Executive Potential

Beyond Past Performance: Predicting Future Leadership Potential

Organizations are generally better at recognizing past performance than predicting who will succeed in a larger or different role. A track record shows how a person performed in roles they have held, but it says less about whether they can step into a role they have never held before, in a context unlike anything on their resume. Yet that forward-looking judgment is exactly what hiring, promotion, and succession decisions require.

Many common indicators of potential have limitations. Academic pedigree, performance ratings, and personality tests can reflect prior access to opportunity as well as potential. Performance ratings also reflect the assignments and sponsorship a person has received. Personality inventories measure disposition, not the observable behavior that drives growth on the job. These limitations can cause organizations to miss high-potential people from non-traditional backgrounds while over-indexing on familiar credentials.

Executive Potential is ghSMART’s evidence-based approach to evaluating future leadership potential. The underlying research framework, known as the ghSMART Potential Model, focuses on observable behavioral markers: how people think, apply their drive, interact with others, and demonstrate agility and growth across their careers. The model is built on more than 23,000 candidate assessments, including in-depth analyses of 1,500 individuals, and its core research was published in Harvard Business Review in May 2022.

One central research finding is that, using early-career data alone, the model correctly differentiated future C-suite leaders from non-C-suite leaders two times out of three, compared with a roughly 50/50 baseline for typical hiring and promotion decisions. Rather than measuring only what someone has already accomplished, Executive Potential identifies behavioral signals associated with the ability to grow into larger roles.

What Is Executive Potential?

The ghSMART Potential Model: A Behavioral Framework, Not a Personality Test

Executive Potential is the website-facing name for ghSMART’s approach to evaluating leadership potential. It is powered by the ghSMART Potential Model, the research framework used to identify behavioral evidence of a person’s capacity to handle greater complexity and grow into roles they have not held before.

The Potential Model does not measure raw intellect, personality type, or academic achievement. Instead, it examines how people apply cognitive, drive, and emotional qualities in real work, together with demonstrated patterns of agility and growth. These are observable behavioral markers, not trait scores inferred from a questionnaire.

This distinction matters. A personality test captures disposition, while a skills assessment captures current capability. Neither alone indicates whether a person will continue to grow. The Potential Model evaluates how someone learns, applies energy, engages others, adapts, and expands impact over time. Two people with similar resumes can differ sharply on these markers.

Because Executive Potential focuses on behavior rather than pedigree, it can help surface potential in people who have not had equal access to mentoring, sponsorship, or high-visibility development opportunities. Candidates are evaluated on what they demonstrably do, not only on the institutions, networks, or roles they have experienced.

Research Basis: More Than a Decade of Development and Validation

The research behind Executive Potential has developed across four phases:

• More than 23,000 candidate assessments, with in-depth analysis of 1,500 individuals spanning entry-level professionals to senior leaders.
• Publication in Harvard Business Review in May 2022 by James Intagliata, Jennifer Sturman, and Stephen Kincaid.
• A Fortune 500 longitudinal study that tested C-suite versus non-C-suite outcomes using early-career profiles.
• Sub-factor analytics across more than 1,200 ghSMART assessments, including approximately 900 private equity and 300 corporate assessments, rated on the behavioral markers.

Foundation and design work from 2014 to 2017 brought together researchers, psychologists, and practitioners to define the behavioral markers and establish basic and advanced levels. Empirical testing from 2018 to 2021 piloted and validated the model with a key client across more than 1,500 leaders. A long-term predictive study in 2021 and 2022 tested the model against C-suite outcomes and produced the HBR findings. Sub-factor analytics in 2025 examined which markers differentiate leaders across levels and contexts.

The Four Dimensions of Executive Potential

Executive Potential is assessed through four dimensions in the ghSMART Potential Model. Cognitive Quotient, Drive Quotient, and Emotional Quotient describe how a person thinks, applies energy, and engages others. Demonstrated Agility & Growth provides career-pattern evidence that those qualities have translated into results across varied situations.

Cognitive Quotient (CQ): How They Leverage Their Intellect

Cognitive Quotient is not IQ. It describes how a person uses intellect on the job: learning continuously, synthesizing disparate information, generating possibilities, thinking strategically, applying commercial judgment, and adapting as new information arrives.

Many organizations focus on analytical horsepower through test scores, elite degrees, or psychometric results. Those signals may also reflect access to educational and career opportunities. CQ focuses instead on whether a person applies intellect to the right problems and uses judgment to translate ideas into practical business outcomes.

Drive Quotient (DQ): How They Apply Their Energy

Drive Quotient goes beyond motivation and work ethic. It evaluates how leaders pursue challenge, recover from setbacks, expand their scope, and amplify results through others.

• Self-confidence without arrogance
• Appetite for challenge and calculated risk
• Resilience after setbacks
• Orientation toward collective and organizational impact
• Desire to make a broader positive difference

High DQ is not simply about working harder. At its strongest, it is visible in a leader’s ability to build the capabilities of others and make the organization more effective.

Emotional Quotient (EQ): How They Interact With Others

Emotional Quotient goes beyond self-awareness or the ability to read a room. It examines whether a leader uses interpersonal and organizational insight to engage stakeholders, influence outcomes, address difficult issues, and adapt their style to the situation.

• Insight into interpersonal and organizational dynamics
• Intentional influence and stakeholder engagement
• Courage and empathy in difficult conversations
• Direct attention to team and organizational issues
• Self-awareness and flexibility of style

EQ in the Potential Model is not defined by likeability or conflict avoidance. It is reflected in the ability to surface the real issue, communicate with candor, and keep people engaged in resolving it.

Demonstrated Agility & Growth (A&G): Patterns Across a Career

Demonstrated Agility & Growth is the career-pattern evidence that cognitive, drive, and emotional qualities have translated into results. It considers positive trajectories across educational and career contexts, effective transitions, success across varied situations, and a pattern of taking on stretch assignments.

A&G can be particularly useful earlier in a career. A person may have a limited formal track record while still showing a clear pattern of initiative, adaptation, and success in unfamiliar settings. Those patterns provide evidence of potential before a long resume exists.

The Evidence: Validation Data

HBR Predictive Study: Two Times Out of Three

The Harvard Business Review study was designed as a double-blind test. ghSMART consultants rated only the first 15 years of the early-career profiles for a Fortune 500 cohort of 178 leaders, without knowing where those individuals ultimately landed.

Leaders who scored highly on CQ and DQ in their early-career profiles were significantly more likely to reach the C-suite. The model differentiated future C-suite leaders from non-C-suite leaders two times out of three, compared with the roughly 50/50 accuracy of typical hiring and promotion decisions.

The result suggests that the model captures a way of thinking and working associated with continued growth, detectable before that growth appears in a senior title.

Longitudinal Client Study: Three to Four Years Post-Hire

In partnership with a key client, the model was validated across more than 1,500 leaders tracked for three to four years after hire. Leaders rated highly on potential were more than three times as likely to be evaluated by their managers as top performers in year one, and the gap widened in years two, three, and four. Those leaders were also less likely to be involuntarily terminated.

The study also demonstrated inter-rater reliability and supported the independence of the CQ, DQ, and EQ factors, indicating that each dimension contributes distinct information.

Enterprise Leadership Development Impact

Executive Potential is also used to inform development decisions. At a Fortune 50 client, leaders assessed as having significant upside potential were 59% likely to advance to bigger roles, compared with 11% of those assessed as having less upside potential. Multiple role changes were made to test and accelerate C-suite successors, including cross-business-unit moves. Approximately 30% of participants requested ongoing ghSMART advisory or coaching, and a waiting list of senior leaders formed to participate.

The 59%-versus-11% comparison shows how differently the two groups progressed in this client example. When organizations act on the model by placing high-upside leaders into stretch roles and investing in development, it creates a more intentional path to future leadership readiness.

How Executive Potential Is Applied

Added to the SmartAssessment®

Executive Potential is not a separate personality test. The Potential Model is an add-on to the SmartAssessment process and evaluated through a structured career interview. Behavioral patterns are analyzed across a candidate’s career history evaluated against a Scorecard, using real examples rather than self-report alone.

The output can be viewed through a Current Readiness vs. Potential matrix, distinguishing a leader’s readiness for a role today from estimated upside over time. This helps decision-makers differentiate leaders who are ready now from those who may be ready in one to two years or three to five years.

CEO and C-Suite Succession

Boards and CHROs can use Executive Potential to evaluate succession candidates by readiness horizon: ready now, ready in one to two years, or ready in three to five years. This is especially valuable when a candidate’s track record was built in a context that differs from the target role, such as a cross-industry transition, a first-time C-suite role, or a move into a private-equity-backed environment.

Internal Talent Development

Organizations can use the Potential Model to build potential profiles within talent-development processes. Because CQ, DQ, and EQ are behaviorally defined, managers can identify strengths and gaps and coach toward specific changes in how a leader thinks, applies drive, and engages others.

Cohort-level analytics can also reveal where a population of leaders is strong or thin, supporting more targeted capability building rather than generic training.

Early-Career and Non-Traditional Talent Identification

Behavioral Markers: What the Model Evaluates

The ghSMART Potential Model evaluates a proprietary set of behavioral markers organized across CQ, DQ, EQ, and Demonstrated Agility & Growth. The markers distinguish foundational behaviors from more advanced patterns associated with continued growth into senior leadership roles.

The framework can be summarized as evaluating four questions:

• CQ: How does the person learn, synthesize information, think strategically, and apply commercial judgment?
• DQ: How does the person pursue challenge, respond to setbacks, expand impact, and develop others?
• EQ: How does the person understand people and organizations, influence outcomes, address difficult issues, and adapt?
• A&G: What career-long evidence shows that the person has grown, transitioned successfully, and performed across varied contexts?

The markers are assessed through behavioral evidence gathered in a structured interview, not through a self-report personality inventory.