeting, operations and proposal writing. The organization explains that they know this is not a fit for their personality, but it is a time designed to broaden their understanding of the business and see the needs of various audiences. This exposure helps the leader walk in the shoes and speak the language of the more in-the-box parts of the organization.
Principle 3: Emphasizing relational leadership.
Being a strong solo performer can help put people in the high-potential category, but that is not enough to be a great leader. Leadership is about cultivating and managing relationships. It is about building and having professional empathy for those you work with (direct reports, peers, supervisors). Understanding people helps build bonds for motivation, for collaboration and for turning ideas into a “yes” (i.e., influence). The sooner leaders understand the relational aspects of leadership, the more likely they will be successful. The best leaders see leadership as relational, not hierarchical.
Development programs need to include experiences and content that show high potentials how group achievement is in conjunction with individual achievement. Winning as a team requires strong relationships, collaboration and trust. This takes effort. In sports, great individual contributors don’t always make their teammates better, and those teams tend to come up short in times of stress and in the big games.
High potentials tend to be achievement oriented, which is excellent. But the best leaders also see how building up others and fostering relationships helps the groups they interact with be higher achievers as well.
Acting on the Principles
Having organizational leaders that understand the benefits of the previous principles is a great starting point. Incorporating the 70-20-10 rule, the experience portfolio and relational leadership will benefit all involved. For organizations to grow their leaders, we recommend five focus areas that put these principles into action:
- 360-Degree Assessment: A 360 tool helps leaders get feedback on how they are perceived from their manager, their peers and from others. This is greatly beneficial for helping the leader (and the organization) see strengths and blind spots. It also allows the customization of a development program to the needs of each person. There are a number of highly accurate assessments for this task.
- Personality Profile: A 360 is excellent for capturing perceptions. Using the framework of a strengths-based personality profile is a very helpful way to look at how people tend to think, communicate, and behave. Profiles also help in exploring potential blind spots. When used correctly, personality profiles are also incredibly beneficial for building professional empathy with co-workers and collaborators. Teams and organizations that leverage their interpersonal talents and strengths are higher performing than those that do not.
- Ongoing Educational Content: Great leaders do not magically appear. They develop their strengths through ongoing learning and experiences. Exposing future leaders to frameworks, modules and tools that they can use today, and throughout their career, pays huge dividends. We have found the most effective educational content to be a mix of frameworks, case studies and application-based exercises. Spacing out the content over time helps drive home the learning and provides integration and application opportunities. Ideally, consider a multi-month development program.
- Action Learning and Capstone: We have found that including smaller action learning teams centered around a capstone project to be highly effective for leader development. This allows the cohort to have an organization-specific challenge to work on, while allowing for small group learning. The action learning and capstone allows for peer review, providing feedback to one another and the sharing of their work experiences. The network and relationship building that comes from the action learning teams also pays dividends for building social capital inside the organization.
- Individualized Coaching: Each leader has their own personality, goals and challenges. Providing leaders with individualized coaching allows them to work on interpersonal and organizational scenarios that are relevant to them. This helps each leader apply the content learnings in real-world situations. Dissecting their situations with a third party that is not part of the organizational hierarchy, but still grasps the organizational culture, goes a long way for individual growth.
Conclusion
Preparing your leaders for promotion and succession positively impacts productivity, organizational culture, retention and the attraction of talent. After all, people want to work with and for great leaders.
As you think about the talent development occurring in your organization, be assured that your leaders both today — and tomorrow — can be taught how to be more adaptable, collaborative and innovative. It takes time and focus, but the return on investment for leader and manager development is huge for near-term growth and long-term organizational sustainability. By applying the principles outlined above, you can help your high potentials become the high performers that lead your organization into a thriving future.
