Why should you care about instilling your employees with leadership skills and credentials? There are three excellent reasons.
1. It is good for their careers. Whether they stick with your business or move on elsewhere, you are equipping them the with the skills necessary to take steps up the career ladder.
2. It is good for you. If you ever leave your position, perhaps to rise to higher ranks in management, you will have somebody to fill your place.
3. It is good for your business. You need people within your team who can make decisions for themselves, without having to run to you for advice every ten minutes. An experienced and capable team will guarantee a successful business, with or without your intervention.
So, where do you begin? What are the strategies you need to put into place to turn your employees into future leaders? Consider the following.
- Train them up. If you have any high-flyers within your team, then you have probably already noticed their leadership credentials. To give them the boost they need, invest in leadership training courses to improve their chances. However, for all employees, give them the leg up the career ladder that they all need by paying for any training that will improve their skills and knowledge in the areas they are working in. This will take them all one step further into becoming a leader in their field, whether they are interested in management or not.
- Mentor your employees. As you have the experience as a leader behind you, you are in the prime position to give your employees the benefit of your insight. It's all about knowledge transfer, passing your expertise down to your coworkers. For more on this, click the following link to learn more. Putting a plan in place, you can mentor those employees interested in a leadership position by training them yourself, helping them to achieve their potential through the skills you have learned.
- Take them to networking events. By taking your employees to networking events, you are teaching them valuable skills. They will learn how to talk to complete strangers about what it is they do. They will learn how to make connections that will help them prosper in their chosen field. And they will learn how to market your business to others. By doing all of these things, they will have the benefit of learning what you do as a leader on a regular basis.
- Give them further leadership experiences. Aside from attending networking events, consider the other things you do as a leader. Examples could be giving presentations, leading training events, overseeing projects, and attending business meetings with prospective clients. It takes courage to hand these responsibilities over to your employees (they could screw up) but provided you have invested in training and mentoring opportunities, you should have given them the ability to confidently manage some of these duties.
Finally, consider where you started. How did you rise up the ranks? How did you become a leader? Offer the same opportunities to your employees. By doing so, and by following the other ideas in this article, you will do as we suggested at the beginning. You will benefit both your employees now and in the future, and you will benefit your business. In the end, everybody wins!
Stay up to date
Sign up for my FREE newsletter. Get informed of the latest happenings in the programming world.