Valletta Group
Pass on projects that promote growth
It is all well and good to identify strengths in your employees, but without putting them to good use, you cannot expect significant growth. When assigning projects, consider the strengths and weaknesses of your employees and assign them accordingly. You will have to oversee and offer guidance along the way, but practical work will get your employees thinking about how they can grow as an individual. Building responsibility starts small.
A dip in the deep end
A large portion of pushing employees to develop leadership skills depends on letting them figure out a few things on their own. Whilst it is your managerial duty to be a useful resource to a struggling employee, consider when to take a step back and let them work it out themselves.
Allowing your promising employee to take tentative steps on their own not only flexes their initiative but will help them to feel more confident with responsibility when they discover just how capable they are.
Instill a sense of ownership
A large part of becoming a leader is feeling trusted, valued and impactful in your role. There is no use teaching your employees how to make informed decisions if you never allow them to go ahead and do that on their own now and then.
It is an exercise in empowerment to create an ownership mentality in your budding leaders, by trusting them and giving them a degree of authority. Some mistakes – or ‘learning experiences’ – will be made, but without them, your prodigy can’t be expected to know it all.
Give time to your employees’ ideas and implement them when they work. Give them a little personal time to work on side projects that they feel will increase profit or productivity. Employees who feel important will naturally step up to the plate.
Communicate quality feedback
A good feedback loop measures and reviews how an employee is performing, with the intention of improving their efforts based on said feedback. Constructive criticism, as they call it, is crucial to making necessary corrections along the way, but be sure to balance this with overall positive communication to keep your employee motivated.
Continuous communication is critical to creating a balanced, informed and trusting manager-employee relationship.
Valletta Group encourages constant growth and development amongst managers and their charges. Consider our wealth of academic resources for your team and achieve success, today.