Harvesting Leadership

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

– Jack Welch 

Finding a balance between leading a team, and developing a leader, is crucial to organizations. 

By developing leaders, the organization’s community naturally becomes more engaged. More engagement leads to amplified productivity, reduced turnover, increased innovation, and improved decision making.

Here are a few key ways you can help your team harvest (and hone) their leadership skills.

Have conversations.

Understanding the developing leader’s goals is key to supporting their journey. Are they looking to lead the new team overseas? Do they want to make it to the c-suite? Are there additional resources that you can make available to them? Being mindful of their goals is helpful as you look at your organization’s landscape. These development conversations can also be inspiring to the developing leader – when your manager invests in you, you notice.

Get involved.

Creating opportunities for the developing leader to do things at “the next level” shows both the developing leader and those they interact with, that you are taking their development seriously.

Whether it is taking them to a meeting they wouldn’t normally be invited to, inviting them to a networking opportunity with you, or having them lead a special project, giving the developing leader the opportunity to get involved at the next level emboldens them to think at the next level.

Offer recognition.

The Pygmalion Effect occurs when someone is given a high, positive expectation, and they rise to meet or exceed that expectation. Developing leaders are often dealing with opportunities that stretch their strengths and can sometimes highlight their weaknesses. By taking advantage of the Pygmalion Effect, the phenomenon whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in performance, you can help the developing leader believe in themselves enough to achieve success. 

Lead the way.

Using your role as their leader, offers developing leaders an example of great leadership. Leadership is more than an annual review. Leadership is about investing in your team, working towards the right solution for the organization, admit when you’re not right, and be an encouraging team member. The key to successful leadership is the understanding that relationships are vital to success.

Everyone benefits from practice. By investing in developing leaders on your team, you’ll be honing your leadership skills, and creating a stronger and more engaged team.

If you or your team could use some help harvesting leadership, we’d welcome the opportunity to partner with you. Give us a call at +1.847.920.0190.

For more learning and leadership and insights, follow ECC on LinkedIn and Twitter.