{"id":3365,"date":"2022-11-02T21:24:30","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T21:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/felicia.premierjones.com\/?p=3365"},"modified":"2022-11-02T21:50:41","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T21:50:41","slug":"7-ways-to-develop-your-leadership-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/premierjones.com\/felicia\/7-ways-to-develop-your-leadership-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Ways to Develop Your Leadership Potential"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEvery employer seeks leaders who will take them to the next level and to help them to survive challenging times.\u00a0\u00a0 But what can you do to position yourself to be considered for these coveted positions?\u00a0\u00a0 Here are 7 ways to develop your leadership potential based on Korn Ferry’s Leadership Potential Model<\/a> <\/cite> with practical tips for applying them.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Build a track record of formative experiences<\/h2>

Developmental career experiences that shape leaders are called formative experiences.\u00a0 They help leaders to their skills to develop their strategic thinking skills, conquer challenges more effectively, and increase their bandwidth for handling more responsibility.\u00a0 The more formative experiences a leader accumulates, the greater their potential to be successful when promoted to the next level.\u00a0 To position yourself for leadership positions, consider taking on high-impact strategic initiatives that support your company’s goals, seeking experiential learning opportunities<\/a> <\/u><\/cite> to simulate on-the-job experience, and pursuing volunteer work to gain experience.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Learn from experience<\/h2>

Not every experience goes as expected.\u00a0 Sometimes, achieving the desired result requires time and persistence.\u00a0 At other times, avoiding failure may require a different approach than expected.\u00a0\u00a0 And, there are times when you may find that your outcome is not what you expected.\u00a0 It is very important that leaders take the time to reflect and understand what happened and why and how to address the problem.\u00a0 This learning agility is the difference between a leader who learns from past mistakes and sidesteps this derailer in the future and one that finds themselves stuck in a repeating pattern.\u00a0 Tips are to reflect on lessons learned from each significant encounter, to do formal post-mortem reviews at the end of projects, and to take a moment to celebrate victories and successes.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Develop self-awareness<\/h2>

Nobody’s perfect. Leaders come from all sorts of backgrounds. And chances are, there are skills, traits, behaviors, and mindsets that help you to accomplish more and situations when it is best to rely upon the instincts and abilities of others. Having a keen awareness of this moment-to-moment state, called “mindfulness”, is the ultimate state of taking in and adapting to situations in real-time enabling managers to manage themselves and others more effectively. Self-assessments at key moments are a good starting point.<\/p>

Developing self-awareness is particularly challenging due to blind spots. Blind spots cause leaders to perceive themselves differently than how others see them. This is common. Being open to and requesting feedback from others are effective means of becoming more aware. In addition, a lot can be learned by being observant of how others are responding to you. Finally, consider enlisting the help of a professional coach.\u00a0(Caution: Be aware of exhibiting a DJE (Defend Justify and Explain) tendency. If your response to feedback is to defend your approach as being right or make excuses for why it isn’t, this won’t change anyone’s mind. They will simply see this as an indicator that your leadership potential is limited or constrained. Instead, relax your mind, aim to see the feedback as a gift (i.e., oftentimes people don’t share what they are thinking), and then seek to fully understand the other person’s perspective.)<\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Manage derailment risks<\/h2>

Acting on potential derailers is the difference between making progress and taking steps back. The right approach for managing derailers depends on what they are and when they occur. An example of a potential derailer for some leaders is unconscious bias. These biases influence a manager’s judgment and, if unchecked, biases can lead to them unknowingly treating people unfairly. As suggested in my Video: 5 Ways to Combat Unconscious Bias<\/a><\/u><\/cite> as an example, multiple steps can be taken. The remedy may come from knowing what your triggers are and deciding in advance what you will do if that stimulus exists.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Aptitude for logic and reasoning<\/h2>

Being an effective leader often requires that you are highly skilled at dealing with ambiguity. Critically looking at situations and creating robust solutions that will survive scrutiny, the complexities of reality, and competing priorities are necessary for moving the company forward. Having the ability to see a potential future state and then apply logic and reasoning to address the unknowns between the now and then requires advanced thinking stills. Thus, highly developed strengths in cognitive capability including conceptual thinking, strategic thinking, systems thinking, and critical thinking skills are key traits of those with high leadership potential. Top leaders routinely apply this to each situation they encounter keeping their skills sharp. Resist the urge to quickly converge to the ‘right’ answer. Instead, take the time to gather insights from different perspectives before deciding on the best path forward. This can be done by interviewing others, reading, or applying brainstorming or diagramming tools, like mind mapping. A technique for applying logic and reasoning to decision-making is to aim to consider at least 3 perspectives, seek to understand what is compelling about each, decide which criteria matter most, and then choose the best path forward based on these criteria.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Leadership disposition<\/h2>

According to Korn Ferry<\/a><\/u><\/cite>, “The more an individual\u2019s traits align with the traits that are characteristic of successful leaders, the greater the potential for future success at higher organizational levels.” The degree to which these traits are valued varies from company to company. Generally speaking, the following traits exemplify a leadership disposition:<\/p>