How To Develop and Nurture Leadership Skills in Employees

You need leaders in your organization. Ideally, everyone should be a leader. 

Leadership isn't about getting to the top — it's about taking responsibility for your company's vision. It's about aligning yourself with culture. It's about doing the right thing.

Defining "The Right Thing"

You can find a lot of pat advice about how to develop and nurture employee leadership skills. A lot of it is good advice. The problem here is overgeneralization. When I approach leadership coaching, it's always from specifics up to general practices.

The practices that work are the ones you'll develop specifically for your organization. General advice just doesn't cut it. Nurturing leadership skills in your employees is a mission-critical process.

To put it another way, your company culture should be the guiding force behind any type of employee development. Every step you make should be guided by the way you do things — not the way that education and development have worked for other companies.

Taking a Swing at Development

Knowing more techniques is good, so listen to the advice of others. I like to think of each leadership skill — nurturing techniques included — like a club in my golf bag.

Certain approaches, such as open-door policies, might not work in the current culture of your organization. Certain clubs don't work at certain stages of a hole — you don't use a sand wedge for a tee shot, for example 

That doesn't mean you throw away your sand wedge. At some point in the game, you might have to pitch.

Developing and Demonstrating Your Skill

We're talking about nurturing new leaders, but you might want to think of it as more than just a task to complete. If it were just one simple technique to apply, you could throw out that sand wedge.

Nurturing new leaders is inseparable from being a leader. Everyone in your organization looks to you as an example of how to act — an example of how to pursue your unique vision of success.

As you know, being a leader is something you prepare, practice, and repeat. It's a process of self-improvement and definition that lasts your entire life. 

Just like golf, you spend the time practicing. You learn to use the clubs in your bag. You visualize your success, and you take your shot. The key to nurturing leadership is showing your team the whole process. Don't just wave your scorecard in their face, take them out on the course with you 

Sharing What It Means To Lead

To truly nurture leadership skills, you must be generous. Show your team what it means to be a leader — show what supports your company's culture. It's not the easy way to do it, but it's the only way to create leaders that are leading in the same direction as you.

Are you ready to listen to the advice of others and aligning yourself with culture?