How to Nurture Your Employees’ Growth

Photo by Daniel Öberg on Unsplash

You don’t have to be an expert gardener to know that you can plant the same plant in two different pots and one will flourish where the other may wither on the vine. 

Sometimes the answer is obvious. 

One pot started off with a healthier plant or it had better access to sunlight. At other times it is not so clear. It may take some time to analyze the situation to figure out what is going on in order to nurture growth in your garden. 

It is a similar process when you are seeding your management ranks with home grown talent. There may be some employees who demonstrate natural skills and it is easy to envision them leading a team. Other employees may be diamonds in the rough. They show talent in their current duties, but you are not sure they have what it takes to be in management. 

Taking the time to evaluate current skills and then investing energy in your rising stars reaps lots of rewards. For the employee, it provides an opportunity for a career track position and increased job stability. For the company, it leads to higher retention rates which translates not only into a positive company culture, but a healthier bottom line.

How do you go about determining the leadership capacity of an employee? The process begins with a clear understanding of the key characteristics you want to see in your emerging leaders. G2 Solutions believes that there are five key attributes that indicate management potential.

• Communication skills 

• Strategic thinking

• Initiative

• Adaptability

• Integrity

When you find someone who naturally demonstrates many of these traits, it’s amazing. While you recognize that the employee will need some development, you are starting way ahead of the game. There is an ease to this type of promotional transition.

What about the situation where you have an excellent, loyal employee who you would love to move up, but when you compare their skill set to our five point list they fall significantly short.  Does that mean that this valued employee doesn’t get the opportunity to rise in the ranks?

Absolutely not!

It does mean that there is more required to set them up for success. You want to specifically identify what training and resources are necessary to help move this employee into leadership. When done well, employee development requires a lot of company resources, including time, training expertise and ongoing support. 

To begin building your leadership development process take some to reflect on the following: 

What management skills are essential for my setting?  

For example, if you are a fire department chief, strategic thinking and initiative might be top of your list. On the other hand, if you were looking for someone to lead a group of teachers, communication skills and adaptability might be key leadership attributes. Being very clear on what is important to you and your industry can help you assess an employee’s management potential as well as provide a training framework.

What are my employees’ strengths and challenges? 

Take some time to evaluate your key employees using G2 Solution’s five point list and ask yourself these questions:

• What characteristics does my employee naturally demonstrate?

• What characteristics need development?

• For the characteristics that need development, are the gaps skill based, confidence based, or resource based?

• Are there opportunities for employees to demonstrate all of the characteristics? 

This leads us to the next question.

What opportunities can I create for my employees to demonstrate the five leadership skills?

Once you have determined your managerial priorities and evaluated potential candidates, think about the type of opportunities available for people to show off their leadership chops. Also, think about the process that will best fit the employee and the workplace. For example, is mentoring or skills training needed? 

Leadership development can be integrated into the company culture. It can be as simple as having regular brown bag lunch meetings where management topics are discussed or as complex as creating a structured pre-management training program. 

Setting up a process where you take time to evaluate your staff against specific criteria and then make a plan to augment their skills will lead to better management, happier employees and more successful companies. 

The next step is figuring out ways for your employees to get some of these experiences. We are going to give you a lot of ideas about how to do that next week.