Enabling Full Potential: Four Things Great Leaders Do

The best leaders make the most of every situation. They're courageous, unafraid to challenge the status quo and willing to push boundaries to make things better. Because of those qualities, they know how to get the most out of people. They enable the full potential in others.

Every employee is different, with their own experiences, values, cultural backgrounds, influences and beliefs. The best leaders identify and appreciate the differences each person brings and know how to put them to full use. They're emotionally intelligent enough to connect the dots, and the opportunities within each dot, for every person on their team.

As AI takes on more of the routine work, this is the part of leadership that remains most human. Here are four things great leaders do.

1. Let People Lead From Their Natural Strengths

A great leader doesn't try to make you think the way they do. They embrace the ways you naturally think and build on your strengths. They learn your "default settings" by watching what you naturally gravitate toward, and what you avoid. Then they put you in situations that leverage those strengths and let you shine.

This is at the heart of how we help executives discover their personal brand as leaders. The work aims to uncover and fully leverage the natural potential in a leader's identity: the authentic skills and characteristics that unleash their distinction and executive presence.

Our research has found that, regardless of hierarchy or rank, 55% of leaders battle the gulf between assimilation and authenticity. When they learn to trust their most authentic identity, they realize it's the roadmap to their advancement, and to the advancement of others. They become more self-aware and learn to course correct, so they're always playing to their strengths.

2. Develop Their Decision-Making

Good judgment, and the ability to turn it into sound decisions, is essential if people are going to make the most of the opportunities that come their way.

A good leader learns to see an employee's decision-making blind spots. Often it's not just the immediate decision that matters, but the ones that follow it, which have to be anticipated before circumstances force our hand. Without the ability to see beyond the obvious, we fall into traps of our own making.

Strong leaders notice where each person is most and least predictable in how they react to a problem. As they help them think through the consequences and likely outcomes of each choice, problem solving becomes a treasure hunt of unforeseen opportunities.

It also means resisting the urge to decide for them. Every decision a leader makes on someone's behalf is a lesson that person doesn't get.

3. Expand Their Performance Tolerance Threshold

A great leader keeps close tabs on how much each person can handle. They gauge each employee's performance tolerance threshold: how well they manage adversity, how they operate under pressure, how willing they are to take on new challenges and how mentally tough they are.

Enabling full potential means working on the areas that need development, so people can rise to any occasion on their own. With the right guidance, encouraging people to take risks, test their ideas and challenge the status quo, potential develops organically over time.

The point isn't to push people until they break. It's to stretch them just past what they believe they can handle, so their threshold keeps rising.

4. Surround Potential With People Who Are Even Stronger

Enabling potential without a supporting cast that keeps everything in perspective is a zero-sum game. Great leaders surround potential with stronger and complementary people. Potential needs to be challenged, and placing it among other high-potential people only makes it stronger. People become wiser and less afraid to take chances and learn from failure.

Leaders who hire only people who make them look strong miss the point. Potential grows fastest next to people who are further along.

That's what happens on a high-performance team. Rising leaders also need to understand how the game is played, so they can manage their agendas through the agendas of others, develop maturity and project executive presence.

Don't Let Potential Go Dormant

No matter how much potential someone has, it can stay dormant if it isn't managed well and nourished. A great leader never lets a person's potential go unnoticed or lose its momentum.

Realizing potential often requires breaking through barriers and creating new paradigms. People need to see what others don't, do what others won't and keep pushing when prudence says quit.

The best leaders aren't just looking for people to do their jobs better. They're looking for people who will reinvent their jobs in their own image, and they create the conditions that make it possible.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.