Creating a ready-now leader from your current employees is one of the best types of career development opportunity that a company can offer to its employees. If you want to grow a leader, you primarily need to look for talents within your organization and not seek for external talent sources. This means to get the leader you want, from your current employees.
There are many reasons why you need to look for talent internally within your organization. The two main reasons are as below:
It is a strategic way to engage your employee with the organization. It is one of the best strategic approaches to empower key talents and retain them.
Imagine how your employees will feel valued and embrace transformation on realizing that you are preparing them to be the next organizational leader of change.
What do you think matters to employees in terms of motivation, satisfaction, engagement, etc.?
2. Swinging between the possibility of engagement levels being either extremely high or low, the next step is to sustain these engagement levels, change preconceived notions and make them grow with the company in the long run.
To perform this you need to primarily realize that it is not a one-time execution, but an ongoing process that commences right from day one, when your employee decides to join and become a member of your organization.
Here are some of the steps on how you can transform your current employees into effective ready-now leaders:
Empower your employees.
Create a role for your employees, not just some tasks to perform.
Know your employees well enough to keep them self-motivated.
Create and grow your employee’s self-confidence.
Make your employees feel valued for their contributions and see themselves as an integral part of the organization’s bigger picture. Create an attainable goal for your employees that helps them participate in the leadership evaluation, even if the project is of small-scale.
Allow your employees to gauge their self-ability and competence as a leader.
Keep your workforce in mind before initiating an action plan and involve them actively in management decisions.
Do not assume employee reactions to a change in policy or process flow, rather ensure seamless communication in a team and effective collaboration.
Define your quarter on the awareness-matrix regarding leadership.
Treat your employees in a professional, fair and respected manner at all times to infuse them with the most important leadership traits: respect, integrity and fairness.
Treat your employees as your strategic business partners.
Value your employees first as your internal customer to make sure they are satisfied working for your company.
Define a structure based on team work to initiate leadership early on, from team leader perspective.
Starting from day one, the organizational aspects, business goals and workplace culture have to be clear to your employees. Implement the traditional wise “walk your talk”. Do not ruin your efforts to make a ready-now leader by being unprofessional at work.
Study your employees carefully and observe their behaviors to know from where to start inculcating leadership training.
Listen carefully to your employees and take feedback seriously for inclusion of the idea will help support business growth.
Believe in leadership abilities of your employees to make them feel worthy of being the next leader.
Work on your employee’s loyalty system.
The more you make your employees valued for their contributions, and empower their ability to be the next leader, the more they will continue to be engaged to upscale your organisation to new heights of success. This process of creating a ready-now leader is ongoing, and one of the most effective ways to motivate key talent and retain them with the company.
Source: SHRM.ORG