Here is an excerpt from an article written by Sandi Edwards for Talent Management magazine. To check out all the resources and sign up for a free subscription to the TM and Chief Learning Officer magazines published by MedfiaTec, please click here.

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You don’t have to look further than your own workforce for future leaders. With the right development offerings and an early start, tomorrow’s superstars can be built today.

Organizations want to know where their future leaders will come from, and if there is any value in tried-and-true practices. The business environment is changing so quickly we may need new, more innovative approaches. Further, how will we identify leaders, and how might talent managers best prepare them for success in this dynamic and increasingly global business world?

The challenge is urgent. Many organizations realize their bench strength is not likely to deliver the talent or numbers required. According to “Your Organization’s Bench Strength — Succession Plan,” an American Management Association Enterprise survey conducted this year with 1,098 senior leaders and human resource professionals, the leadership pipeline for most organizations is not particularly strong. Most respondents were critical of their organization’s bench strength. Less than half consider their own company’s pipeline adequate, and just 10 percent think it is robust.

How to Spot a Future Leader

Every organization should take steps to prepare future leaders, at least in the near term since many employers find it impossible to look more than two years ahead. So, how does management isolate the future talent required?

Traditionally, organizations have looked at their vertical hierarchy — executives, senior managers and front-line managers — to identify those with the potential to move up. But today, they must be willing to look more creatively. Some of the best people may emerge from the individual contributor ranks or from team configurations, which are now critical in today’s matrixed organizations.

To identify future leaders organizations may need to use an array of assessments, including performance reviews from managers and peers and self-reviews. They need to look carefully at their present talent via competency and predictive-based assessments, 360-degree feedback and manager and promotability assessments. They also must look at performance results for individuals not already part of the vertical hierarchy.

High-performing companies recognize the importance of finding talent a few layers down, not just among those clearly destined for the C-suite. Further, high-performing companies will deliberately try out leadership candidates on assignments where they interact with executives a level or two above their own. Such visibility is mutually beneficial, and may come via task force, cross-functional assignment or other experiential learning activity.

Varied Development Key to Success

Those identified as potential leaders may be developed in a variety of ways: mentoring, coaching, stretch assignments, a variety of learning and development initiatives or cross-functional teaming. To determine the right types of development talent managers should consider corporate performance and business gaps, and benchmark skills and knowledge areas in other high-performing organizations. The next step is to design initiatives to close the gaps. These may include coaching, specialized training, action projects or cross-functional work experiences. Finally, it’s important to recognize and measure desired behaviors, isolate challenges and measure success.

Some up-and-coming leaders will not wait for talent managers to design their program and will aggressively and creatively seek their own opportunities. They will tap into various resources to find a mentor, volunteer for stretch assignments or seek external learning. This behavior is worthy of note — future leaders need to be different.

Organizations must determine their business requirements for sustainability and growth. What business challenges does the organization face? Where does performance lag? What stands in the way of attaining positive outcomes? Through skillful use of executive interviews, focus groups, talent audits and other tools, it is possible to pinpoint where new skills or knowledge — or a new way of thinking or working — could transform a team, division or the entire organization.

But if this is only a discussion, the result may be just a list of desired skills or attributes. Specific steps to achieve change won’t appear automatically. Leaders certainly have seen outlines of the characteristics or competencies for future leaders. They are expected to be ethical, agile and adaptable, technologically aware, committed to transparency, financially adept, skilled communicators, innovators, continuous learners, devoted team players, authentic in both style and substance, and the list goes on.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Sandi Edwards is senior vice president at American Management Association Enterprise. She can be reached at editor@talentmgt.com.