Grow Leaders — a Top Leadership Priority

Do you know who will take over from you once you move into a bigger role? Are they ready to take over? In most cases, the answer is that they are not ready. Why?

In many cases, people are promoted to leadership positions because there’s an opening that needs to be filled. Rarely is it a planned transition, with enough time to develop the individual who will take over. It is assumed that the team member who is moving into the leadership position will figure it out, somehow. The old “sink or swim” approach to leadership development! I know that was the case with me in all of my various leadership positions in business. There was an opening that I jumped into but I had prepared myself. In some organizations it may be very different. But it should be more common.

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In this article, I would like to make a case that as leaders one of our top priorities is to grow other leaders who may be able to step into our role or other roles. And explain how to go about it.

Why do you, as a leader, need to develop leaders?

Why? As a leader, you are busy enough making sure things are happening, planning the future, dealing with crisis, keeping your boss informed, and whatever else comes your way. Adding this responsibility is extra work! And who do you pick? Won’t you be accused of favoritism?

There are various reasons why growing and developing leaders should be a priority for any leader:

• It lets you, the leader, off-load some of your work.
• By freeing you of some of the work, it lets you, the leader, take on additional responsibilities including strategy development.
• It helps the subordinate grow.
• Growth can be set up so that it is relatively safe (Security in Supportive Leadership) for the subordinate to try his leadership their skills.
• When an opportunity comes your way, you have someone who can step into your role.
• If there’s an opportunity to grow your business, one that would need a leader, you have someone who could either step into your role, off-loading you so you can lead the new opportunity, or who can step into this new opportunity.
• People are part of your Stewardship (Responsible Leadership) expectation. The organization entrusts you with assets, including people. Part of your role is to help the people be the best that they can be.
• The more leaders you have, the more you and your team can do. You are not the bottleneck.
• It helps you grow your results as a team.
• Etc.

One of my recent clients has done an outstanding job in this space. He has a deputy who regularly steps into his role. Due to the nature of their work, they are constantly traveling. The joke is that the two of them are never in the office together. My client has full confidence in his deputy to the point that recently he went on vacation, there was a major crisis, but he knew he did not have to be involved! The deputy handled it.

Growing Leaders

So, how do you go about growing leaders?

Like any other change effort, it starts with assessing the situation and determining the goal. Then what are the steps to get from where you are today to where you want to be?

Assessing the Situation

Who are your team members and what are their skills? Who is interested AND capable to grow into a leadership role? Note that leadership is something someone must want to do, not something they are forced to do. So assessing their interest is important.

What is the Goal?

Where and when do you want to be? How many leaders do you need to develop? By when? Note that while I’m describing this as a project, with a defined beginning and end, in reality it is an ongoing, never-ending process.

And what about those who do not want to be leaders? What is the goal for them? What skills should they develop?

Work with the people impacted to define the goal.

Steps to Get to the Goal

Leadership Skills

Once you’ve identified one or more potential leaders, their interest and skillset, then work with them to assess what skills they need to eventually move into a leadership role. Do they know their leadership strengths and weaknesses? The Six Domains of Leadership™ model and survey are good tools for this assessment. A coach can help them grow based on the model and specific needs.

By the way, if you have not done your own leadership assessment and development, this is a good opportunity to do it. Take the Six Domains of Leadership survey and work with a coach to improve and apply your leadership skills.

Other Skills

They may need other skills as well as exposure to different parts of the organization. Plan skill-development activities, which could be classes or on-the-job training (they take on one of your responsibilities under your guidance and observation). Leveraging Situational Leadership in this effort can be very helpful.

As they grow in knowledge and experience, and start becoming comfortable with these new responsibilities, consider fully transitioning some of your responsibilities to them. Start small, with only one relatively small responsibility, train them, observe and coach them. Then turn them loose. Rinse and repeat for as long as you are a leader.

Conclusion

Leadership (and overall people development) is a top priority item for all leaders. With strong leaders supporting you, you’ll be able to accomplish a lot more. Leadership is a “force multiplier”.

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Another article

Recently I co-wrote an article, “Leading Inwards: The Foundation of Effective Leadership”, with fellow coach and dear friend Orit Ramler. Enjoy!