Cultivating and Developing Your Leaders

In business, there is a lot to learn from professional sports organizations who draft and develop talent as opposed to the free agency way.  It's about a commitment to a specific culture, strategy and execution, it's about commitment to the future and sustainability, about passing on and cultivating and developing others.  At this moment, you might be saying to yourself:  I am just too busy to deal with this and clearly don't have the time to build leaders for the future.  You're right!  Why should it even be worth your attention? The people you have in place seem to be performing adequately, aren’t they?

Why build leaders for the future? Can’t you just hire leaders from the outside? Sure, that’s a strategy.  And I bet that is what you will do if you don’t start developing a plan to develop your future leaders now.

Is the "free agency" strategy wrong? Certainly, there are many professional teams who have adopted this approach and have been successful; others have failed measurably.  Still, is approach wrong? Is it right for your business and long term outlook?  What are the ramifications? From conversations with business owners, executives, employees and to observations, there are two very significant drawbacks to this "free agency" strategy.

First, what kind of signal does hiring leaders from the outside give to the loyal individuals who have served your organization for many years? They spent their developmental lives helping you be successful, and you reward them by going to the outside and bringing in hotshots who they will have to train.  Is that an effective way to keep valuable people loyally enthusiastic and engaged?

Second, the skilled outsiders you hire will bring along their existing perspectives, prejudices, and expectations. It’s unlikely that their values will align well with the culture you’ve worked so hard to establish. Not knowing and appreciating your existing organization will probably create disruption, conflict and a boat load of stress. 

You might ask, “Oh, but what about them contributing creative new ideas?” If you need an injection of imagination, hire an effective consultant. Consultants are great at providing their ideas and you decide what to use or not use.  However, these ideas are not coming from you or your team members.  So then are you really taking full accountability and ownership of these ideas?  Is your team taking full ownership and commitment?  Better yet, go hire a leadership coach to find out what is really holding you back from cultivating and developing your leaders.

Let me ask you this question, how have your current leaders moved into their existing positions?  Probably due to their technical skills. You rewarded them for their past performance and were the best of who you had at the time. Functional mastery doesn’t automatically transform into leadership skills. So, how do you prepare leaders for the future of your company?  Simply and briefly:

1. Look for leaders within your company ranks.
2. Assess their motives and strengths for deeper personal and interpersonal awareness.
3. Create a culture of accountability where your leaders and team members understand that by taking ownership and initiative for their behavioral choices is a key to driving the best outcomes.
4. Get a clear focus on what strengths or behaviors are best used in the right situation that yields the most effective results for all involved.
5. Develop written action plan around learning objectives. 
6. Assess constantly and hire an effective coach to keep you and your team accountable.

I would speculate that most of you have you poured your life into an organization?  Your single biggest legacy will be having prepared individuals to excel in carrying your organization forward. If you don’t work to build the leadership skills of your existing colleagues, who will carry on the legacy that you are working so hard to establish?

Here is a final perspective. You’ve probably had the experience of teaching a course of some kind. Surely you’ve found that you learn so much more by preparing the material than you would have learned if you had been a student in that same subject matter. So it is with building leadership skills. Intentionally building future leaders in your organization will do more for building your capabilities than almost anything you can do. The same concept applies to your direct reports. Imagine how knowledgeable your leaders will become when every one of them is intentionally building a future leader!

What are your thoughts on developing and cultivating leadership talent in your team or organization?  We would love to hear from you with comments or questions. Send me a note via email at brad@aperiocoaching.net or on Twitter @bparcells.