Encourage Career Development Planning?Make Learning Fundamental

Nothing gives a genuine leader more true joy than developing people by helping them gain new skills, acquire new knowledge and grow toward significant personal and professional goals. For such a person, seeing people develop and blossom in their work can become a defining experience for a leader?a great source of personal satisfaction.

Start by getting to know each member of your staff or team in order to understand the forces that drive their lives. Are there goals they?ve repressed because of continuous discouragement? With your support are they likely to take risks and make commitments that previously were considered totally impossible? By so doing, your people will come to see you as the possibility coach, the person who causes them to more fully trust themselves.

If your organization supports individual initiative to attain job-related skills or provides reimbursement for academic credit, make encouraging their participation a priority. If some are required to leave early or come in late in order to attend a class, be supportive. Their gratitude will likely cause them to make up the lost time.

If your organization does not support academic learning or skill development, you can find ways to help your people learn through your own efforts and by sharing the knowledge, experiences and sources of inspiration that have helped you achieve your personal goals. Every leader is a role model and strives to set an example.

For a leader, succession planning is a work in progress. Because as a leader who is likely to be promoted, it should be your goal to prepare those who can in the natural order of things progress to higher levels of responsibility. True, only one can become your successor; however, those who also are well prepared for promotion can find other roles within or outside the organization.

When Jack Welch chose a successor at G.E., those who weren?t selected became highly attractive as CEOs of other companies because they were known to have been groomed for success. While this analogy may be a bit sophisticated by comparison, the concept is applicable at any level.

Good day and good work,

Norman