THE READING QUESTION
Potential concerns what someone may be able to do under future conditions. Current reputation, current performance, and future capability should not be treated as the same thing.
Identify the future-oriented claim
The linked article examines conceptual and measurement questions surrounding leadership potential. A central reading task is to determine what the word potential adds beyond current performance or favorable impressions. A future claim needs a time horizon, a role, and assumptions about development opportunities. Without those details, potential can become an attractive label that is difficult to challenge or interpret consistently.
A fictional succession discussion
A fictional engineering firm considers whether a successful technical specialist, Sam, might lead a larger cross-functional team. Sam currently solves difficult design problems and is widely respected. The future role would also require negotiating priorities, delegating work, and responding to disagreement among functions. Current success supplies useful evidence, but it does not answer every question about the new role. Nor would one difficult stretch assignment settle the matter if Sam received little support or unclear authority. The firm needs to specify the future demands and create fair opportunities to observe learning in those demands.
Make the claim testable
For this exercise, replace the statement that Sam has high potential with a conditional proposition. State which responsibilities Sam might handle, over what period, with what preparation, and what evidence would change that expectation. Then distinguish learning rate from prior access to opportunities. Someone who has already practiced a task may look more ready without necessarily learning faster. A development plan should record the support provided and the obstacles encountered. This makes later interpretation fairer and prevents a vague early label from becoming a self-fulfilling allocation of all useful opportunities to the same favored people.
Questions for the article
Ask how the authors define potential and distinguish it from readiness, aspiration, performance, and emergence. What outcomes could test a future-oriented claim? How might decisions about who receives development opportunities affect the apparent accuracy of the initial judgment? For Sam's case, what evidence is missing and which small assignment could supply it without imposing unreasonable risk? Consider whether multiple observers see different aspects of the future role. A useful reading note identifies the conditions attached to a prediction rather than reducing the topic to a list of universally desirable personal qualities.
Keep the platform developmental
Machiavelli Leadership Derailers and related leadership reflections do not provide a succession ranking or a forecast of executive success. Their original questions can help a participant identify habits to discuss and practice. Sam's development should be evaluated through fair, role-relevant evidence and actual opportunities to learn. Research on our questionnaires remains separate from the broader literature on what leadership potential might mean.
FOLLOW THE ORIGINAL SOURCES
Bouland-van Dam and colleagues (2020) ↗Continue the reading
Leadership derailment research and a behavior-focused alternative →
Writing leadership questions that do not reward a single style →
Why a leadership report should avoid fixed derailer identities →