Women and Leadership

Most high potentials are selected on the basis of their technical talent and the extent to which their behaviors exemplify and promote their organizations' operating cultures—the norms and expectations that represent how things actually get done—which often are quite different than their organizations' highly touted visions and values. As a result, organizations have become very good at promoting high potential individuals for doing more of the same. This article highlights what talent managers need to look for and develop in their high potentials (and the commonly made mistakes they should avoid) to move their organizations toward realizing their visions, values, and goals.

Your company has just identified its "high potentials"—the rising stars amongst your organization's ranks. According to a recent article, high potentials are those who outperform their peers and "exhibit behaviors that reflect their companies' cultures and values in an exemplary manner" (Harvard Business Review, June 2010, p. 80). This assumes that the operating cultures of organizations—that is, how things are currently done and what's really expected—are aligned with their visions and values—that is, what they say is important and want to achieve. The Organizational Culture Inventory® has been used to quantitatively measure and compare the operating cultures to the stated values of thousands of organizations and rarely do they match—and in many cases are quite different. Furthermore, data on the impact of managers and leaders, including high potentials, show they tend to encourage the people around them to behave in ways that are more consistent with their organization's operating culture than its values.

Certainly there are organizations that live their values and promote managers who exemplify and reinforce them. Unfortunately, they seem to be in the minority. Based on the research of culture and leadership expert Dr. Robert A. Cooke, along with Dr. Janet L. Szumal, operating cultures are created and reinforced by the behavior and decisions of the organization's leadership and management and the systems, structures, and echnologies they put in place, all of which people inside the organization have to deal with on a day-to-day basis (The Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate, 2000). And the truth is that rising stars usually aren't those who rebel against their organization's management and leadership. Instead they tend to be your "good soldiers" —exemplifying their organization's operating culture, regardless of whether it is consistent with its values.

For talent managers, this means taking a critical look at your company's criteria and practices for high potentials to ensure that they identify and develop the potential for moving your organization closer toward its vision, values, and goals.

Step 1: Identify Your Organization's Values This sets the foundation for establishing your organization's criteria and practices for high potentials. Most organizations publish their values in employee handbooks, company reports, and on their websites. If they are not explicit or if it is questionable whether they are still relevant, consider using a validated survey to identify them. The advantage of

this approach is you can gather information from a variety of people in the organization relatively quickly and inexpensively. Though an organization's values are usually defined by its leadership, data from a variety of people enables you to gauge the extent to which those values are shared.

An organization's values should support and reflect its mission and vision and promote its long-term effectiveness. Interestingly, for just about every organization, what we call "Constructive" thinking and behaviors top the list. This type of thinking and behavior is driven by what psychologist Abraham Maslow called "higher-order needs" to take responsibility and achieve, develop mutually satisfying relationships, develop oneself and others, and continuously improve. In organizational settings this requires a balanced focus on both task and people— tasks need