How to grow leaders in your business

Any successful business knows that it takes leaders for sustainability and success. To grow leaders in your business, you need to have a clear plan to do so and understand what it takes to cultivate and maintain leaders.

Some of the best ways to cultivate leadership and grow employees into leaders, is to have a way to allow natural leaders to rise up and assume leadership opportunities within the business. In order to grow and keep leaders within your business, you will need to coach, mentor, and develop those leaders and ensure they are recognised and rewarded for their leadership. Without this, you will only grow leaders in your business that will move on to other businesses once they have developed their leadership skills. And we don’t want the good ones to get away!

Have a plan for development

You want to not only recruit top talent but grow that talent into the leaders your company needs. In order to do this, you need a plan. How will you encourage your employees to take on leadership? What opportunities will be available and how will you find interested and competent people? You should do assessments of your people and be ready to see where best their talents can be utilized, so it not only helps your company but also sets up your people for success.

Develop at all levels

Leaders can be developed at every level. You don’t just need to work on those at the top or rising to the top, you need to start at the ground level and develop leaders to work at the bottom as well as everywhere in between. Small leadership opportunities will grow leaders just as well as large leadership opportunities within your organisation. Be sure to give all levels the opportunity to rise to the challenge and lead. Some may surprise you!

Keep an eye on the plan

Have a tracking system in place for your leadership development action plan. What will you do to keep tabs on the program to ensure good people are mentored, trained, and challenged? Have a plan, track the plan, and keep an eye on your employees and how they are growing. Be sure to recognise and reward those that take on leadership roles to keep them encouraged and motivated.

Encourage mentorships

One of the best ways to grow leaders in your business is to have current, successful leaders mentor your rising leaders. Mentorship can be a wonderful benefit to your business and your people. Nothing equips future leaders better than a good example, and nothing keeps good leaders working hard and feeling challenged than knowing they are the example to which others are looking. Encourage mentorship relationships within your business through informal or formal mentor relationships.

Discuss career path options

A good way to keep leaders growing is to keep them feeling challenged. Discuss career path options for your employees so you both know what goal they want to work towards. This will help them see what the best leadership opportunities within your business would be for them to develop the skills they need to move into the careers they wish to rise to. Discussing career options, setting goals and having a plan is the best way to ensure leadership development in your business.

The best businesses understand that to grow leaders in your business you must have a plan and invest in the future of these leaders. It is a marathon, not a sprint. You will benefit in the long run if you invest in your people and let the leader rise up to what you want them to do best — lead.

If you’d like to grow your company into a superstar to match your leading workers, get in touch with the team at Easy Consulting today. We know how to successfully build a business from the ground up, and have it stand out amongst its competitors. We look forward to discussing with you how this is done and how we can help your company specifically.