Identifying high potentials early: case study

Abstract

Purpose Driven by a shortage of leadership capacity, companies are seeking to identify leadership talent earlier. Some companies are introducing programs to identify leadership potential among university students and then hire “high potentials” directly into management designate roles. The purpose of this paper is to explore one such early-stage leadership development program. Currently, little information is available about these initiatives. Design/methodology/approach Case study based on interviews with 18 managers and director of HR and archival employee records. Findings This case study provides a detailed description of an early-stage leadership identification and development program. This program has been developed to identify leadership talent among senior university students prior to hiring and onboarding, provide support, training and development and fast-track them into leadership positions. The study provides insight into the challenges and effectiveness of an early-stage leadership program and offers some practical implications. Originality/value To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to document a leadership development program that identifies “high potentials” among university students for the purpose of developing them into company leaders.

Unravelling leadership potential: conceptual and measurement issues

“…Third, we largely excluded studies relating to leadership potential or development in specific organizations such as schools or healthcare institutions due to their narrower study interest in that specific niche (e.g., Humphreys et al, 2018;H. Lee et al, 2010;Kotlyar, 2018). However, when a niche study more specifically referred to leadership potential, we did include that study (e.g., Lawrence et al, 2018).…”

Mind the gap: line managers as effective or non‐effective talent spotters

“…(2010) highlight the decision process and the factors taken into account; García‐Carbonell et al . (2015) describe the line managers ‘skills required to carry out the talent identification process; Kotlyar (2018) explores the perception of managers who facilitate high potential programs and its influence on practices; Finkelstein et al . (2018) expose the reasons why some employees are not identified by their managers; Golik et al .…”

Comprehensive moderated mediation model of potential appraisal of employees

“…Extant research on performance management and promotions highlight that performance is an important criterion for promotions and higher responsibilities (Ruderman et al, 1996). However, promotions should be looked upon more comprehensively, as that would go on to "justify" the role of the appraisal system, while identifying high potential employees through the same (Kotlyar, 2018;Silzer and Church, 2010). Employees' potential to take up higher responsibility has been found to be positively related to job performance and job satisfaction.…”

“…Employees, who are ready to take up higher responsibility, tend to be more engaged and committed than others (Saks, 2006). Potential appraisal by the supervisor is the foremost indicator of employees' potential to develop for taking up higher responsibilities, which in turn could be used for multiple purposes like in promotion, creating a leadership pipeline, human resource development, which also encompasses the individual training and development needs of employees (Kotlyar, 2018;Silzer and Church, 2010).…”