Business leaders, of a family business or otherwise, are always on the lookout for superstars in their team. Employees who have the potential to be future leaders. But identifying these future leaders is difficult. And once identified, nurturing future superstars takes time and effort. So, you want to be certain when placing people into the ‘superstar’ bucket. This article looks at one way to identify superstars.
Often, there are some employees who you feel have significant potential. This could be based on your gut-feelings. Or positive vibes given out by certain employees. Based on that, we try nurturing them. The problem is that there is often a gap between perception and reality. And that employee who seems to be a superstar might be a great perception manager. So how do know for sure?
Many businesses find an appraisal system useful in identifying stars. Each employee is given an agreed set of goals. These goals are broadly split into two areas. The first area is linked to business performance such as sales, accuracy of accounts and other fairly objective criteria. The second area is personal development which includes elements such as better communication, teamwork, and contribution to building a better work culture. Employees are periodically assessed on these goals. As good as appraisal systems are, they have one fundamental issue in identifying future leaders. Most systems measure the ‘What’, rather than the ‘How’. The questions stop at ‘What Sales did you achieve?’ It doesn’t go further to understand ‘How did you achieve those sales?’ or ‘What did you do to try to achieve those sales?’ Similarly, typical questions are ‘Were financial statements generated on time?’ or‘Did you procure equipment below cost threshold?’ Appraisals often don’t go further.
Understanding performance on ‘What’ is undoubtedly important. It can be used as the basis of giving monetary rewards to employees. Yet, using ‘What’ as the basis of identifying future leaders may not be the best thing to do. For starters, the most well-defined ‘What’, can become subjective and impressionistic. For eg during an appraisal, an ‘impressive’, politically adept employee might be given credit for sales, s/he had very little input in. It might work the other way for an employee less adept at gaming the system. We need a more robust system to judge future leaders.
The answer? Use the Critical Incident Technique (CIT). CIT was developed by the noted psychologist, John C Flanagan. Flanagan was commissioned by the US Army Air Corps in 1941 to develop tests to identify pilots suitable for combat missions in World War II. Applied to an organisational context, CIT is observations of employee’s behaviour in various situations. The objective is to correlate their behaviour to their effectiveness in being a leader. There are three inputs required for using CIT.
1. Your direct observations of the employee in a situation. Since there is a fair amount of literature on leadership traits, it’s easy for people to game the system. They show their best face when you are looking! They will present an aura of efficiency and knowledge when they know they are being tested. And the halo effect does the rest. Shield yourself from such misuse. Don’t gloss over the routine stuff. This means that you need to look more often. And in situations where an employee doesn’t expect you to be looking. The more data points you have, the more accurate your assessment. This doesn’t mean you need to micro-manage. It just means that you need to observe how employees do their work more often.
2. The employees’narrative of a critical incident. This could be through regular informal interactions with the employee. The focus is on ‘how’, rather than ‘what’.
3. Peers and subordinates’ narrative of the employee (future leader) in different situations. This could be done by periodic upward appraisals. A good leader needs a team. And if people don’t like him/her, that’s not going to work.
In all these three activities above, there are certain behaviours (not outcomes) you should be looking for. Behaviours you are looking for can differ across businesses and across functional roles. For instance, the behaviours you look for in an employee focused on research will be quite different from those in the sales function. That said, there are some great common traits to look for. These include
• Critical analysis of a problem and finding new, creative solutions. How did they approach the problem? Did they find a better way to achieve the same results?
• Innovative use of technology and resources at hand. Technology is becoming a larger part of our business. A future leader needs to understand how to leverage technology to grow the business. So, keep your eye out for employees who can seamlessly marry technology with their work
• Doggedness while facing difficult challenges and a never say die attitude. Businesses work in adynamic environment. And citing problems is always significantly easier than thinking of solutions. Is the employee committed to finding solutions or does the buck get passed?
• Displaying integrity especially in tough conditions rather than taking the easy way out. This is especially important and is probably the most difficult to be sure of. One good way is comparing the narrative of the same situation from the employee and their peer/subordinate and your observations
• Willingness and ability to learn other functions. Being a master of their domain is important. Demonstrating understanding of other functions is an important indicator that the employee can understand the ‘big picture’.
• Ability to handle multiple pulls and pressure. Leadership can be difficult and stressful. And lonely. A superstar demonstrates the ability to handle all of that.
• Ability to take decisions. Decision-making is difficult. It needs the synthesis of various pieces of information and experience. Great employees are great at taking decisions. And great and deciding when more information is required to enable a good decision.
Putting it all together
Use your gut feelings while deciding on which employees are on the superstar shortlist. For the shortlisted few, maintain logsof behaviours observed through CIT. Maintain the log in a format you are comfortable with. Over time, you have an invaluable log of consistentbehaviours being displayed by your superstar nominees. Keep giving feedback to them. It’s also important to provide proper support and coaching to help them develop. You will soon have a smaller list of superstars who you can invest more in.
Closing thoughts
Some of those on your superstar shortlist will live up to expectations. Others, you will wish had not made the list. But that’s still better than not having any superstars lined up.
And be aware that it isn’t only superstars who make a team. So, don’t forget the rest of the team. They also need recognition, encouragement and training. Else, you’ll be left with a bunch of potential leaders without anyone to lead!
