What if your future leaders are already leading and you’re not noticing them?

When we think about future leaders, we tend to look in predictable places: succession plans, talent reviews, high-potential programs, performance ratings and people already managing teams.

These are useful sources of information, but they can narrow where we look and what we notice. Leadership that happens without formal authority, or outside the situations our talent processes tend to measure, can be much less visible.

Some of your future leaders may therefore be people you haven’t yet identified as leadership talent. They may not have the title or be on the succession plan, but they are already having an impact on the people and organisation around them.

My colleague Sonia Tallarida and I describe these people as leaders in waiting: people who are already doing leadership work without the title.

So how might we notice them?

Five signs someone may already be leading

In our recent session with Talent and HR professionals and leaders, we shared five things to look for.

1. People confide bad news in them early

Who hears about problems and concerns before they reach formal channels? Being trusted with difficult information gives someone insight into what is really happening in an organisation, not just what appears in meetings and reports.

2. They translate between layers without losing meaning

They can understand different perspectives across the organisation and help people make sense of each other. Importantly, they don’t make difficult messages more palatable to the point that their meaning gets lost.

3. They disagree without losing belonging

They can challenge an idea, decision or established way of working without automatically placing themselves outside the group. They are able to bring a different perspective while maintaining the relationships that allow them to have influence.

4. They name the unnameable and the temperature drops

They can put words to something people know is happening but have struggled to discuss. Rather than making the situation more charged, they can help the group have a more useful conversation about it.

5. Their ideas keep almost happening

They may see something the organisation needs before the organisation is quite ready for it. Their ideas get some traction but repeatedly stall, get watered down or reappear later through someone else.

None of these signs means someone should automatically be promoted or put on a succession plan. But they are evidence worth paying attention to, particularly when several appear in the same person.

Once you notice them, what happens to them?

There is another side to identifying leaders in waiting.

Someone can be doing valuable leadership work and still be overlooked, not listened to or excluded from the opportunities that would allow them to develop further.

They may repeatedly hear that they aren’t ready. Their ideas may be dismissed or credited to someone else. They may be given difficult work without the authority or support to do it well. Or they may receive feedback that gradually encourages them to tone down the qualities that made them valuable in the first place.

Often none of this is deliberate. But over time, the person may learn to adapt, stop offering their ideas, become frustrated or leave.

In our workshop, we asked participants to think about one capable person their organisation might be overlooking and consider what the organisation was already doing that could prevent that person from influencing or helping it evolve.

It’s a useful shift in perspective. Instead of asking only “What does this person need to develop?”, we can also ask:

“What are we doing that helps or hinders their ability to contribute?”

Helping leaders in waiting thrive

For HR, Talent professionals and leaders, the answers don’t necessarily require another program or process.

• Make their contribution visible. If someone’s leadership happens informally, don’t assume it will be noticed. Talk about their achievements and capabilities, particularly in the rooms where talent decisions are being made.
• Listen to them and their ideas. You don’t have to agree with everything they suggest, but be curious about what they are seeing. If their perspective differs from the mainstream, understand it before dismissing it.
• Give them access and opportunity. Bring them into conversations and experiences where they can build their capability, organisational understanding and influence. Waiting until someone is completely “ready” can prevent them from getting the experiences that would help them become ready.
• Give them somewhere supportive to work through challenges. A trusted manager, mentor or sponsor can help them make sense of resistance, work out what they need to develop and consider how to approach things differently, without assuming that fitting in is always the answer.

This is not about removing responsibility from the individual. Future leaders still need to develop their judgement, capability and ability to influence. But development happens in a system, and that system can make it easier or harder for their leadership to grow.

Who might you look at differently?

Think of one person in your organisation who you haven’t previously considered a future leader.

Look at them again through these five signs.

• What leadership work might they already be doing?
• What capability do they bring that your organisation will increasingly need?
• And if there is something there, what could you do differently to help them thrive?

Your future leaders may not all be waiting to start leading. Some may already be doing it.

The first step is noticing them.

This article is part 4 of a series reflecting our conversation at the recent Melbourne Talent Meetup , written by Sonia Tallarida and Megumi Miki . Please follow/connect/like/comment if you’d like to see the next few articles which will expand this thinking further.