Some organizations do not have people ready to step into a vacant leadership position. The issue in most of these situations is not a lack of talent, but a lack of people development. And that is the leader’s job.

If you’re people are not growing, you are probably not leading.

People are what make the leader. If we spend most of our time focused on resources, manufacturing schedules, marketing campaigns, or finances, we are managing not leading. You lead people and you manage processes and resources.

The Military and a People Development Mindset

In the military, the only person who is not responsible for developing someone, is the Private who is straight out of basic training. After that, every rank above Private is expected to be developing the people below them. The Corporal develops the Private. The Sergeant develops the Corporal. The Staff Sergeant develops the Sergeant. Etc.

The military has a people development mindset because if someone is wounded or worse, the next level down must be prepared to step up. It is the Duty of the leadership at all levels to prepare the people below them to lead.

This is where most business, and surprisingly law enforcement organizations, fail. They do not have a people development mindset so they have to recruit from outside agencies or worse, unprepared people are promoted.

The Lack of a People Development Mindset

As leaders, training should augment the development that is consistently taking place within our teams. If there are not people ready to step up and lead when a position opens up, we should not blame the lack of bench strength on the people sitting on the bench – that is the coach’s responsibility. 

Unfortunately, too many leaders believe that because they send people to a training class, that is the same as developing people. The training may be the start to development, but in most organizations nobody follows up on that training. Education may happen. But without application, the education has no impact on the growth of the person.

We shouldn’t cop out and expect trainers to do the development of our people. We must have a people development mindset. We must think of every interaction with the people we lead as an opportunity to make them better.

Two Questions a Leader Should Ask Themselves

Developing people does not have to be program based. In fact it works better when people development is a mindset. The mindset only requires us to ask ourselves two simple questions:

After every interaction:  Is that person better in some way because they just spoke to me?

On the drive home from work:  Who did I make better today?

If everyone on our teams asked themselves these questions, our teams would have a people development mindset. 

The Bottom Line

Two out of three people come back from training and claim they got nothing out of it. (DDI: 2015 Global Leadership Forecast). Is the training that bad? Sometimes. But, even an average trainer should have some lasting impact. More often, the employee returns from training and their supervisor is not prepared to keep that training alive.

That is where the system falls apart. Training is a great resource to have at our disposal. However, it is inadequate all by itself.

Who is responsible for the development of the people on our team?

The answer is:  We are! 

Within our teams, the leader sets the expectation that people development is everyone’s responsibility. It starts with leader and trickles down from there. A team who does not have people ready to step up when needed does not have a talent vacuum. They have a leadership vacuum. It is the leader’s job to develop the people.

Question:

Who is ready to step up on your team?

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