Leading Companies Create Leaders

Today most organizations understand, at least on the surface, the need to identify and develop leaders among their employees. What most don’t see is the potential for every employee to lead, to express their gift and through that expression contribute to a better functioning company that experiences better results. 

One of the reasons too few organizations focus on widespread leadership development is the belief that not everyone can or should be a leader. It is time to shift the way organizations view employees and, more importantly, how individuals see and value themselves. Too many companies and individuals are operating with an industrial mindset that employees are there to provide transactional benefits and in return receive a paycheck. Contemporary employees, particularly millennials, want and need to be fully engaged—as both humans and beings. 

Everyone has a gift, something that makes them unique. One’s gift combined with their strengths and the skills to best express it creates a wonderful alchemy of qualities that employees enjoy offering in the workplace. As organizations shift their focus from employees being replaceable components to people with gifts they want to express to better the organization and its impact, investing in employees’ satisfaction and success will be a natural step.

Until then, there are numerous bottom-line reasons to invest in an organization’s talent such as retention, efficiency and customer satisfaction; important success metrics of thriving organizations. And beyond the bottom-line, is it not time that organizational leadership recognize and fully value the development of the human beings they employ? Lip service is often paid to loving customers who spend their dollars or invest their resources with a company and to move our communities in a better direction it is time to extend that same value to the people working to make its success a reality.

Organizations that will thrive in the future are those that value individuals, support their development and success while providing the opportunity for them to lead with their gift.

Kathleen is the Founder and CEO of the Human Being Store that delivers powerful leadership development services in a virtual retail model. Y7 Studios is one of Inc Magazine’s fastest growing companies and recently partnered with HBeS to offer our innovative services to their employees.