Employee Empowered Development
"Leadership is about empowering others to achieve things they did not think possible." ~Simon Sinek
How do you as a leader switch from compliance focused, mandated employee development to employee empowered development?
At this point in the year, performance and development goals have been created, entered into the system, and now it is time to start checking in on how employees are progressing.
I often talk with leaders about their struggle to get their employees to take initiative and drive their own development. Another challenge leaders often have is finding ways to make development meaningful for those employees who are nearing the end of their career, this can be particularly difficult. Do you have similar challenges?
If you work for a company that conducts engagement surveys, you have most likely received feedback that your employees are not satisfied with the efforts made by leaders in regards to employee development. This consistently comes up as an opportunity for improvement.
As human beings, we have a psychological need to learn and grow. We need a sense of purpose, to feel great about the work we do. According to Gallup:
Nearly nine in 10 millennials say professional development or career growth opportunities are very important to them in a job.
"Career growth opportunities" is the No. 1 reason people give for changing jobs.
The bottom line is, everyone has a basic need for growth and development - the extent of the need and the effort each of your employees are will to put into it differs greatly. Some employees will be self sufficient while others will sit back and wait for it to be given to them like a present. Like most things, there is not a “one size fits all” approach that will work for everyone. You can't treat everyone the same, each has unique needs.
As a leader, your objective should be to enable employees to become the owners of their development, to provide feedback continuously and instantaneous as it happens, in the flow of work. Once you have accomplished this, you then can focus on supporting employees in an environment that allows for mistakes as learning opportunities. When employees feel supported and empowered they will take ownership. Of course, as I have mentioned before, to accomplish this you must have a foundation of trust.
Leadership Coaching tips:
Listen and ask questions that will help your employee gain perspective. Do NOT offer a solution. I know this will feel like the opposite of what you should do as a leader but, it’s exactly what you should be doing. Empower don’t enable!
Set your expectations - unfortunately, just telling them their development is their responsibly probably will not be enough but it is always a good practice to be clear about your expectations.
Build development into everyday work and don’t make it complicated or a ton of additive work. Switch the conversation from “what are you doing” to “what are you learning”. Give feedback on what you see and behaviors that have changed.
Other resources:
The Most Expensive Mistake Leaders Can Make
*I have a new leadership development course what where I share more about each of these skills and create opportunities to practice using them. If you are interested in taking the course, learn more by clicking the button.