Thursday, January 22, 2009

Using Talent Assessment To Determine Future Company Leaders

By T.S. Field

A talent assessment can help an employer who is looking for an easy way to determine future leaders among those who have applied for a job and have made the next round in the application process. If a company has several senior managers ready for retirement over the next few years, and the company has very few potential leaders to replace them, then the organization may turn to recent college graduates or recruiting firms for the future leaders it needs. A talent assessment can prove to be the right tool needed to find the right person with the right qualities.

An organization may be in the process of upgrading or revamping an existing company-sponored leadership training progam. Then the leadership training personnel can develop its own assessment to determine the qualities needed in their future leaders or adapt an existing evaluation to their needs. A leadership assessment could be added to a psychometric assessment that consists of aptitude testing and personality assessment. The talent testng could be geared toward identifying the twelve characteristics of a leader listed below:

1. Carefulness - a tendency to plan and think before speaking or acting.

2. Cooperation - the ability to be likeable and genial in interpersonal relationships.

3. Creativity - the ability and willingness to think "outside the box"

4. Discipline - a tendency towards being dependable, responsible, and able to follow through in order to complete tasks

5. Goodwill - able to be forgiving and to think of others as having good intentions

6. Influence - ability to impress others by speaking with authority

7. Optimism - tendency toward a positive attitude and having confidence in favorable outcomes

8. Order - naturally neat and has good organizational skills

9. Savvy - ability to read people to know their needs and intentions

10. Sociability - enjoys being with other people at work and at social gatherings

11. Stability - ability to remain calm and rational during stressful situations

12. Striving - abiity to keep pushing and working hard to obtain goals

There are many assessments that measure leadership potential in the marketplace. A company may also develop their own leadership potential test in order to customize the test to help choose the best candidates. A company may want to view and compare several assessments before finalizng their choice. The talent assessment can save a company a lot of time and money by recognizing leadership potential in job applicants at the time of hiring. Most companies' managers are approaching retirement and will need to be replaced in the coming years. Hiring talented leaders today can help ease the transitions needed in the future.

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