What does a leader who develops their people do, that other leaders don’t?
I am sure that just like me, you could look back over your career, and see leaders that you enjoyed working for and some that you did not. What were the differences between those two groups of people? In my own experience, there were 4 things that made a difference:
- Did they actually take the time to connect with me?
- Did they care about my development?
- Did they support me when things went well and when they didn’t?
- Did they give me the chance to gain exposure and try new things?
Are these the same questions that define your experiences also? You may have different questions that you could ask yourself, but it is important to know the answers. Not everyone is cut out to lead people. Do you know someone who is in this position? They may have been told that this was their only career path to move up in the organization, so they took the job. However, they were not strong at connecting with people. The team and everyone else around this person can see it and feel it. Working under someone like that takes the motivation, engagement, and excitement of going to work every day away from the individual employees and the team.
Leading takes time and energy to do it well and you have to care about helping people grow.
It means tapping into your emotional intelligence and leveraging it each and every day. In this article called the “5 Qualities of Emotionally Intelligent Leaders” by Joel Garfinkle, he highlights that these qualities inspire people to want to work for you and do great work. The 5 qualities are being: empathetic, self-aware, positive, considerate, and authentic. In the simplest of terms, it is connecting with people, caring about what is important to them, and being true to yourself. If you are leading a team, how would you evaluate yourself on these 5 qualities?
You have a choice to make in how you want to lead. Think about your interactions with your team. How you are connecting with them? Are you inspiring and motivating them to do their best? Have you asked them how you can support their development in a bigger way? Do you know what their career plan is? If you don’t have the answers, this could be an area to focus on so you can get to know your team on a deeper level.