Mentoring Your Team for Leadership Progression

We've recently had several discussions with businesses regarding employees who excel in their job but struggle with their communication and interpersonal skills, often coming across as abrupt and lacking empathy. Elaine and I have also encountered similar situations with our own staff, and we have found that with proper coaching, these team members can develop into excellent future leaders. In today's competitive job market, it is crucial to invest in nurturing the talent within your organisation.

So, how can you ensure long-term success for both yourself and the team member in question? It starts with open communication. Let them know that you recognise their potential as a future leader but also acknowledge the areas where they need further development. Express your willingness to invest your time and resources to help them enhance these skills. Highlight the reasons why you believe they have the potential to be a great leader, while also emphasizing the importance of improving their people skills for future leadership positions.

Now, sit back and see what they say.  Are they positive and excited about this conversation?  Or are they negative?  Assuming they are positive about the fact you can see long term leadership potential in them then put a plan in place to mentor them in the months/year ahead.  It’s important after you’ve had this conversations that you implement a plan or timeline sooner rather than later, otherwise they may get despondent and feel you’re all talk no action.  Here are some tips on things you might like to put in place to help them improve their skills.

• Regular scheduled mentoring sessions with yourself to coach them (weekly or monthly as an example).  
• Give them tasks to undertake that require leadership skills and talk them through the how.  For instance,  Get them to train a new staff member on something that they are really good at – but give them plenty of recommendations on how to do it effectively (patience, trainee to take notes, let trainee do, don’t just show etc, praise for job well done etc).  It is the people skills they need the guidance in so be clear on how they best conduct themselves for success. 
• Organising a catch up with other great leaders in your business to chat to them about how they handle people management.
• Organising a catch up with people outside your business who are great leaders.
• Look at a leadership course they could undertake.  We actually run an 8 week Leadership and Culture Bootcamp which is perfect for both business owners and team members in or going into leadership roles. We’d be happy to discuss with you if this is suitable. 
• Recommend some books they can read, or chapters out of books that might be useful.  Ideally books that you have read..  We highly recommend The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey), and How to Win Friends and Influence People – but there are heaps to choose from. 
• We can also organise a Leadership Assessment for them which will help you  and them understand what leadership archetypes they predominantly are and the pro’s and con’s of these.  We do have a free Quiz that may give an idea of their style too. Click here to take the Quiz …. 

The main thing is that you identify who in your business has leadership potential and invest in those people.  If you don’t see the opportunity, someone else will.    If you need some assistance in knowing how to go about mentoring future leaders you are also most welcome to get in touch and we can give you some tips based on your individual circumstance.