How many times have you heard that someone was (or wasn't) leadership material, or that they did (or didn't) have leadership potential? Perhaps this has even been said about you — and perhaps you've said it about someone else.
Today, we're looking at an example from the chemical facilities field, in which Lauren Neal, author and founder of Valued at Work, challenges the idea that leadership potential is a fixed trait that you have the good fortune to possess. Neal shares the example of an individual who, six months after being dismissed as "not management material," subsequently led a cross-site safety improvement project. Neal argues that this didn't happen because the individual suddenly became more capable, but because someone finally saw her differently and gave her this challenging opportunity.
Across many industries, "leadership potential" is often associated with traits like confidence, verbal fluency, likability, or familiarity with existing leaders, rather than performance patterns that actually matter in complex, high-risk operations. This often results in new leaders who look and sound an awful lot like the old leaders, where candidates who pass the "mirror test" are fast-tracked while quieter — yet reliable — candidates are left behind.
In environments where safety and continuity are non-negotiable, relying on hunches about potential is a hidden risk. Organizations can precisely track uptime, failures, and process deviations, yet they're still making talent decisions based on informal impressions and narrow windows of visibility. For example, just because someone frequently speaks up in meetings doesn't mean they're smarter or more capable than the quieter person sitting next to them. Also, if challenging tasks are always given to these more vocal employees, once again, the quieter individuals aren't given the opportunity to stretch beyond their current job duties, which means they're more likely to stay stuck at that level.
Leaders looking for a better approach that challenges their blind spots should define and observe specific behaviors that predict leadership effectiveness, including influencing without authority, problem-solving under stress, showing resiliency after setbacks, and the overall degree of peer trust a person commands. Shifting to these observable and measurable indicators, along with checking assumptions with a wider circle of colleagues, helps reveal capable future leaders who may have never been given the "stretch" opportunities that show their strengths.
Talk with your leadership team and consider how you can implement actionable steps to better identify future leaders for your organization:
- Audit how you currently define "leadership potential" and shift from personality-driven criteria toward behavior-based indicators like influence, problem-solving, resilience, and team trust.
- Broaden the lens on talent discussions by actively soliciting input from team members about who they turn to for help and informal leadership.
- Track who receives "stretch" assignments versus who is consistently overlooked and rebalance opportunities accordingly.
Read more from Neal on Chemical Processing.
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