Why I don't label talent too early
Supply Chain Week Sydney 2026 | 20 August 2026 | ICC Sydney
Give people opportunities to learn, and observe how their capabilities and interests develop over time. This was my starting point when discussing future leaders at Supply Chain Week Sydney 2026.
Video: 43 seconds.
How can you identify leadership potential before someone takes a leadership role?
I look at how people respond to different opportunities: how they learn, adapt and bring others along. Short-term assignments and exposure to unfamiliar work give us more to observe than an early label alone.
Why can labelling someone “high potential” too early be limiting?
An early assessment captures a moment in someone's development. It may also overlook what that person actually wants. In the panel, I recalled being impressed by someone's potential, then discovering that she was not interested in the direction I had imagined for her.
What kinds of exposure can help people develop?
In my LinkedIn reflection, I pointed to projects outside someone's usual work, responsibility for a customer escalation and experience in another country. The common thread is an opportunity to encounter something unfamiliar and learn through it.
A question to take into your week
Who on your team could benefit from a different opportunity, and what would they like to explore?
Video transcript
I'm coming back on exposure. I think it's really critical to give people exposure, and then they develop skills. I dislike it to put someone immediately in the bucket of 'oh, you are a talent'. It needs to evolve over time - really giving different opportunities to those people, and that's how they keep learning. This agility is so important, and very much the team focus: will they be able to bring people along, to be successful? Just putting someone as a 'high potential' already might be wrong. More and more it's really exposure - short-term assignments where it's possible, giving them ways to learn - and that's how we see the future leaders. Sometimes it surprised me: I was thinking, this is a really fantastic lady, but it turned out she was not even interested in that.
My LinkedIn reflection
Published 4 September 2026. Original post wording; the official event name is Supply Chain Week Sydney 2026.
We label talent far too early. I said it on stage at Supply Chain Channel Week Sydney, and I still mean it.
Panel: "Building the Supply Chain Workforce of the Future", Supply Chain Channel Week Sydney 2026, 20 August, ICC Sydney, with Laura Canning (Komatsu Australia), Simon Hinds (CSL) and Alice Chen (Schneider Electric), moderated by Graeme Moat (TAFE NSW).
We are too quick to put someone in the "high potential" bucket. A label at 30 says more about the moment than the person.
What actually develops people is exposure. A project outside their lane, a customer escalation they have to own, a country they have never worked in. The skills follow the exposure, not the other way round.
And the test I care about most is not individual brilliance. It is whether they can bring a team along and adapt when the plan breaks. Exposure teaches that. A label never will.
Who gave you exposure before you felt ready, and what did it change?
#SupplyChainChannel #SupplyChainLeadership #TalentDevelopment #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching
Reflection by Alexandra Riha. Recorded at Supply Chain Week Sydney 2026, ICC Sydney, 20 August 2026. Panel: “Building the supply chain workforce of the future”.
Related pages: