High-Potential Leader

RAM CHARAN is an advisor to many of the world’s top CEOs and corporate boards. He is author or coauthor of twenty books, including The New York Times bestseller Execution. He has taught at Harvard Business School and GE’s John F. Welch Learning Center, and is a member of six corporate boards.

• 1 High-Potential Leaders Are Crucial to Helping Businesses Adapt and Thrive in the Digital Age 1The Urgent Need for High-Potential Leaders 1What “High Potential” Means Now 2An Important Distinction 7Getting Hipos There Faster 8How Hipos Can Use This Book 11How Leadership Developers Should Use This Book 13A Final Word 14Tips for Hipos—How to Use This Book 18Tips for HR and Leadership Developers—How to Use This Book 20Part I Five Essential Skills for High-Potential Leaders 232 Increase the Return on Your Time (ROYT) 25Get Comfortable with People Better Than You 25Set and Reset Your Priorities 28Customize Your Information Flow 31Delegate and Follow Through 33Trust But Verify 34Decide How to Leverage Yourself 35Create Repeatable Processes 37Be Decisive 38Additional Resources 433 Multiply the Energy and Skills of Those Around You 45Identify a Person’s God-Given Talent 46Build Other People’s Strengths 50Make Necessary Changes Quickly 52Manage the Intersections 53Lead the Dialogue 56Be a Social Architect 58How Tony Palmer Became a Talent Magnet 60Additional Resources 684 Be a Master of Big Ideas and Execution 71Make Your Big Ideas Better 71How to Assess Your Good Ideas 72Getting Big Ideas Executed 76Execution Basics 78The Art of Asking Incisive Questions 80A Hipo’s Vision and Execution at Fingerhut 81Additional Resources 905 Get to Know Customers, Competitors, and the Macro Environment 91Observe the End-to-End Consumer Experience 92Know the Competition 94Dissect Ecosystems 98See Your Business from the Outside In 100Keep Up with Technology 103Additional Resources 1086 Build Your Mental Capacity 109Widen Your Lens 109Keep Learning 111Build Diverse Networks 114Seek Information from Everywhere 116Stay Mentally Flexible 120Additional Resources 129Part II Taking Charge of Your Growth and Choosing Your Next Big Career Move 1317 How, When, and Why to Make a Leap 133The Virtue of Leaps 134Making Leaps Without Leaving Your Company 139Build Your Own Support System 141Bonnie Hill’s Multiple Leaps 143Leaps Outside the Company 146Weighing a Job Change 148Your Exit Plan 150Your Entrance Plan 151Additional Resources 1598 Track Your Mental Health and Work/Life Balance 161Business Achievement 162Life Satisfaction 163Find a Meaningful Focus 168Protect Your Mental Health 172How Aaron Greenblatt Found His Focus 173Additional Resources 181Part III The Care and Feeding of High Potentials—Every Organization’s Precious Resource 1839 Identifying, Recruiting, and Retaining Hipos 185Redefine and Find High-Potential Leaders 186Create Opportunities for Growth 189Clear the Path for Hipos 192Improve Feedback Loops 193Refresh the Leadership Pool 196How to Use This Book to Develop Your Organization’s Hipos 197Key Points for Talent Management Leaders 197Additional Resources 209Acknowledgments 211Index 213