Bridging the Leadership Gap

How to find leaders from within

Cobi Collins, Talexes

Preparing Your Management-level Workforce

The retirement of the baby boomer generation will leave companies searching for new leaders to fill the knowledge and experience gap. Leveraging HR resources, such as talent assessments, can help prepare your organization for this seismic shift.

Building a Stronger Future: Assessing Internal Talent to Identify Next-Gen Leaders

Employment Assessment

tools, particularly

those that match people to jobs, can help organizations identify and groom individuals, who possess the right skills, knowledge, and cultural fit required for success in management positions in their unique organization, thereby reducing the risks associated with external hires.

The success of any organization is highly dependent on its leadership. Effective leaders inspire, motivate, and guide their teams toward achieving shared goals. As organizations prepare for the retirement of their current leadership teams, they must identify and develop the next generation of leaders to ensure continued success. One of the best ways to achieve this is by assessing talent within the organization and using assessment tools to identify leadership candidates.

Assessing internal talent provides a wealth of benefits to organizations, including the ability to identify and groom individuals, who possess the right skills, knowledge, and cultural fit required for success in management positions. This approach helps organizations lower their spending on recruitment and onboarding costs, and reduce the risks associated with external hires.

The 2020 LinkedIn Global Talent Trends report found that 63% of talent acquisition professionals believe internal recruiting accelerates the hiring process, while 69% believe it speeds up new hire productivity.

Common benefits include reduced recruitment costs, improved retention, faster time-to-fill, higher productivity, and reduced training costs.

Fast-track Existing Talent to Leadership Roles with Assessment Insights

To identify the right talent within the organization, it is essential to conduct assessments that measure core attributes. Talexes offers a range of assessments that can help organizations identify talent gaps and provide insight into individual strengths and development areas. These assessments can also be used to provide employees with feedback on their performance and identify areas for improvement.

Through a combination of assessments, interviews, and performance reviews, organizations can identify individuals with the necessary skills and experience to succeed in management positions. Many organizations are surprised to learn about existing talent that can be fast-tracked into leadership roles. By gaining deep insights, you can quickly and easily develop existing talent.

Assessments provide insight into individual strengths and areas for growth, allowing organizations to create tailored plans that address skill gaps and identify needed resources. These plans may include training programs, mentorship, and coaching to help new leaders grow their skills and the necessary confidence for success. HR talent assessments provide an objective and reliable way to evaluate candidates’ potential and readiness for these positions.

Person-to-Job Fit Assessments Are Key to Preparing Employees for Leadership Positions

Once your organization has identified the right internal candidates for promotion, preparing them for success becomes the primary focus. Prepping future leaders requires a holistic approach that combines assessment, training, and mentorship.

Using assessments to uncover core leadership strengths, skills, and potential, create selfawareness, and build confidence among employees, allows your organization to create tailored development plans.

According to Leadership and Organization Development Journal, mentorship is a critical component of preparing future leaders (Punsiri K. and Liang N., 2022). Experienced managers can provide guidance, feedback, and support to employees to help them develop the skills and knowledge required for success in leadership roles. Upskilling is another critical component of preparing future leaders. Organizations can invest in training programs that provide employees with the skills-training and knowledge resources required to succeed in their roles.

The job matching technology from a modern employee assessment can help identify potential leaders, build confidence, understand their leadership style, and provide them with insights into how they may adapt their approach to meet the needs of their team. This knowledge can help improve relationships with team members, improve communication, and increase team performance. to effectively move executive priorities forward.

Expect Better Outcomes with Better Information

With minimal time and financial investment, midsized organizations can maintain a competitive edge. By investing in future leaders early on and from within, unique organizational culture is preserved, recruitment costs are reduced, and a smooth transition of leadership is ensured. Cognitive ability and personality are 13% more predictive of job performance than experience and education. If you’re not using assessments, you can’t be prepared for the future of work. We must be able to uncover hidden talents, know who can and will do the work today, and who can be trained for tomorrow. It is important to understand that people and circumstances are complex and adaptable, boxed-in labels don’t allow for all the potential within, and past performance is not a guarantee of future success. However, cognitive style or reasoning ability and core behavioral traits are successful predictive indicators. Only validated, and normed, multimeasure assessments provide the most accurate and predictive information for job performance success long-term.

Hope is not a plan (TED Magazine 2023). Don’t wait for an emergency, instead mind the gap today with Talexes Assessments to thrive into the future.

Collins is Master Workforce Strategist of Strategic Accounts Director at Talexes. Cobi has provided organizations with real-people strategies for more than 25 years. Enabling business owners and leaders to solve people problems for good by becoming talent magnets and destination employers at the top of their game. To amplify their business strategies and achieve their ultimate goals, she enables them to select, keep, and lead superstars better than their competitors.

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