Indicators of Leadership Potential

Tuesday November 4, 2008

One of the most important tasks within your organization is to identify and develop your next generation of talent. I've been thinking a lot about this lately as a client company has grown to the size where it needs to consider succession planning especially for the key roles within the company. Life is short; bad things happen to good people, but your company can be prepared for all exigencies.

So, I was happy to receive a great excerpt from a book by Ram Charan (pictured). He is the coauthor or author of several business books I think are exceptional including Execution (compare prices). His new book, Leaders at All Levels (compare prices) is the source of this piece.

In his many years of observing leaders, Ram Charan has noticed:

"a number of signs that a person has high potential for corporate leadership. A wide cognitive 'bandwidth' - the capacity and inclination to see things in a broader context - is an earmark of a CEO who anticipates how changes in the external environment will affect the business or of a marketing vice president who sees how marketing relates to overall company direction."

Other signs of high-potential leaders include integrity, decisiveness, drive, aggression, and setting direction. There are many more indicators of high-potential leaders. Learn more.