Leadership succession planning and improving performance management programs are fast becoming blended initiatives for progressive organizations. Both areas are receiving a considerable amount of attention, and that’s no wonder, given the pace of change and the considerable amount of unknowns in many marketplaces. As we are all aware, we are living in a time of great change, which means a tremendous number of opportunities for progressive organizations that are modernizing their leadership succession programs.
Traditionally organizations would look at their top performers – usually the top 10% of employees in the organization – and target these people as the future leaders. This method has worked for years with mixed results.
Can you think of someone who was a top performer and then became identified as one of the future leaders of the organization? They became a manager, progressed to a director or a VP role, then they discovered they really didn’t enjoy being a leader. Their performance started to deteriorate and the people they led started to leave the organization. This has been a common pattern for many organizational leadership succession programs.
Given the modern day fluid movement of people from one company to another, or between different industries, leadership succession planning is vital for organizations that are committed to growing and remaining competitive. Remember those people who maybe were not in the top 10% of the performance bell curve? Their team members loved working with them and the clients wouldn’t stop talking about them. Overlooked a few times when there were opportunities to move up in the organization, they would end up leaving the organization, taking their great experience and knowledge to the competition.
With all the new dynamics in the workplace, what should we be considering when looking for the next generation leaders? Well, besides the traditional foundational skills most organizations seek, there are certain performance qualities you need to ensure your new leaders possess. Here are a few of those human performance qualities of future leaders.
Confidence and humility
Leaders in our modern day workplace need to have confidence in their skills and abilities to lead an organization. Along with this confidence, next generation leaders need to remain humble and open to performance feedback they receive from their peers, colleagues, team members and even their clients.
Perspective
This quality is timeless and now more important than ever before. When looking for your future leaders, seek people who can keep their perspective regardless of the ups and downs the organization might be going through.
Focus
With all the different forms of electronic communication, it seems everyone is competing for our attention. It is no wonder this period of time is often referred to as “the time of great distraction”. Leaders of tomorrow need to realize this and develop and maintain the ability to stay focused on their organization’s objectives and keep everything moving forward. With this type of focused leadership teams will have no trouble staying on track and achieving their goals.
Discovering the next generation of leaders within and outside your organization is becoming an art and a science. Highly functioning performance management programs is a starting point, along with the ability to have in leadership positions a diverse group of people who consistently demonstrate modern day performance skills and habits.
All the best in achieving your highest performance.
Paul
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