Coaching for High Potentials
Particularly talented leaders at every level may find themselves in a group identified for special development. In some companies they are nominated, selected and provided extra support to keep them on a fast track. Those in this coveted “Hi Po” group are sometimes individually shepherded through a leadership development process; more often there is a program comprised of a cohort group, who attend periodic workshops over the course of a year, special challenging assignments, and have further support to apply the learning from the workshops, feedback and projects through executive coaching.
High Potential Selection
What makes you stand out to earn this kind of development opportunity? If you have not already been selected, how can you improve your chances for this kind of leadership development opportunity?
Great results. This is the first criteria: do your job well. Those who have excelled at challenging projects, particularly involving a complex set of circumstances, are noticed. If you have not been picked? Then volunteer to solve a persistent problem with diplomacy and conviction. Network within the organization to expand your known universe. Network outside of the organization to keep up with industry trends. Consider volunteering on boards whose mission is aligned with your company’s, or with your own passion where you can give back.
Core Competencies
High Potentials often come with certain qualities or competencies. These may be innate, or they may be amplified or encouraged to flourish. It is not necessary to be a born leader, in order to become an outstanding leader, but there are qualities that often create leaders who engage willing followers. In today’s climate of engaging and empowering the work force, that is the first test: do others trust you enough to follow?
Engendering trust is another quality that can be an inborn quality or can be polished through deliberate attention. Trust is built by being consistent with your word, being open minded and willing to change. The old model of leadership by dictating and insisting and never veering off course is not attractive to followers. Today’s business climate and speed of change require something else.
The new competencies include: being open to change, tolerating ambiguity, being agile when the context changes. Being transparent includes describing not only the vision, but on a day-to-day basis the criteria by which you choose priorities and make decisions, and being candid about risks.
Coaching Partnership
High potential leaders who work with a coach are forming a collaboration, a partnership. Leaders bring their goals, motivation and expertise. Leaders bring knowledge of the company strategy, their functional expertise, and familiarity with day-to-day challenges. The executive coach brings years of experience helping leaders be clear about strengths, learn about how others perceive them, and close gaps between intention and impact. A coach helps the leaders to expand their range – get out of the comfort zone in order to wind up with a bigger comfort zone.
As with all coaching engagements, the leader gets to pick the agenda, the focus, and the priorities. This is often done, at the beginning of an engagement, with the input of the manager, and assessments to help clients develop perspective on themselves.
In a successful engagement, the client commits to being open minded, taking in feedback from the organization, and trying out new skills. As your executive coach, I often will recommend homework of the “noticing” variety. Notice what triggered you, notice how you reacted when you were triggered, notice how you felt when you didn‘t know the answer, or when a new initiative failed to deliver your expected results. All of these opportunities to notice, just by themselves, expand the leader’s skills and emotional intelligence. And the content of what they have noticed about their own pattern frees the them to engage and communicate with less “static.”
What is Success
High Potential leaders are often on the fast track: successful, accomplished and ambitious. The coaching engagement provides an opportunity for the leader to define success. Sometimes working towards a big new promotion turns out not to be what the leader ultimately seeks, when it finally comes. There may be an area of expertise he/she wants to deepen, or a manager to work for who is a particularly good fit in terms of learning, support or challenge. We often think of success as always up the ladder, but some leaders find that is not going to be their most enlivening path. A lateral move into a new department or functional area can end up opening new ways of thinking and future possibilities. Family commitments might trump the lure of a job that is all consuming, even if other dimensions of the opportunity are great. Something as practical as the commute may be balanced against a quality of life value. Working with a coach is an opportunity to sort through these paradoxes and find the best way to be engaged, productive, proactive, committed, and aligned with oneself and one’s employer. That’s where there is the greatest energy, vitality and results.
Adapting to Expectations
Another factor in leaders’ definition of success is that, if it is defined in terms of promotion, there may come a day when the day-to-day job tasks, however strategic and leveraged, may just not be as satisfying. For example, scientist leaders excited by research may not want to leave the lab to become a business generalist. Physician leaders may not want to leave their clinical work for a role that is exclusively executive. A seasoned professor may not want the political and fundraising responsibilities of a leadership role such as vice president or dean. There are many ways to scope out a leadership role that retain the parts of the job that are most meaningful.
Another context issue to consider is that the skills that may have catapulted you to a fast set of promotions and raises may not be the same skills to advance you to the next level. This is the old adage “what got you here won’t get you there.” For example, taking initiative, or being persuasive may need to give way to diplomacy and compromise. One client was looking at a likely promotion to an executive role and realized there would be hours of reading and of meetings and policy formulation every day, and she realized that that was not going to play to her strengths or interests. Being clear about opportunities, strengths, competencies and values helps leaders make choices that are right for them.
