Unlocking Team Potential: How Great Leaders Foster Growth

“A good mentor hopes you will move on. A great mentor knows you will.” - Higgins (Ted Lasso)

Great leaders do more than manage—they mentor, inspire, and invest in their team’s development in preparation for the future. Poor leadership, feeling disengaged and feeling undervalued are consistently the top reasons employees quit a job (15 Reasons Employees Quit). Employees today want leaders who see their potential and actively help them grow. But fostering this growth requires more than generic advice or cookie-cutter strategies. It begins with understanding employees as individuals

I have spent nine years leading teams across multiple roles and am proud to share that I was able to help the majority of my direct reports move into new roles they were working towards, many of which were promotions. Every individual I led needed unique support to highlight their strengths and improve their weaknesses. A leader that prioritizes both team growth and individual growth is able to ensure business goals are met, while still keeping their employees engaged.

Why Understanding Your Team Matters

Think about coaching an athlete. You wouldn’t create the same workout plan for a sprinter as you do a powerlifter. At the elite level, even the training plans for 100m dash and 200m dash are different! The same principle applies to managing a team. A one-size-fits-all approach to development rarely works.

By understanding each employee’s individual skill-set, leaders are able to:

• Highlight strengths: Keep employees motivated and engaged by focusing on what they excel at.
• Support growth areas: Offer guidance and resources to improve specific skills.
• Create tailored opportunities: Match tasks and roles to individual goals, growth opportunities and potential.

This personalized approach builds trust and shows employees you care about their success, not just the bottom line.

Four Ways to Support Individual Growth

Start by Listening

Genuine understanding begins with active listening. During one-on-one conversations, try to delve deeper into understanding your team than simply asking "What do you want to do next". Questions that steer away from an employees current and future roles may help guide their growth without tying them to specific jobs. Questions like:

• What types of tasks/work give you energy?
• What skills do you want to grow or learn?
• What do you want to be known for? What is your brand?

There are two questions I always asked my team: "What are you good at?" and "what do you like to do?". On the surface, the questions seem similar, but digging in deeper you can learn a lot from the answers. Just because you’re good at something, doesn’t mean you like to do it and on the other hand, liking something doesn't make you good at it. I pride myself on being good at training new leaders and onboarding them quickly, but I much prefer to work on tenured teams.?

Most developmental conversations center on an individual’s strengths and weaknesses, but there should also be emphasis on areas that individuals know they are good at but don’t get to showcase. These “hidden talents”, while not always pertinent to someone’s current role, are important to keep fresh in the mind for future roles.

Understanding the different layers of each member of your team is like finding all the edge pieces to a puzzle. It provides an outline and helps to frame out the rest of the picture. But just like completing a puzzle, finding the corners is the easy part, filling it in takes a lot more effort.

Leverage Their Strengths

People thrive when they use their talents. Recognizing and emphasizing employees’ strengths doesn’t just boost performance—it builds confidence and morale. As I stated before, what someone is good at and what someone likes to do may be different so there needs to be a balance to prevent burnout, but providing opportunities gives your team space to show-off their talents.

Once strengths are identified, leaders should work with their teams to find the right areas to showcase those strengths. For example, if an employee is an excellent communicator, find them opportunities to lead presentations or client discussions. Celebrating strengths ensures employees feel valued, connected to their work and are able to showcase their skills for future roles.

Provide Constructive Feedback and Opportunities

Feedback is essential for growth. But delivering it well is just as important. It is cliche, but using the “feedback sandwich” approach tends to be the best way to deliver what can sometimes be difficult news. For those who are unfamiliar, the "feedback sandwich" goes like this:

• Start with something positive.
• Address an area for improvement, with specific examples.
• End with encouragement and actionable next steps.

Delivering this feedback requires preparation and should never be done spur of the moment. Being able to identify specific instances where the opportunities have manifested gives tangible examples for you team members to reference. Following up with tangible opportunities for growth, like mentorship, skill-building workshops, or projects gives them a path to improvement.?

This combination of feedback and resources empowers employees to take ownership of their development, but it can go further. It is also important for your team to reflect on their skills themselves to self-identify areas that need improvement and be a part of the plan to develop those gaps. When you have a good routine around developmental plans and discussion, rarely will your thoughts on developmental areas differ from that of your team. If they are out of sync, it could mean you need to rethink your routines and approach to be more direct or more frequent with your growth conversations.

Remember that the point of identifying areas of opportunity is to create a plan of attack to improve them. Listing areas an employee is underperforming without supporting them in getting better leads to a disengaged and discouraged team, not a good combination for success.

Encourage Stretching and Celebrate Failure

Growth often happens when people step out of their comfort zones. Give employees opportunities to take on challenging tasks, make decisions, and lead projects that stretch their skills. Offer guidance when necessary but avoid micromanaging and allow your team to dictate their own path forward. Your role in these "stretch projects" is to be a safety net and make sure your employees can test their skills without impacting themselves, the team and the business too much.

During these stretch projects, it is important to allow your team to fail. One of my favorite bosses used to tell our team “It is okay to fail, just don’t fail the same way twice”. He focused on failing fast and learning from those failures to create a better plan going forward. Celebrate effort, progress and continuous improvement, not just final results. This fosters resilience and confidence, helping employees grow into their full potential.

Why It’s Worth It

Investing in your team’s development pays dividends. Employees who feel supported and valued are more engaged, innovative, and loyal. For leaders, this means better performance, stronger relationships, and a culture of growth. Unfortunately, it does mean that you’re creating a team that will eventually move on to bigger and better things, but being a leader known for providing development and growth opportunities for their team also means top talent will want to be on your team.

As you work to start the routine, remember to start small. Schedule one-on-one conversations in the coming weeks to better understand your team’s goals and challenges. Identify one way you can support each person’s growth, whether it’s offering feedback, resources, or new opportunities.

The best leaders don’t just lead—they help others rise. And that makes all the difference. Your team’s success is your success.