8 ways to help your emerging staff develop into leaders

It’s time to unlock the leadership potential in your business. People Results managing director Lynne Lloyd explains how. 

As a senior executive, do you ever reflect on what got you to where you are today?  Was it your higher qualifications, your network of influential contacts, your mentors?  Or was it all the experience you accumulated in earlier roles as a manager on the way up? 

Think about how you got those opportunities to learn through experience.  Generally it was because someone believed in you and opened the doors to these formative learning experiences.  Now it’s your turn to unlock the leadership potential in your team.  Encourage them to learn to lead through gaining more and deeper experience on the job.

Of course they will ask you “How?”  Here are eight practical ways your emerging leaders can learn to lead:

1. Learn through observation
One truly effective way to learn is to notice what others are saying and doing. Observe what they do well, take what you like and adapt it to your own style.  Don’t try to become that other person.  It is fine to continue to stay who you are and make some modifications. Select your role models and pick up the things they do that make them successful. 

2. Learn through asking
Your manager is not a mind-reader so let her/him know your needs and goals.  The formal performance review every six months is too long to wait.  Ask for what you want:  a challenging project, an offshore assignment, additional resources.  Be the slightly squeaky wheel and gently, persistently, keep asking.

3. Learn through relationships
Reach out and influence others through building strategic relationships inside and outside your organisation.  Build a reservoir of influence through who knows you and what they know you for.  Don’t neglect to cultivate the relationship with your own manager who can advocate for you when career-accelerating opportunities come along. 

4. Learn through thinking ahead
Anticipate the questions your CEO will ask at the next meeting.  Do the analysis beforehand with your team and be ready to respond with strategies and solutions.  Adapt quickly when things are changing all around.  If you don’t have all the answers, come up with some of the questions. 

5. Learn through giving more
As the great motivator Zig Ziglar said, “There’s hardly any traffic on the extra mile.”  Be the one who regularly steps forward and gives more time, more energy and more ideas.  Be the one who goes on the week-end charity run to represent the company. Volunteer to chair the management meeting while the boss is overseas, or offer to mentor a peer who has just joined the team.   

6. Learn through showing up
When you are poised and confident in different situations and forums, you will stand out and be noticed.  Be consistent in your personal presentation and interpersonal communication and you will show up clearly an emerging leader.

7. Learn through doing what is hard
Instead of doing what is easiest for you, take on a challenging self-development goal every three months that stretches you.  For example, if you don’t like public speaking, make it a goal to become a polished public speaker over the next three months.  If you have to be dragged kicking and screaming to make a decision, find out what to do to turn this weakness into your new strength.

8. Learn through mistakes
When you make a mistake, it is tempting to pretend it didn’t happen, to cover it up and hope it flies under the radar of the executive team.  It is a far better to own up to the mistake, take responsibility for your part and learn from it.  Go to your manager and tell her/him what happened, why it happened, what you’ve done about it and most important, what you’ve learnt from it.

Lynne Lloyd is managing director of People Results, a leading provider of executive coaching, mentoring and talent development workshops for clients throughout Australia.  People Results programs enable managers and executives to reach their full potential, to meet all the benchmarks of successful leadership and to deliver the desired results for their team and organisation.