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Getting Promoted Too Quickly Can Set Young, Talented Employees Up for Failure—Here's What You Can Do About It

The Paradox of High-Potential Employees: How Climbing Quickly Could Set You Up for Failure
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The Paradox of High-Potential Employees: How Climbing Quickly Could Set You Up for Failure

If you're a young and talented employee, there's good news and bad news for you.

A huge percentage of companies are looking to hire people exactly like you — but many of them could unintentionally set you up for failure.

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That's according to Courtney Hamilton and Taylor Griffin, managing director and COO at leadership coaching firm The Miles Group, respectively.

In a recent episode of the C-Suite Intelligence podcast, the pair discussed the paradox presented by these "uniquely unqualified" employees. They're always in demand: A 2010 Harvard Business Review survey found that 98% of companies studied purposefully identified high-potential employees. 

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But many of those companies don't develop that talent properly, Hamilton and Griffin said. High-potential employees may climb the ranks quickly, only to then find themselves in a new role with little to no experience for it.

There's a delicate art to promoting high-potential employees early enough to keep them engaged, but late enough for them to build up enough experience to actually handle their new responsibilities.

Here's how you can avoid falling into what Hamilton and Griffin termed "the ultimate high-potential trap."

Any promotion comes with 'scope risk' or 'scale risk'

There are two kinds of risk with any promotion, Griffin said: scope risk and scale risk.

Scale risk means someone is being tasked with completing a similar job at a larger scale, like a CEO who goes from managing a $100 million company to a $500 million company.

Scope risk comes when the nature of the person's new responsibilities are completely new to them. They usually aren't impossible jumps to make, and they're common for high-potential employees.

But the employee's ability to handle their new responsibilities is only one factor for their future success, Hamilton and Griffin said. The other has to do with the people around them.

"[High-potential employees] are takers because, by definition, [they] don't have some of the skills or experiences necessary," Hamilton said. "They have to take from others to do that, right? They have to leverage their team more."

Finding the right balance in a team to support a rising star is hard. A group full of high-potential employees has a lot of collective inexperience. Too much of the old guard could restrict a younger colleague's ability to bring new things to the table.

"You want to have some of that flexibility, that creativity that can come from high-potentials who don't have ingrained ways of doing things," Hamilton said.

How to build a 'mosaic team'

The just-right medium involves "a mosaic of talents," Hamilton and Griffin said.

That means a mix of fresh, but occasionally out-of-their-league, high-potential employees, and steady "anchors" who are solid in their role and available to support their less experienced coworkers as needed.

Forming this "mosaic team" is easier said than done, because managers are often blinded by the potential of young rising stars.

"I remember having a conversation with a CEO, and I said, 'Well, you don't want a whole team of high-potentials,'" Griffin said. "And their response to me was, 'What are you talking about? Of course I want a full team of high-potentials.'"

To that end, managers should constantly analyze their team's makeup, so they can "ruthlessly prioritize" where there's room for high-potential employees and where anchors need to come in and ground things, Griffin said. 

If you're a young, talented employee, you can use the same strategy to find support or determine whether a promotion offer is right for you. If you struggle with your new role, you'll know where to look for more experienced teammates who can help with the transition.

"Talent management is, to a degree, a risk mitigation game." she added. "I think it's just about bringing self awareness and broader awareness to how you compose a team and how you think about giving people opportunities that set them up for success."

Want to earn more and work less? Register for the free CNBC Make It: Your Money virtual event on Dec. 13 at 12 p.m. ET to learn from money masters how you can increase your earning power.

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