{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Fit Happens: Why CEOs and Leaders Succeed or Fail","title":"The Hidden Science Of Leadership Potential (And Why Most Companies Get It Wrong)","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1464,"description":"Are you actually spotting leadership potential, or just rewarding polish and confidence?\n\nIn this solo episode, I break down the most overused word in succession planning: potential. Every talent review, every nine box grid, every slate has it, and almost nobody defines it the same way. I walk through research on how companies actually measure potential (hint: it's mostly just past performance in disguise), and why that approach quietly filters out some of your best future leaders while promoting people who eventually derail.\nI get into the four components of learning agility, the strongest research backed predictor of leadership potential, and why it matters more than how someone performs at a job they already know how to do. I also share a personal story from early in my career about a candidate who nearly didn't get the job because he wasn't polished in the interview, and what a reference call taught me about how wrong my first impression was.\nThis episode is for anyone involved in CEO coaching, executive coaching and leadership development, or succession planning, whether you sit on a board, run a talent review, or you're simply trying to understand your own leadership fit. I also give you a practical tool, the first time test, that you can use in your next interview or reference call to actually find the signal that matters.\nKey takeaways:\nMost organizations define potential as being impressive right now, which is backwards. Potential is supposed to predict something you haven't seen yet.\nOnly 1 in 10 companies studied actually measured how someone handles ambiguity, even though ambiguity defines most senior roles.\nMore than 40% of people on high potential lists often don't belong there, and the research shows this shows up across decades of leadership data.\nLearning agility, the strongest predictor of leadership potential, has four parts: mental agility, people agility, change agility, and results agility.\nPeople high in learning agility tend to underrate...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/0AtGMO0HN5UCZe2_wf8pfE5Ad7xGwtuc4BOCVD_dVlA/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS8yNTdl/MDY2MDQyMDAzMmFk/MWIzNjMwMzMwZjFh/NTRmMS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}