Investing in the growth of your team is essential for their engagement. When you foster this environment, productivity, innovation, and overall success begin. As a manager, you are the catalyst that moves this forward. The more you are involved in the development of employees, the greater their potential for greatness becomes.
To help you begin this process, here are five ways you can invest in the growth of everyone on your team.
Each of your employees craves growth in some form. Tenure doesn’t matter; people need to develop to thrive. Training and development can come in many forms. The best way to uncover where someone wants or needs to grow is to ask.
Using a tool like the Growth Guide allows you to uncover how someone learns best. During this conversation, you can also explore a professional growth goal they have for themselves this year. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to orchestrate a plan to help them progress.
The best training, though, involves you. Your involvement allows you to put on your coaching hat and motivate them towards their potential. Employees are more likely to be motivated and engaged when they see their manager is invested in their development. Fostering a positive and empowering environment occurs when you provide support and resources for them.
Delegation is essential for the growth of an employee. It allows for skill development, confidence building, ownership, leadership development, potential career advancement, and time-management skills, just to name a few.
When people feel empowered to tackle something new (especially in an area where you have recently trained them), they grow and are more engaged in their jobs. However, it is important to consider how and what you delegate. When you delegate, it should be intentional for that person’s growth. You need to consider whether you are delegating a task or delegating ownership. The type of delegating you do matters.
Ask yourself, do they have the natural talents to take on this project or client. Is this a good fit for them, or is this more about me? Removing items off your list and handing them to others may feel like delegating, but it could feel like a task instead of a growth opportunity for them.
I recently saw this quote by Craig Groeschel that drives this home: “If you delegate tasks, you create followers. If you delegate authority, you create leaders.”
When you consider a growth opportunity for someone and believe they are the perfect person to take this on, share that with them. Sharing the “why” is important. This allows them to understand this is more than a task, but that you see their ability to thrive by taking this on. Doing this also builds trust. Feeling both valued and trusted is a powerful thing.
When you set clear expectations and communicate the next steps effectively, you should be mindful of stepping back and providing autonomy for the completion of the task without hovering.
That isn’t to say you should ignore them or not check in on progress. Here are a few questions that may help guide you to stay in the know:
Being afforded faith in abilities helps motivate people to excel at a task while they are developing their talents. Confidence also blossoms when someone has ownership of their work and is accountable for the outcomes. Autonomy to make decisions independently leads to a sense of responsibility for the results and fosters a stronger commitment to achieving success.
In addition to the three questions above, it is important to provide regular feedback on progress made. Providing effective feedback to your team members helps them understand their strengths and areas for improvement. Without feedback, how will they know if they are on the right course?
Effective feedback should be positive and growth-minded. It should not be negative at all. Think of effective feedback as providing information that can help someone build self-awareness around intentions and actions. Giving and receiving feedback effectively is one of the most important skills for managers to develop because it’s the key to earning trust, building relationships, and helping people grow.
When used consistently, positive feedback speeds up learning and builds collaborative and engaged teams.
Ensure your feedback is specific.
Make sure your thoughts are highly focused and impactful. Try not to get hung up on stylistic approaches, but instead, dedicate your coaching to specific actions to improve. Ensure that feedback is specific, actionable, and focused on growth rather than criticism.
It is important to recognize and acknowledge the efforts and contributions made by those who work for you to aid in their growth. Recognition serves as a reward for strong effort, demonstrating that work is valued.
People want more of this on their path to growth.
A recent Gallup study on recognition shows just how much employees are craving this. An astonishing 72% of employees whose employers recognize them are thriving. The more you acknowledge and recognize work well done, the easier it is to know you are moving in the right direction. And it makes you want to deliver even more.
Rewards are also valuable. Whether this leads to a bonus or career advancement, the attention you put into someone’s growth will be a way to express their efforts and allow them to know they are important to you and your company.
Investing in the growth of your team is one of the best ways to engage them. Implement a training and development program, begin to delegate authority (not tasks), provide autonomy, give meaningful and effective feedback, and recognize and reward those who are in growth mode. When you help people reach their full potential it drives not only the company’s success but yours as well.