We’ve all heard horror stories of leadership appointments resulting in catastrophic damage to an organisation’s financial stability, performance, and reputation. Oftentimes, the very traits that cause a leader’s downfall, and the subsequent organisational impact, could and should have been identified in the assessment process.

We help organisations move beyond traditional recruitment practices that fail to identify the potential future effectiveness of candidates using our 4 Critical Dimensions of Leadership Assessment:

1. Capability Fit
2. Development Potential
3. Self-Awareness
4. Culture Fit.

This is the second article in a four-part series where we are sharing these insights for the first time. Each article focuses on one dimension, offering practical guidance to help you assess candidates with confidence and appoint leaders who can drive your organisation forward.

The first article covered Capability Fit, including how to best structure the interview process to help gather the necessary information on a candidate’s behaviours and capabilities for effective evaluation. This article explores Development Potential.

Development Potential

When assessing candidates, the most effective approach is to evaluate them against the critical requirements of the role. More often than not, candidates meet many of these requirements but fall short in one area, highlighting a development gap. The key question at this stage is whether that gap can be closed and, if so, how readily.

Some candidates, given six months in the role and targeted support, will address a development gap, while others fail to do so. At the leadership level, the cost of misjudging this is significant. What the interview process must establish is not just where a candidate is today, but whether they have the potential to get where the role needs them to be.

This is particularly important when considering shortlisted candidates after the final round interviews. When there are two or three candidates remaining, if one meets all the role requirements, the decision is straightforward. However, more often than not, all three candidates will have clear areas of strength and one or two areas that require development to fully meet expectations. This is also where development potential comes in. If one candidate is much more likely to close their development gap in a short space of time than the other two candidates, that person is likely to be the best hire.

Use an explicit model to evaluate potential

It is tempting to assume that current effectiveness predicts future potential, but this is not always the case. Using an explicit model of potential counteracts the tendency to conflate current capability with future potential, resulting in a more effective and objective assessment of candidates.

Furthermore, without an explicit model, there is a high risk of bias influencing the assessment process through what we call ‘role prototypes’. The stereotypical leader is still, in many contexts, a white male of a certain age, and this can unconsciously become the benchmark for potential in the absence of anything more rigorous. This is a form of pattern matching, gone wrong. Instead, an explicit model displaces that prototype with defined behaviours and characteristics, giving assessors an objective standard to evaluate against.

At Pearn Kandola, we recommend that your model focuses on learning agility, which is the potential to expand beyond a current skill set. This is an important feature in development as it helps to determine whether a candidate has the capacity to acquire the skill they currently lack. At Pearn Kandola, we have developed the GIFT model of development potential:

• Goal-focused – for example, do they set genuinely stretching personal and work objectives for themselves?
• Impactful – this includes whether an individual will step forward, actively contribute, and share opinions.
• Flexible and future-focused – for instance, do they seek out new challenges and experiences, consistently pushing themselves out of their comfort zone?
• Tough-minded – for example, do they excel under pressure and deal well with significant challenges and setbacks?

How to measure development potential

There are three dimensions against which to measure development potential, which collectively give us strong insight into whether someone will be able to bridge the development gap. These are:

Cognitive ability

Research consistently shows that cognitive ability is the best predictor of people’s ability to learn. Those who score higher on cognitive ability tests are better equipped to synthesise complex information and make sense of ambiguity, both of which are central skills in leadership roles. There are many cognitive ability tests available on the market. Select one that is modern and designed for organisational contexts.

At Pearn Kandola, we do not recommend using a cut-off score when testing cognitive ability; whilst it may be the best indicator of an individual’s ability to learn, it is most valuable as one data point among several rather than as a filter. When used as a threshold, it risks eliminating strong candidates with different cognitive profiles, whereas when it is used in conjunction with other candidate data, it provides useful context.

Learning behaviour

Learning behaviour is about understanding a candidate’s likelihood of actively engaging with their own growth. Useful indicators include:

• Whether they actively search for feedback
• Whether they strive to gain new experiences or prefer the familiar
• Whether they seek to move themselves out of their comfort zone

Candidates who demonstrate openness to new experiences and a genuine growth mindset are better positioned to develop in areas where they currently fall short. A structured checklist for assessing these behaviours ensures consistency across candidates and avoids the trap of assessing individuals against one another, rather than against a fixed standard.

Personality alignment with target area

The final area to assess is the candidate’s personality alignment with the target area for development. We know that people develop skills through exposure and practice. Candidates whose personalities naturally orient them toward the activities associated with the relevant development area will seek out exposure and develop more quickly as a result.

For example, a candidate might have a development gap around strategic thinking, as they are currently more short-term and inward-looking in their planning. If the candidates’ personality profile shows a strong detail focus, a reluctance to delegate, and a preference for developing ‘narrow and deep’ knowledge (as opposed to being interested in a wider range of experiences and expertise), then their preferences will collectively make it more challenging for that person to close their development gap. This is because, irrespective of their broader development potential, they will naturally gravitate towards actions and experiences that do not progress their strategic thinking. A candidate like this will often talk about ‘not having the time’ to ‘step back’ and develop strategies. However, this is more a reflection of how they choose to prioritise their time and effort, rather than a genuine situational constraint.

Conclusion

Assessment of development potential is an essential part of the assessment process for senior leaders, yet it remains significantly undervalued.

Clear, explicit models shift the focus of assessment from who a candidate is today to who they are capable of becoming. That distinction matters enormously at the senior level, where the cost of appointing someone who cannot develop to meet every critical requirement is rarely limited to the individual. It ripples across teams, culture, and organisational performance.

The next article in this series explores Self-Awareness: how it shapes the way leaders operate, its influence on organisational culture and employee outcomes, and how to assess it effectively during the interview process.