A: The first step is to understand your organizations needs for leaders. What types of skills, competencies, knowledge and experience will be needed to be a strong leader for your organization? Does everyone agree on these attributes? How would you prioritize technical knowledge over strong leadership skills?
Next, critically assess what you are doing to grow your leaders. You should work on creating a leadership development culture where managers are recognized and rewarded for growing leaders. One way to start is teaching your leaders coaching skills [two great books are Co-Active Coaching (Kimsey-House/Sandahl) and The Next Level ( )]. Additionally, offer development opportunities for your top performing and high potential employees. You may want to offer additional one-to-one mentoring meetings for your stars while also putting them on challenging projects.
Another way to get started is to create a book club for leaders. We recommend books like Switch (Heath), Drive (Pink), Good to Great (Collins), Tribal Leadership (Logan, King, and Fischer-Wright) and Five Levels of Leadership (Maxwell) as a place to start. You can have the group begin discussing the books and determining what they need to do to create the right kind of culture where great leaders can grow and prosper.
We wish you continued success as you grow yourself or the leaders in your organization. Please contact us if we can help you grow the leaders in your organization.
