According to the balance careers, developing and nurturing leaders is critical to the overall success of nearly any organization. An effective internal leadership program can be used not only for identifying and training potential executives but as both a retention and a recruiting tool. Most companies understand just how important developing executive leadership is, they don't, however, always know the best ways to create programs that utilize the potential among their own employees. There are four distinct steps to take to devise an effective program for developing executive potential.

First, we will discuss the first step which is to decide what type of qualities and skills future executives in the organization need.
After determining the qualities and skills the organization needs, we will talk about employees and how they're chosen to be developed and groomed for executive positions. While flexibility is crucial and management doesn't want to be too stringent when it comes to finding individuals who "check all the boxes" there has to be general guidelines to ensure the process is fair and ultimately effective.

We will also go over how a program needs to be both fair and accurate there have to be anticipated results that are specific and measurable and how it's also necessary to check progress during the course of development and not wait until employees finish the entire program. This means not only designing specific end goals that should be reached but measurable benchmarks during the process.

Defining skills needed, determining which employees fit the criteria, developing content and instructional methods, and designing measurable results can be used as a blueprint for nearly any organization hoping to develop executive leadership from within. While each organization's plan will look different, it's crucial for a company to spend the necessary time and resources creating the best program possible to develop executives from among their current pool of employees.