Seeking Potential

Organizations have come a long way today to accept that their people are their most valued treasure. Still, I often hear some of my peers speak of people as numbers (you are just a number!) being easily replaceable.

While it’s true that every organization assigns you a number, I firmly believe that we are more than just that. An organization can of course replace you with someone better or worse, but we must agree that each one of us brings our unique perspective to our teams, our organization, and our industry. Good leaders are curious and accepting of this unique perspective that their people bring to work every day.

How do we ensure that we have chosen our best people to enable success?

Today, business environments are highly complex and there is a rigid fluidity that these businesses need to embrace. These fluidities bring a constant dynamic we call ‘change’. These changes are complex and can be exhausting to some while others thrive in such environments. People and their qualities are the organization’s lever to success.

Change is the only constant.

A cliche that we hear at different levels of both our personal and professional lives. But what does it take for individuals/leaders and the organization to succeed in such an environment?

I have a six-point hypothesis and while these may not be complete, it’s a good starting point.

1. Seeking purpose: In the past few years, we have seen almost every organization hire a consulting firm to write its mission/purpose, and vision statements. An organization’s purpose guided by its values is a promise for its people. These purpose statements are a constant reminder of who they are and what they stand for. Any organization that detaches its practices from its perceived purpose is at threat of losing its talent and staying relevant.
2. Navigating Complexities: Above, I wrote about complexity and I would re-iterate this here as it’s at the core of the dynamics of the world we live in. Our stakeholders are complex today more than they have ever been, and, this brings information that is complex. Good leaders, and people; have the ability to break down these complexities into simplicity. They analyze complex information faster without feeling threatened by it. As an example, consider the buzz around Artificial Intelligence (AI) today which has captured the minds of most business and government forums due to the uncertainty it poses for the future. For employees, it's how their work will be done? Do they need to acquire new skill sets, or worse, will their skills be redundant? For businesses - will they stay relevant? For governments - how will the governance look like and how will the economy be affected? Leaders need to navigate all such questions (and more) and simplify them to ascertain future possibilities.
3. Creative instruments: Good people today are trailblazers and they can navigate internal and external challenges by being creative. They challenge the status quo of the organization, and processes while finding creative instruments to navigate the complexities.
4. EQ: Emotional Quotient is important as it helps us leverage emotions to drive the change we seek to stay relevant. Businesses today are beyond transactions. Connecting with people, within the organization, our customers, and society to understand how they feel helps to be a successful leader. Empathetic leadership is desired, however, we need to go a step further with compassion, as compassion is the action from empathy.
5. Communication: Communication is not merely speaking or announcing directives or results, having town halls where leaders speak and engage with their employees. Good leaders spend more time listening to their people and their stakeholders to keep themselves informed and not be surprised by the change when it hits them.
6. Succession: Leaders and organizations today need to plan for the day after tomorrow. Succession planning for an opaque future can be tricky. Success may look different in not so distant future, but proactively seeking the meaning of future success today, is what we need to work on. Leadership talent today is beyond past experiences and competency. Past performance doesn’t completely define the future of an individual to lead.

Organizations around the world are failing on one key metric of success: leadership development. Only 24% of senior executives at firms that have them consider them to be a success.

The missing piece..

Potential is that missing piece of the puzzle that needs to be gauged while choosing leadership. In the past two years whenever I have seen a recruitment post on LinkedIn speak about the traits in hiring leaders, I have commented about potential, looking beyond experience and competency. My curiosity got me to google if there is much research on this subject and I came across some articles that touched on this.

The best framework that I found was by leadership search firm Egon Zehnder (links to the article here and here)

• Curiosity: Seeking new experiences, knowledge, and feedback stimulating learning and growth.
• Insight: Deconstructing information in new thought-provoking ways.
• Engagement: Connecting with people through emotion and logic.
• Determination: The grit to succeed by reaching goals despite challenges.

I dared to go beyond the research and added another trait that I believe befits potential in future leaders (I came across this in the book “The Upside of Uncertainty" by Nathan Furr and Susannah Furr );

• Transilience: Taking a step back in a moment of adversity and uncertainty, reframing, before leaping forward.

While transilience may not have been backed by research (at least my research), my personal experience in unlocking my potential, in ways that I didn't consider, is the reason why I think it's important to be on this list.

Be comfortable, being uncomfortable..

In 2021, when we were getting passed COVID-19 uncertainties, my wife and I were walking into a much larger uncertainty, the one that would impact the rest of our lives. My wife was considering getting back to work after a year-long sabbatical and I was applying to B-schools to get an MBA after working for 13 years. At this time, our daughter, shy of 2 years was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition. I'd be transparent to disclose that I had not read any literature on transilience or on figuring out the upside of this uncertainty. It was tough to decide if we should pursue our goals or change course. Both, my wife and I decided that we were going to pursue work and B-school respectively balancing the benefits and the challenges by supporting each other. We couldn't change the adversity that hit us, but we could use our anxiety in better ways to shape the future of our daughter and our community.

The above traits that link to an individual’s potential to be an effective leader are dynamic and can be cultivated. More often than not, many individuals already have such traits and only need to self-reflect to be aware.

The questions then left to answer,

How can we help our people unlock their potential? and

How do we explore these traits from our people?

If you have any further thoughts on the hypothesis and the 'potential' traits, I would love to hear in the comments.

If you would like to dive deeper into the subject, I encourage you to read (my references):

Turning Potential into Success: The Missing Link in Leadership Development

The Hidden Potential authored by Adam Grant

Think Faster and Talk Smarter authored by Matt Abrahams

The Upside of Uncertainty authored by Nathan Furr and Susannah Furr

Change Darer Newsletter by Daniela Marzavan

P.S.: Special thanks to Magdy Aly for reviewing my draft article and providing me with constructive feedback.