Jackie Secor explains how to spot emerging leaders instead of wasting energy on weak ones. Give stretch assignments, require people to bring solutions not just problems, and prioritize emotional intelligence over technical skills.
Chapters
I think sadly, too often leaders spend all their time with the bottom performers, trying to grow them and make them better. Instead of identifying the emerging leaders and spending our time with them. What do you look for to find them so important?
To have a bench strength, right. So that I say it all the time. If I get hit by a bus tomorrow or win the lottery, who would step into my shoes? I think it's really taking a step back, giving people stretch assignments, allowing them to make decisions. You know, anybody who has ever worked for me knows that you never walk into my office and drop a problem on my desk. You walk into my office, you tell me what the problem is and then you have your list of solutions and let's talk through it. It's really evaluating the way that they approach an issue or a problem or an opportunity that they see that nobody else has seen. And you know, fostering that environment to encourage that creative thinking or that out of the box thinking. It's more of the soft spot skills and the emotional intelligence that is like, that's almost more important than anything else. For skills I can teach you, but you have to have the ability to be able to look at it, you know, any situation at a third from a 30,000 foot lens and evaluate the impact of a decision on every single person within the organization.
