8 Signs You Can Spot Leadership Potential

Good leaders are often looked to for direction, advice, and problem-solving. After all, these ingredients are essential for an organization’s success. However, given that leaders come and go just like other employees, there’s one equally important attribute that every good leader should have:

The ability to spot future leaders.

How do your leadership detection skills stack up?

Take a look at these eight signs you know a future leader when you see one:

You Notice How People Interact

If you watch how people engage with each other, you might be a true leadership detector.

Most folks wouldn’t think twice about some who glances at a laptop or cell phone during a meeting or conference. However, leaders are more likely to engage with people rather than devices. They look at people when they’re speaking. They don’t need technology to make an impact. And they certainly don’t need to hide behind a screen to look productive.

You Listen to Other Employees

Potential leaders don’t always know they’re leading. Rather, they simply see their contributions as part of the day’s work. However, other people aren’t too quick to let a good employee’s efforts go unnoticed, which is why you may hear stories from others about how he or she went above and beyond on the job.

You Look at Processes, Not Just End Results

End results are important, but the journey to get there is equally important. For example, two people working on the same task might finish at different times, but that doesn’t mean the faster person did the job better. It could be that the slower person took time to follow safety procedures, help another employee, or found a better way to do something. As a spotter for potential leaders, it’s essential the end result isn’t your end-all metric.

You Read Emotions

Good leaders often excel at reading people. They know when someone is nervous, upset, or genuinely happy to be at work. Finding leadership potential means knowing how a person is feeling or what they’re thinking without speaking to them.

You’re Always Vigilant

Potential leaders don’t just exist. Just like leaders, their talents evolve over time, and it takes ongoing vigilance to watch the transformation. One encounter doesn’t always reveal leadership potential. Do they always arrive early to work? Do they tend to lose focus in afternoon meetings? Which people take initiative and which ones would rather wait for instructions?

If you’ve got a watchful eye trained on someone (or many someones), you’ll start to recognize things that could indicate their leadership abilities. Clues like body language, punctuality, and attendance can help indicate potential.

You Look Beyond Performance

Potential and performance – other than both starting with a P, these words have little to do with each other. It’s not about which employees are performing the best, but which ones have the potential to influence others and move your organization in the right direction.

You Don’t Overvalue Experience

At some point, every leader was an inexperienced follower that had to learn to lead. However, just because someone has experience leading a team doesn’t mean they have more potential than someone without experience. It could be that the person with experience did a terrible job and proved themselves empty of leadership potential. Experience can be important, but it isn’t the most important.

You Don’t Undervalue Relationships

You don’t have to be liked to be a good leader. However, good leaders must be able to connect with their teams, even when they aren’t well liked. Look at the relationships between potential leaders and other employees to see how well they can motivate others.

You Compare Input vs. Output

Good leaders are also good delegators. They don’t rely upon themselves to get the workload done. Rather, they may put in a few hours of delegation, but produce several times more work than if they’d done things themselves. As a result, their efforts are more effective without being stretched too thin.

If you share anything of these common characteristics, start turning your potential leaders into real ones. If you aren’t doing the above, there’s no better time to start than now. Your organization can continue to move forward if the right people are leading the way.