{"id":2592,"date":"2017-01-12T19:59:35","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T18:59:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=2592"},"modified":"2017-01-12T19:59:35","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T18:59:35","slug":"leadership-talent-how-to-spot-it-if-it-is-hidden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2017\/01\/12\/leadership-talent-how-to-spot-it-if-it-is-hidden\/","title":{"rendered":"Leadership Talent: How to Spot It if It Is Hidden?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"telescope-971431_960_720\"
pixabay.com\/cameonaton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I haven\u2019t written about talent for a while here, yet this is not an indication of reduced importance of the topic in any way. Indeed, the Talent Shortage Survey<\/a> by ManpowerGroup indicates that in 2016 employers globally reported the highest talent shortage<\/strong> since 2007. Based on the survey data it seems that employers struggle foremost with finding enough applicants for their jobs, followed by the challenges of finding the right competencies and levels of experience. So what do companies do about these challenges? The main answer seems to be \u2018upskilling\u2019, as more than half of the surveyed organizations invest in training and development of their existing talent<\/strong>s. Interestingly, such focus on developing the existing talent<\/strong> pool has markedly risen even compared to 2015, when only 20% of companies prioritized such initiative. I would argue that this shift towards looking for solutions inside the organization is motivated by both the rapidly changing skill requirements in the global market<\/strong> as well as the harsh competition for external talent<\/strong>. The Manpower professionals suggest that the number of companies, who invest in upskilling of their own employees, will continue to increase.<\/p>\n

Looking more specifically into leadership<\/strong> talent<\/strong>, a recent McKinsey article<\/a> argues that although many companies do indeed rely on development programs, some talent<\/strong> may still remain untapped: the hidden talent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The case of a hidden leader<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the McKinsey professionals, there are three main reasons for some leadership<\/strong> talent<\/strong> to be overlooked.<\/p>\n

First of all, talent<\/strong> might get lost purely because the organization is big. Certainly, one may argue that being visible and standing out is the very indication of being a leader<\/strong>\u2026 However, if we speak about potential leader<\/strong>s, it is likely that several barriers of a large organization (e.g. being a talent<\/strong> in a subsidiary, which is far away from the corporate centre) can influence whether one is getting noticed.<\/p>\n

Secondly, there are selection biases we are all prone to. As discussed in one of my previous posts<\/a>, when we are not paying attention and act on \u2018automatic pilot\u2019, we are very quick to judge behaviours that are different from ours as negative, and favour people who are alike. Hence, potential talent<\/strong>s that are different from the majority race, gender, cultural background, age and so forth, are also potential victims of discrimination in terms of career opportunities.<\/p>\n

Finally, the McKinsey professionals point to the limitations of traditional approaches to screening for talent<\/strong>, namely the narrow top-down lens, when only senior leader<\/strong>s scan for potential leader<\/strong>s in lower company ranks. Naturally, a limited perspective means limited opportunities to be noticed as well.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How to spot a hidden leader? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u2018Harvesting\u2019, meaning developing those who are already \u2018in picture\u2019 does not solve the abovementioned barriers for hidden leader<\/strong>s. Therefore, the authors suggest hunting, fishing and trawling as additional ways of spotting hidden talent<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

To put it metaphorically, hunting is about going to hunt specifically in those woods you normally do not go to. As the McKinsey professionals put it, the idea is \u2018explicitly to scan for promising individuals in their unit who are not currently on a list of high potentials\u2019. As a professional hunter would use, I imagine, different \u2018prey\u2019 tracking devices, so too can talent management<\/strong> professionals turn to HR<\/strong> technology and personnel databases for conducting extensive search based on some indicators (e.g. subordinate turnover of a respective manager, etc.).<\/p>\n

Fishing is about using \u2018bait\u2019 to encourage hidden potentials to identify themselves. What is important here is that the \u2018bait\u2019 is specifically chosen based on the preferences of hidden potentials. As a good example, LinkedIn started the Quiet Ambassadors<\/a> program that targets introverted talent<\/strong>s, who would not normally bait for traditionally extraverted leadership<\/strong> requirements.<\/p>\n

Finally, trawling is about digging more deeply and more broadly into employees\u2019 work environments, asking people on different organizational levels to nominate potential talent<\/strong>s. To me, this looks like a strategy of capturing informal leader<\/strong>s, who might be overlooked by management and its formal talent<\/strong> scouting procedures.<\/p>\n

All in all, the aforementioned methods seem to suggest a more proactive approach to talent<\/strong> identification, implying that not every potential leader<\/strong> is going to \u2018knock\u2019 him\/herself on the door of HR<\/strong>. Moreover, hunting, fishing and trawling methods seem to have the potential also in the more narrow field of expatriate recruitment and selection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven\u2019t written about talent for a while here, yet this is not an indication of reduced importance of the topic in any way. Indeed, the Talent Shortage Survey by ManpowerGroup indicates that in 2016 employers globally reported the highest talent shortage since 2007. Based on the survey data it seems that employers struggle foremost […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18330],"tags":[44833,770,96649,981,44751,96648],"class_list":["post-2592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-views-and-news-about-expatriates","tag-global-leadership","tag-global-market","tag-hr","tag-leadership","tag-talent-management","tag-talent-shortage","megacategoria-mc-leadership-and-people-management"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2592"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2595,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2592\/revisions\/2595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}