Do you dream of a thriving business that grows year after year and offers a legacy you can leave to future generations? If you want your company to excel, you must lift up new leaders, training them in your company culture and giving them the skills needed to drive forward momentum.
How Do You Develop Future Leaders in Your Organization?
The Small Business Administration estimates around 1.1 million new businesses open each year and another 965,995 close. The number varies but in general, the number of businesses opening and those closing each year is massive. What is the secret ingredient that causes one to thrive and the other to fail?
Often, the core of a successful organization comes from the leaders within the company. How well they lead dictates how hard employees work toward shared success and whether or not decisions help or hurt the brand.
If you want to scale up over time, you need to cultivate new leaders and give them the freedom to make excellent decisions. Here are some of the best ways to cultivate new leaders in your business.
1. Cultivate a Company Culture of Leadership
Early in their career in your company, people should have an opportunity to take charge. If your employees are constantly worried you are sitting on their shoulder and watching their every move, they aren’t likely to do their best work or step up to challenges.
Have enough confidence in their abilities to let them work from home, set their own schedules and come up with solutions to problems such as scheduling or solving a client’s needs. Encourage them to ask for help but be okay with them not doing everything the exact way you’d do it.
2. Embrace Diversity
When looking for future leaders in your organization, don’t focus only on a single gender or race. People sometimes overlook the quiet employee, the mom of three who seems too busy to take a leadership course or someone in a minority group.
Creating a positive environment for women and minorities starts by offering them the same opportunities their male counterparts have in your business. Put yourself in the shoes of the young woman who just gave birth. She returns after a six-week maternity leave only to find Joe in the promotion she held out for during the last five years, working extra hours and putting her all into every project. Today, the same can apply to some fathers, so don’t let temporary time off result in losing a valuable employee because they’ve been overlooked.
Think outside the box. Don’t overlook your talent because of family leave. Instead, how can you make it easier for them to work their way into a leadership role? Can you put them in charge of a hybrid team and let them work from home for a while? Ask for their input. As someone with leadership potential, they may have ideas for how they can contribute you haven’t even thought of.
3. Start a Leadership Training Track
Offer your leadership training to any employee interested in moving up in the company. While education often plays a role in how far you can rise in an organization, it shouldn’t be the only consideration. People sometimes have skills or experience outside of a formal education that make them excellent leaders.
Let your teachers figure out who has potential. Training your employees with new skills is never a waste. Even if the person winds up shying away from management, they’ll have learned valuable information they can apply to team projects, when taking the lead on a design or at other times.
4. Celebrate Achievement and Retain Top Employees
If your best employees constantly churn out of your company and go elsewhere for higher pay or more recognition, you’ll have a hard time promoting leaders within your organization. Take the time to show your workers how much you appreciate them.
Ask what would entice them to remain with your company. Some people want to be rewarded with cash bonuses, others want an extra paid day off and others would prefer to work remotely. A recent study showed around 25% of jobs will be remote by 2023.
People like to at least have a hybrid approach, where they can avoid a long commute some days of the week and really hone in on their work, meetings or training.
5. Cross-Train Employees
Rotate the positions your employees fill. While there is something to be said for feeling comfortable in your role, knowing what tasks others on the team complete can help in a number of ways.
First, it gives your workers an appreciation for one another. Second, if someone is suddenly ill or leaves without notice, you’ll have others who can fill the gap until they can be replaced. Third, if one of your employees moves into a team leader role, they’ll understand the scope of the work and the job descriptions for each person in their group.
6. Start a Mentorship Program
Do you already have fabulous leaders in your company? Let them pass their wisdom to the next generation of managers by mentoring younger employees. A mentorship program creates relationships and gives your young leaders someone to turn to when they feel uncertain.
At some point, your current leaders will retire. You’ll retain much of their wisdom and the culture they bring to your company, because they’ll pass it down to their mentees.
Teach Your Employees to Excel
One of the best things about developing a company culture that brings up new leaders is that your employees will see you want them to be the best they can possibly be. You’ll give them the freedom to learn new skills, try things without fear of failure and rise to the top of your company ranks.
Eleanor is editor of Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.
