Measuring Leadership Potential

September 11, 2019

Identifying high potential employees is an important and often difficult task. The difficulty is partially due to our methods for identifying and measuring leadership potential.

Using assessments to better understand employees and identify them has been done with success for many years. They can be used to help individuals see how different perspectives can provide diversity and creativity to teams in finding better solutions. These assessments can also assist in determining leadership potential.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, for example, is commonly used tool to identify one of 16 personality types in order to help people understand themselves in relation to others, and to learn how to work more cooperatively together. However, no one MBTI personality type is ideally suited for leadership.

The 9-Box Model is used to identify leadership performance and potential, though it should really only be used in combination with other methods. Managers can fairly accurately measure their people on performance because this is typically based on quantifiable metrics and whether or not the individual has met them. However, when it comes to potential, this is much more nuanced and difficult to accurately evaluate.

This is because leadership potential is less defined and less quantifiable. It also relies on predicting an individual’s future actions. And leadership potential is highly subjective making tools like the 9-Box Model difficult to rely on in isolation.

To accurately identify leadership potential requires defining exactly what that means for the organization and the individual, accounting for unconscious bias and reaching beyond one individual’s perspective.

Leadership Potential Defined

Leadership potential could be defined as one’s ability to adapt to challenges in spite of increasing complexity while maintaining proficiency with oneself and others. This may require a combination of aspiration, ability and engagement. Each organization needs to further refine this definition so it can be identified by everyone involved—both those doing the rating as well as those being measured by it. What are the values, attributes and behaviors that are unique to successful leaders in your particular organization?

Floor vs. Ceiling Perspective

Women may be more susceptible to unconscious bias, which can undermine identification of their leadership potential. Research has shown that when being considered for a promotion, women are more likely to be evaluated based on their contribution rather than their potential. Meanwhile, men are more likely to be evaluated based on their potential than on what they’ve contributed. Without direct intent, it may be more about the ceiling when it comes to men and more about the floor with women.

Remove the Single Story

Though we may try to see others from an objective perspective, it is difficult if not impossible to do so. Too often we create a Single Story rather than welcoming multiple stories when it comes to how we see others. Having multiple points of view can lead to a better understanding of the world as it really it. This “balance of stories” provides a much deeper and more accurate view of people. That’s why 360-Feedback can be so effective in better understanding how people show up in the workplace.

Identifying leadership potential can be made easier if you are able to ensure accuracy in your measurement. This requires defining exactly what leadership potential means for your organization, recognizing and accounting for unconscious bias and reaching beyond one individual’s perspective to gain multiple points of view. Once you have this in place, then and only then, choose an appropriate assessment model to assist you further.

How ENTJs Can Become Better Leaders

May 27, 2014

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is often used to improve overall performance in organizations. This tool can help workers gain self-awareness, improve emotional intelligence, and better understand how they—as well as those around them—operate in the workplace.

No one of the 16 types identified in the MBTI are better than any other, although there are studies that suggest some types are better suited for certain jobs than others.

A good many of my executive coaching clients tend to be in the ENTJ (extrovert, intuitive, thinking, judger) quadrant, which is quite common among leaders.

ENTJs make good leaders because of their innate ability to direct groups of people, according to Isabel Briggs Myers and Peter B. Myers, authors of Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type. They tend to be self-driven, motivating, energetic, assertive, confident and competitive. ENTJs are unusually influential and organized, yet they may judge others by their own tough standards.

Famous ENTJs include Aristotle, Napoleon, Julius Caesar, Margaret Thatcher, Jack Welch and Bill Gates. ENTJs are also the most rare of the 16 types representing just 2% to 5% of males and 1% to 3% of females in the United States.

A study called “Personality Type in Leadership” by the Center of Creative Leadership found that, although the extrovert/introvert and intuitive/sensation preference were equally represented, thinking and judging were more predominate in leaders. This does not necessarily mean that feeling and perceiving are not valuable traits in leaders, however, the structure and values of most organizations today tend to favor logical and decisive behaviors.

ENTJs are primarily concerned with making things happen and may not fully appreciate that other people may take a little longer to understand or may not be as forthcoming or direct, and assume that silence means agreement.

The ENTJ doesn’t generally understand emotions, preferring to deal with issues as problems or concepts. Therefore, trying to appeal to the ENTJs emotional side may not be the best way to resolve issues.

Feeling
There are important differences between thinkers and feelers, and ENTJs would do well to keep these in mind in order to improve relationships with those who are identified as feelers instead of thinkers. These include:

  • Feelers tend to be sympathetic, while thinkers focus on logic.
  • Feelers are more interested in people than things.
  • Feelers are more people-oriented, responding more easily to people’s values.
  • Feelers recognize and acknowledge their own as well as others’ emotions and know that this is strength, not a weakness.

 

ENTJs are more likely to analyze and apply logic with interpersonal issues, which can annoy and puzzle the feeling types. No matter what the problem, ENTJs need to factor in the human element in decision-making. They would do well to consider consulting other types for their opinions before making a decision. And they should take note of their own needs and feelings.

All of this, of course, will slow down the ENTJ’s decisiveness, but in the long term will serve them well.

Perceiving
Though judgers may view perceivers as aimless drifters, they need to understand that perceivers simply want more information before making decisions. In addition:

  • What the judger does aloud, the perceiver does within.
  • Perceivers can make decisions, but their inclination is to focus on gathering information in order to keep their options open.
  • Perceivers see structure as more limiting than enabling.
  • Perceivers are more tolerant of other people’s differences and will adapt to fit into whatever the situation requires.

 

ENTJs must develop their perceptive ability and suspend the judgment function just long enough to give perception a chance. They must continue to use judging on themselves, but not on other people. If ENTJs let thinking-judgment dominate every aspect of their lives, their feeling will be too suppressed to be of any use.

If an unexpected explosion of temper shows up, there’s a good possibility that the ENTJ needs to allow space for feeling now and again. This will provide a constructive outlet before reaching the boiling point.

Though the ENTJ preference is quite common in leaders, these people need to recognize the importance of the feeling and perceiving functions both in themselves as well as others in the workplace. A preference should be only that and finding a balance within oneself will help ENTJs grow into even stronger leaders. Appreciating the preference others have for feelings and perceiving will also help them find value in those who possess these gifts.