High Potential Leader is a research-based 360 diagnostic designed for emerging leaders, helping organisations identify high potential and focus development investment where it will have the greatest impact.
Built on over 30 years of organisational psychology research, the model goes beyond current performance to assess the underlying capabilities that predict future leadership effectiveness. It is particularly well suited to early-career leaders, specialist talent moving into leadership, and individuals identified for accelerated development.
Rather than measuring role-specific skills, High Potential Leader focuses on meta-competencies — the emotional, relational and analytical capabilities that enable individuals to adapt, learn and grow as leadership demands increase.
What the model explores
The High Potential Leader framework brings together three core capability areas:
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EMOTIONAL
Resilience and stress management, drive and commitment — supporting sustained performance and motivation over time. -
RELATIONAL
Network focus, working in partnership, and awareness of self and others — enabling influence, collaboration and leadership presence. -
ANALYTICAL
Learning agility and the ability to master complexity and change — supporting sound judgement in unfamiliar and evolving contexts.
Together, these capabilities provide insight into future leadership capacity, not just current capability.
Designed for talent and succession decisions
High Potential Leader is commonly used to:
- identify individuals with strong leadership potential
- inform targeted investment in development and support
- support high-potential, graduate and early-career programmes
- build robust leadership pipelines over time
The tool helps organisations make more confident, evidence-based decisions about where to focus development resources for maximum return.
AI-supported insight
High Potential Leader can be delivered with optional AI-supported insight, including AI-generated summary pages and access to an AI Companion within the dynamic online report.
These features support sense-making and reflection, helping participants and talent teams explore patterns and development themes, while leaving judgement and decision-making with HR, managers and coaches.
Flexible, practical and scalable
With High Potential Leader you can:
- select between 2 and 22 reviewers, across up to 7 reviewer groups
- add tailored questions aligned to your talent strategy
- view benchmark comparisons alongside individual results
- use the tool within high-potential, early-career or succession programmes
- access AI-supported summaries and an optional AI Companion
