How to Recognize Hidden Potential in Your Team — and Turn It into Results
How to Recognize Hidden Potential in Your Team — and Turn It into Results
“Potential is not measured by what you see now, but by what you know can happen tomorrow — if you give it a chance.” – BrankoS
The Biggest Leadership Misses
What do you think is potentially the biggest loss for a company?
Losing a client?
A failed investment?
No.
The most expensive loss is the talent you had right in front of you—and you didn’t see it. Elon Musk making your coffee. Jeff Bezos rearranging books in your warehouse. Simon Sinek doing your admin. Novak Djokovic working as a janitor.
Why does this happen? Because most leaders (or rather “leaders”) and HR departments look backward. They analyze what a person has achieved, not what they are capable of achieving. And often, there’s ego involved. More often, incompetence.
In one of the most cited meta-analyses (44 studies, 11,000 participants), Professor Adam Grant (organizational psychology specialist and author of several excellent books) proved that past performance has extremely low predictive power for future success.
In other words: if we only look for future leaders among those who have already “shined,” we miss an entire generation of those yet to shine. And no, this has nothing to do with age (one of the absurdities of modern society is that a “future leader” must be recognized while they’re still young).
Stop Asking — Start Observing
A typical manager asks: “What are you working on?”
A strategic leader says: “Show me how you do it.”
Do you know the difference? In the first case, you get a verbal summary—usually filtered to sound as professional as possible. The manager gets a satisfactory answer, and their interest ends there.
In the second case, you see the thinking in action:
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How does the person react when something goes wrong?
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How do they overcome obstacles?
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Do they use creative shortcuts or blindly follow procedure?
The leader gains insight into the person’s thought process, sparking the question: “How far can this person go?”
In sports, this is obvious: the best scouts don’t just look at a player’s stats—they watch how they react when the team is losing, how they communicate with teammates, how quickly they learn from mistakes, their physical conditioning, their lifestyle, and more.
Want a reliable way to discover hidden skills that aren’t on a candidate’s CV? Try a practical demonstration.
Identify and Protect “Disagreeable Givers”
I love this category of people—partly because I belong to it myself. I have a “switch” for this “mode”, especially when coaching personality profiles that value painful directness and want to improve themselves or their company.
These are people who challenge you (in a good way). They tell you to your face what you don’t want to hear—but need to (because they care about your success).
In cultures that favor forced harmony and “positive vibes”, this category of people is often marginalized—especially by pretenders and lazy managers (who often undeservedly land managerial positions and are quite vain). It is a big mistake (with a capital “B”) to marginalize this category of people. They are the system’s immune response to complacency and the silent corrosion of values within a company.
In other words, they are your devil’s advocate. And here’s an example of a mini-tool on how to leverage this in meetings.
Mini-tool: Introduce a “devil’s advocate” rotation in meetings—each week, a different person is tasked with constructively challenging dominant ideas. This creates space for the hidden potential of analysts and creatives who normally remain silent. Important note: Do not allow the statements of the person playing the “devil’s advocate” to influence your perception of them on an emotional level (in the sense that you start to feel anger, vanity, irritation, or dislike toward that person). Always remain aware that their role is to challenge dominant ideas in creative ways—with the goal of uncovering critical weaknesses or improving them. Stay objective and cool-headed!
Create a Culture of Safe Dissent
Psychological safety is not an HR buzzword or something fancy to sound modern—it’s a fundamental prerequisite for innovation and growth.
Google’s “Project Aristotle” showed that psychological safety is the number one factor in successful teams—more important than the technical expertise of team members (read more here).
This means that a leader must openly acknowledge their own mistakes, publicly value constructive criticism, and reward people who ask the “uncomfortable” questions. While every manager enjoys people who flatter and pander to them (to avoid using a sharper term for that type of person), such individuals often cause management (and the company itself) to rest on its laurels and overlook serious problems and opportunities for improvement. Because if a culture kills disagreement—it kills potential (both of people and of the company).
BrankoS Insight: Criticism in a culture is not a sign of disrespect—it is the highest form of respect, because it shows that you care enough to risk discomfort in order to make things better. Mature people know how to present criticism the right way—so that it doesn’t lead to conflict (and emotional outbursts), but rather opens space for dialogue and brainstorming—because they are aware that the company’s success protects everyone’s interests (including their own). On the other hand, immature people will criticize to showcase their “competence” (“If it were up to me, I would do it like this…”), never miss an opportunity to brag, and focus primarily on their own interests.
Formalize the Search for Talent
Most organizations rely on the subjective judgment of managers when identifying potential. The problem? Managers are prone to similarity bias—favoring those who resemble them in style, values, or behavior. And especially if those individuals do a lot of flattering.
The solution lies in structured processes:
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Talent Identification Process
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360° evaluations
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Skill matrices
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Job rotations and stretch assignments
BrankoS Insight: Alongside structured processes, one of the crucial elements is manager education. Reading relevant literature, attending courses, and engaging in reflection are essential. Relying solely on personal experience and “the school of life” without expanding one’s intellectual, emotional, and professional capacities can lead to a selective approach toward employees and an automatic return to similarity bias. This often eliminates younger (or older) generations, new problem-solving approaches, and openness to new technologies. (For example, people who still refuse to accept the reality of artificial intelligence entering everyday business are creating problems not only for themselves but also for those around them.)
For instance, Primior reports that 56% of organizations that systematically track potential have a significantly higher rate of internal promotions and lower turnover risk.
Example of advanced practice: Combining quantitative data (skills tests, KPI trends) with qualitative data (peer feedback, self-assessment, projects outside the job description). This reduces the chances that someone’s potential will go unnoticed.
Activating “Hidden Workers”
Harvard Business School and Accenture found that hidden workers—veterans, caregivers, people with disabilities, those with atypical careers—show higher loyalty and productivity than average employees.
They often fail to pass initial hiring filters—not due to lack of skills, but because selection processes fail to recognize their value.
Imagine the paradox when your company, during the selection process, fails to recognize candidates who meet the requirements to be invited for an interview—due to overreliance on ATS systems, incompetence, or lack of interest from HR/management. This happens far more often than many realize. Do you truly live under the illusion that your company would be capable to identify the so-called “hidden workers” who could be a real mine of uncut diamonds?
Example: Boeing targets military veterans and spouses as an underappreciated talent pool. About 200,000 U.S. service members transition to civilian life each year. Boeing built support and recruitment tools to bridge them into the company, guiding them through applications and onboarding.
Link Potential to Opportunity with Technology
Many AI platforms focus on identifying “deep talents” by analyzing career patterns and informal skills. This is especially important in large organizations, where managers do not personally know (or are not interested in) all employees.
Case study: According to a report by Degreed, AI is used to “fill skill gaps” and broaden the search for talent within a team. In an experiment with six employees—including a product manager, developer, analyst, and others—the system initially identified only one candidate for a new position (an analyst). However, when AI also assessed adjacent skills, it uncovered two additional candidates who were not explicitly qualified but demonstrated compatible potential. The result? An 89% increase in potential candidates. When the concept of stretch skills (skills that can be quickly developed) was applied, the pool of possible candidates grew by 179%—including a technical support employee who had previously been overlooked.
Psychological Framework: Traits and Context
Scientific studies show that luck and context play a greater role in success than we often believe. Trait Activation Theory adds: a person performs at their best when the work environment activates their natural strengths and values.
BrankoS translation: If you want to see the potential of your employees, put them in situations that bring out the best in them—even if it means stepping out of their comfort zone. Do you really think your company will collapse if, for a few days, you move an employee to a task that fulfills their potential instead of the one they do every day? Is it more important to keep someone doing administrative tasks (because that’s your current operational need) where they’re operating at 50% of their capacity, when there’s a high probability they have leadership/managerial capabilities that could unlock 150% of their capacity?
Potential is Invisible Currency
You can spend it—by ignoring it. You can lose it—by suppressing it. But you can also invest it—and watch it return to you many times over.
Your task is not to identify who is the “best” today, but who can change the rules of the game tomorrow. And, most importantly, to create the space for them to actually do it.
Uncovering potential is a combination of careful observation, a courageous culture, a structured process, and the willingness to believe in people before they have “proven” everything they can do. That is where the difference between a manager and a leader lies.
BrankoS insight:
A manager who measures only what has already happened is driving down the highway while looking in the rear-view mirror. A leader who seeks potential looks through the windshield—and sees roads others have yet to notice.
Which of these two categories are you?
🧭 EXERCISE: 3D OBSERVATION OF POTENTIAL (10–15 minutes per person)
Goal: Quickly uncover how an employee thinks, reacts, and learns—in a real scenario, not theory.
Step 1 – Demonstration (What they do)
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Ask them to show you how they solve a task from their domain.
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Watch the method, not just the result.
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Note whether they stick to procedure or try something new. Example question: “Show me how you’d solve this if you had 20% less (or more) time/resources than usual.”
Step 2 – Dialogue (What they think)
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Ask 2–3 questions about why they chose that approach.
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Listen for thought process, logic, and reasoning. Example: “Why did you choose this sequence of steps?”
Step 3 – Dynamics (How they adapt)
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Add a small change or obstacle.
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Observe adaptability and pressure response. Example: “The client changes requirements mid-process. What would you do?”
Why it works:
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Combines showing, explaining, and adapting—the 3 core elements of potential assessment.
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No formal tests—can be done during a normal workday.
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Based on real situations, so harder to “fake” preparation.
