How does Leadership Development shape the future of your organization?

Leadership development is not an overnight phenomenon—it is a strategic investment in the future. In every team, there are individuals with undiscovered potential waiting to be recognized and nurtured. But how do you identify and cultivate these potential leaders effectively? Well, this is part of leadership development.

The path to empowering today’s leaders for tomorrow’s opportunities begins with identifying and inviting them in. Let’s take a closer look at how businesses can tap into this potential, ensuring they are not just building leaders but creating a legacy that transcends their shadow.

Key Takeaways

• Spotting internal talent is pivotal for long-term leadership success.
• A team-first philosophy can nurture a strong leadership culture.
• The Leadership Matrix (Effort, Attitude, Ability) is a tool for evaluating potential leaders.
• Cultivating an apprentice mindset fosters potential leaders through hands-on experiences.
• The leadership development journey is multi-phased and requires patience and time investment.
• Investing effort in nurturing talent pays off with leadership and organizational growth.

Spotting Future Leaders Within Your Team

Leadership multiplication requires time and if you aspire to have a strong organizational culture then defending and building the DNA of that culture is critical. Building a team from within instead of hiring a team from outside the organization, typically in my career, has proved to have better results. That doesn’t mean that outside hiring doesn’t work, but it does mean that you’re probably going to work a little harder at making sure they understand and incorporate the DNA.?

Identifying leadership potential within your team is more of an art than an exact science. Luckily, over the years, I’ve done this many times and can share with you what that process looks like.?

To identify potential leaders, look for individuals who demonstrate initiative, a collaborative spirit, a hunger for personal growth, and a genuine desire to elevate those around them. Here are some attributes you can keep an eye out for:

• Innate problem-solving skills that offer innovative solutions.
• A magnetic presence that inspires and influences peers.
• An insatiable appetite for learning, coupled with actionable self-improvement.

We Before Me: The Crucial Team-First Philosophy

Prioritizing the success of the collective over the individual serves as the foundation upon which future leaders can stand. Creating a team-first mindset encourages members to develop in ways that will benefit everyone while avoiding the possible pitfalls of individual achievements.?

This philosophy is a catalyst for potential leaders to step up and shine. It reassures your team about growth opportunities, leading to greater loyalty and lower turnover. A culture where internal growth is visible will naturally foster leadership.

The Leadership Matrix: Effort, Attitude, and Ability

But what happens if building from within isn’t possible right now and you need to hire from the outside? As I’ve said outside hiring works, but it’s tricky. The best thing is to try and minimize the disruption of bringing in someone new.

Keep an eye out for candidates that show initiative and collaboration. The ones that put the team first and want to help and improve others. But also recognize that personal development is equally as important. Look for persistence, a positive approach, and then the skill set to match. These are all attributes that a leader will exhibit.?

Employing a Leadership Matrix, focusing on effort, attitude, and ability, can help refine raw talent into true leadership potential. And in doing so, you will ensure a balanced approach to recognizing and nurturing potential leaders.

From Learning to Leading: Fostering an Apprentice Mindset

Now that you’ve learned how to identify potential leaders you must also learn how to invite them into their leadership development journey. And I’m talking about an actual invitation.?

“I see you as a leader. I see you as a leader now, and I see with some support that you can be even in a bigger role of leadership in the future.”

It might seem irrelevant or unnecessary, but recent studies have shown that people need validation. By sincerely recognizing and allowing someone to grow within the organization today you’ll have a loyal, take-charge leader tomorrow.

An apprentice mindset paves the path to leadership with progressive trust-building and skills enhancement. This approach cultivates a leadership DNA that is sustainable and essential for the long-term health of any organization.

Practical, hands-on experiences are crucial in leadership development. You’re giving them space to make their own mistakes while also helping them grow into leadership responsibilities. And then ultimately, there’s a point where you just straight up hand it off and start the whole process again.

Leadership Development Requires Patience and Strategy

That is the multiplication mindset that starts once you have invited someone into the journey. Think of the leadership development journey as a roadmap with important stops along the way—starting with observation, then transitioning to participation, progressing to leading with support, and ultimately culminating in leadership autonomy.?

One of the things I did early in my career and, that I look back at, is I just did it too quickly. And still, I watch people do this too quickly. Promoting people by title into positions they’re not ready for. Each phase is critical and requires different levels of mentorship and support. Like in the growing phase, where they have a better opportunity to grow but with some safety and a little bit of protection.

The organization will support that growth, instead of the one team member being potentially overtitled and shutting down or suffering from things like impostor syndrome. So I’ll repeat this because this is important: leadership development takes time. What will help you is your mindset.

Watch our Leader’s Mindset video.

But patience and the willingness to invest your time are the pillars of developing leaders. Know that it won’t be quick but in return, you’ll get loyal, resilient, and well-prepared leaders that can help grow your organization.

Investing Time: The Most Expensive Resource of Leadership Development

Your time is one of the most expensive resources you can invest in building a leader and depth of leadership development within a team. Leadership development requires your time, the investment of your own journey, and the investment of dollars. So time, talent, and treasure are necessary for you to invest in building other leaders. You can’t suddenly invite someone in and just hand it off to them and all of a sudden they do it.?

So when thinking about the actual invitation you’re extending to this future leader, think of the apprentice mindset. Some might develop their leadership skills faster. They’re ready for more authority, and you’re comfortable taking some risk with that. You have to think in terms of risk and tolerance of ability to be able to hand off authority. It’s not an exact science, to develop leaders you have to invest time.

The Multiplier Effect: Appreciating the Long-Term Payoff of Leadership Development

Investing in leadership development is not easy, or cheap. It requires your most expensive resource. Anything you do for your business takes time. Like creating a product, prospecting clients, or building a digital audience. It all takes time.

Well, if you take these points and these principles we have discussed today identifying potential leaders and helping them develop their leadership skills for tomorrow’s opportunities. Invite them into the leadership development journey and invest your time into your team then it will also lead to a long-term payoff. An organization that will thrive under tomorrow’s problems. A legacy of leaders that helps build other leaders. That will just continue to multiply.