You come to a decision, and you are sure that you made the right decision and chose one of your employees as the “Future Leader.”
The future leader is that employee who always delivers on-time results above expectations. With a fresh perspective, you will make him the future manager of his team. Because you know he will be the ‘future leader.’ Unfortunately, a period has passed, and this employee is working hard. However, projects stagnate, there is confusion in his direct reports, and he turns his usually optimistic attitude into constant frustration. What happened? He seemed perfect for the job, ambitious, had attention to detail, and had an open mind. Where did you go wrong with your decision? You were sure that he showed clear leadership potential.
Successful execution is not everything.
Upgrading employees is a transitional stage for them from employees who contribute individually in getting the work done to a higher supervisory level, i.e., to managing a team. During the promotion, they are among the best-performing employees and accomplish their assigned tasks.
It is true that the successful completion and implementation of tasks is an important. And positive thing and indicates employees’ capabilities. But real leaders are never measured by what they can produce themselves. In contrast, leaders are evaluated based on their ability to direct and lead their subordinates and achieve tremendous success as a team.
How to discover leadership potential
Not everyone with an extensive skill set is a talented leader. And if it were like this, we could easily spot them without much trouble. So fundamental leadership skills must be learned and practiced. In general, you will not find experienced leaders hiding among ordinary working people.
It would help if you learned how to discover raw personality traits that can be developed professionally and professionally into essential skills for true leaders.
Raw traits of future leaders
Choosing future leaders goes deeper than just identifying our best-performing employees. When looking for them, we must make sure that we are looking for the following key features:
- Empathy
- Poise
- Open nature
- Attention to detail
- Ambition
- Optimism
These personality traits can be good indicators of your employees’ success in leadership roles in the future. But we must note that these are only the initial, innate traits that potential leaders possess and not those exhibited by leaders who have already succeeded in their profession. These traits, along with a desire to learn and grow, lay the foundation for the skills that all true leaders must practice.
Over time and with appropriate mentorship and experience, how these traits can develop into essential leadership skills:
1. From Empathy to Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is “the skill of understanding and managing emotions and feelings” and is an essential trait of a thriving future leader because leadership is about relativism and communication. Leaders modify communication styles to better manage their teams by understanding how to motivate them.
Emotional intelligence appears in its raw form as a form of empathy. If your future boss shows interest in his co-workers, then make that interest an indicator of his ability to pick up on verbal and nonverbal cues and adjust his style accordingly. The degree to which he is sincere in his responses will indicate his innate level of empathy.
2. From Poise to Confidence
A future leader cannot create followers if they do not have confidence in themselves and their ideals. Therefore, it is impossible to convince the employees that any new initiative will be beneficial, enjoyable, and profitable when fundamental uncertainties exist. In addition, look for poise now when choosing a future leader because as he adapts to change, uses his current decision-making skills, and learns from it, his newly developed self-confidence will emerge.
3. From Openness to Courage
Leaders do not accept current standards as usual, and they are enough that real leaders take risks and move forward. So ask questions about your potential boss. For example, does he speak up in meetings when he has new ideas or perspectives. And tries new ways to succeed and fail? Does he try again? Because summoning the energy and ability to speak up for what’s best for the organization. Despite the fear of failure, is where true leaders can make all the difference in their roles.
4. From Attention to Detail to Focus
There must be a great deal of constant focus on the goals and objectives of the business. From enterprise-wide projects to employees’ day-to-day duties, these goals must always be a top priority for leaders. So it would be best if you wrote down how a particular employee you were considering in a managerial role deals with a new assignment and focused on some critical aspects. For example, does he take the time to research. Ask questions and point out things that others might overlook, where his attention to detail will be evident when the project is complete while leaving no concerns unaddressed. When he develops focus, and with more time and experience, he will know how to apply this skill to the business.
5. From Ambition to Vision
Leaders always plan and have a vision, a roadmap, and a plan for where the business needs to go. There would be no place to lead the team with ordinary managers. So this future leader you’re thinking of, does he take the tasks as soon as they arrive and finish them off from the status quo? Or does he catch them and turn them into something better than expected? Does he do the requirement and nothing more? Or is he always looking for new opportunities to grow his business. Try a new approach, or start a new venture? Because employees who regularly express an ambition to go beyond the requirements. And who demonstrate a genuine interest in the organization’s future are more likely to display their vision as leaders.
And always remember that the ambition to succeed, and thus the realization of the vision, must have substance and foundation. Because it is credible research and schemes that generate employee acceptance, not significant proposals full of baseless ideas.
6. From Optimism to Expression
Ultimately, neither the vision nor motivation tactic will be adequate if not adequately communicated. So an optimistic outlook nurtures an infectious tone that motivates and inspires others. In contrast, skilled leaders develop a strategic verbal approach to representing all situations and can communicate the organization’s vision and goals engagingly and confidently. For example, if a leader is presenting his plan to pull the organization out of financial stagnation to employees, he or she should carefully manage his tone of voice. He also needs to avoid digging into the serious nature of the topic while also raising morale with hope for a promising future.
When outstanding leaders have something to say, employees listen to them and take their leaders’ words and how they tell them to heart. Skilled leaders understand this and are keen to ensure that their voices match the way they want their messages to be received.
In the end, you may be right in outlining the leadership potential of a potential future manager. Look at the whole picture by taking a step back. Maybe he needs a little more guidance from you or some time to get to know the personalities of his immediate employees. Make sure you take his initial traits into serious consideration and give him the tools he needs to learn and grow.
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