Capturing Leadership Potential in Your Workforce
“How to Identify Leadership Potential: Development and Testing of a Consensus Model”
Nicky Dries and Roland Pepermans (2012)
What are the researchers interested in?
Dries and Pepermans (2012) concur that there is a stressing need for empirical research (with direct evidence) in assessing leadership potential. HR practitioners should move away from informal suggestions to a systematic analysis and development of a framework that measures potential in talented employees. Researchers argue that using past performance as indicators may increase the risk of biases in assessment processes (high-performance scores may be generalized to other characteristics).
The current research compiled extensive peer-reviewed articles on measuring leadership potential, and successfully integrated specific traits into a comprehensive model to identify leadership potential in junior staff members. A comprehensive model was then fact-checked and tested on a sample of top managers, hr managers, etc. to ensure its validity.
What method did they use?
The method composed of two main steps, which will be outlined here.
Developing the model
Dries and Pepermans (2012), found what they called, “best practice-type” publications – peer-reviewed and robust statistical relevance. After detecting 545 leadership potential identification criteria, they reduced it into shorter and workable forms for practice applications. In doing so, they constructed a 4-hr session where they brought in senior practitioners and senior academics in the field of HRM to assess the relevance of each term. In the end, a comprehensive model of leadership potential was made. Below is a graphic we have provided for easy visualization of key facets and traits. Notice on the second slide, we have included specific citations to check out, if you are wanting to test a specific facet!
2. Testing model consensus
When organizations assess leadership potential, it is axiomatic that not only top management, but line managers and the HR department to be involved in the process. The main question is, whether the parties will come to a consensus of which criteria are most relevant (Dries and Pepermans, 2012). Conflict of interest between different parties can also be detrimental to assessment criteria. Studies have shown that HR focus more on career aspirations, strengths/weaknesses, and development goals; whereas top management focuses more on visibility, assertiveness, networking, and charisma (Dries & Pepermans, 2012).
With consensus in mind, a large number of top managers, line managers, and HR managers were recruited for their analysis on the comprehensive model created. Strictly answering based on their own experience.
What did they end up finding
All facets of leadership potential present in the comprehensive model were tested and resulted in above satisfactory internal consistency (strong correlation between each item on the model). The factor structure itself displayed good overall fit with top parties and thus, conflict of interest and interrater dissensus (different raters having different opinions) was officially discarded.
Why does this matter for organizations?
The issue of succession planning for human resource practitioners is increasing and thus declaring it a top priority. Recent statistics have shown that only 31 to 55% of large US firms have specific frameworks in identifying leadership potential (Slan et al., 2004). Most organizations use an ad-hoc past-experienced-based framework to identify top performers and leaders. As we see, Dries and Pepermans (2012) formulated a valid assessment of leadership potential, suggested that this framework should not be done on an ad-hoc schedule, but to be done consistently throughout the lifecycle of the business and to also be assessed on all employees. The researchers answer three main questions: What should be measured, How should it be measured and Why should it be measured:
What
Extent to which a potential leader can display complex problem solving and decision making skills
Willingness and ability to learn
Extent to which potential leaders are driven and ambitious
Exhibits high attraction towards leadership
How
Survey/Questionnaires (used in this research)
Behavioural indicators (360 evals, Aptitude tests, Personality inventories, Behaviourals)
Why
Allowing predictive measures of leadership behaviours over years
A standardized non bias way of giving equal opportunity to staff members
References
Dries, N., & Pepermans, R. (2012). How to identify leadership potential: Development and testing of a consensus model. Human Resource Management, 51(3), 361-385.
Slan, R., & Hausdorf, P. (2004). Leadership succession:High potential identifi cation and development. Toronto, Canada: University of Guelph and MICA Management Resources.