Develop your people

Leaders cast a significant shadow in the their organizations. We have found that employees who have worked for the same boss for several years tend to share not only the strengths but also the weak- nesses of their boss. This cuts both ways—if you are an extraordinary boss, your subordinates are likely to develop these skills, but the areas in which they need to improve will also tend to mirror yours.

A powerful tool in your own development process is to develop the people around you. Some leaders view people development as a frill—extraneous to their “real work.” However, taking the time to develop people is an important behavior of a leader, not only for what it does for the people he or she helps, but equally for the impact it has on the leader and the organization. Developing others moves you from being an independent professional person, concerned only with yourself, to the role of the true leader who creates organizational capacity and builds people.

Some of the following strategies will help in your efforts to develop those around you:

Set high expectations for leaders. By getting your best leaders to excel, everyone benefits.
Build “personal dashboards” to monitor the effectiveness of those around you. How do your people know that they are performing well? If no objective measures exist currently, take the initiative to develop them. Better yet, encourage others to develop those measures for themselves.

Involve your leaders as teachers. One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. Engaging leaders to teach new skills to their groups not only solidifies that knowledge, but also builds skills in the leaders and lends credibility to what is being taught.

Make development a longer-term process, not an event. We strongly advocate making development part of ongoing work activities rather than a shorter weekend, a weeklong, or even a multi-week program off the job. We are reminded of the executive who asked his boss about attending a 13-week executive development program, to which the boss replied, "If I can spare you for 13 weeks, I can spare you.

Celebrate successes. When positive results are achieved, celebrate them. When measures of effectiveness show success, broadcast them widely.

Some helpful strategies for helping others reach their potential:

Believe in your people: The success of these measures hinges on your beliefs. If you believe your leaders can become extraordinary, they will rise to the challenge.

Expect change to happen sooner rather than later: Leadership is all about change, so if change is not happening, it probably is not working.

Act on your beliefs: Real learning shows up in new behavior. Pick a person. Pick a concept to apply. Start Monday morning.