Organizations often focus their time and resources on developing senior leaders rather than also having a professional development strategy for their new leaders. They think that sending their senior people to conferences, training opportunities or even offering coaching is where they should concentrate their efforts for their company’s growth. While I am a big advocate of providing learning opportunities as well as executive coaching to senior leaders, I am also a proponent of building an organization’s bench strength. That process begins with cultivating the leadership and relationship skills in emerging leaders.
To build an organization's bench strength, there needs to be a focus on developing emerging leaders. Click To TweetWhether a firm is small, medium or large it is imperative to look to the future of its leadership pool. One organization I worked with had an exceptional senior leadership team but lacked a plan of who would eventually fill their shoes. They had managers and emerging leaders but weren’t devoting resources to growing their leadership skills. It’s not healthy for a company to forget about its emerging leaders. When that happens and the senior leadership group moves on, it can take a great deal of time to rebuild.
Come join me in looking at four ways to develop emerging leaders.
1. Create A Clear and Compelling Organizational Vision
In order to grasp a complete picture of an organization’s leadership needs, it is essential to have a solid vision in place. How can staffing and leadership be put into action without knowing the “why” of a company and its priorities? To begin the process of creating a vision think about the organization’s:
- Core values– What drives each decision and action?
- Customer base-Who are the ideal customers? What characteristics do they have in common? What pain points do they struggle with? How can we resolve their challenges?
- Strategic goals- What do we want to accomplish? Why is that important?
2. Identify Strong Emerging Leaders
Reach out to all stakeholder areas and take a hard look at new and fairly new leaders that have proven to be valuable contributors. Each area of an organization may have high performing emerging leaders and chances are that many of these new leaders have strong technical skills. Yet as senior leaders know, the leadership and relationship skills are critical to moving forward in one’s career. So recognizing the emerging leaders who show great promise is an important step.
3. Provide Learning Opportunities and Coaching
There are many different learning solutions to developing emerging leaders so selecting several strategies may work best. Some of these learning opportunities may include leadership workshops, small group coaching programs, individual coaching sessions or attending an outside course. Some of the most critical areas to offer emerging leaders are:
- Impactful communication skills-finding your voice.
- Understanding your work style and the styles of your team members.
- Strategic listening to fully hear the message.
- Dealing with difficult colleagues and bosses.
- Learning how to prioritize responsibilities and daily schedules.
4. Establish A Mentorship Program
With many of the organizations I have worked, creating a formal mentoring program has made a huge difference in retaining talent and developing new leaders. Both the mentors and the mentees gain extraordinary benefits from these relationships. Mentoring partnerships build meaningful relationships in the workplace and contribute to greater trust and transparency. Learning from one another drives these mentoring connections.
How do you or your organization develop emerging leaders? What strategies have led you to build your leadership pipeline?
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Too often the development of an emerging leader focuses on specific skills but as you point out, it’s usually the relationship aspect of leadership that moves the needle. The ability to connect with other people is something new leaders can learn, however, so your advice is right on target! As usual… 🙂
When leaders build their relationship skills they open doors to trust and transparency. That in turn helps them lead with influence and impact. And learning those relationship skills is doable as long as emerging leaders are open to grow.
Thanks LaRae!
I’ve worked for organizations where they brilliantly implemented a nine-box model to identify and develop their leadership pipeline. Ultimately, however, it became a piece of paper in a drawer instead of part of the fabric of the organization. There was some investment in their development by throwing $$ into training programs, but not enough in their retention. Emerging leaders are the future of the organization and we can’t take them for granted.
Alli
When organizations create an intentional strategy to develop their emerging leaders they are building their future bench strength. Your story illustrates how critical it is for following through. Thanks Alli for your helpful additions!