The art of finding and grooming future managers and team leaders in a business
A list of several tips that will help you spot future leadership talent in your company.
IRELAND’S TECH INDUSTRY is booming. Every other day there’s a big jobs announcement from one company or another and with all this growth, effective leadership is essential.
The 2016 Harvey Nash HR Survey revealed almost 60% of businesses cite leadership capabilities as an HR priority.
Finding tech leaders who can drive a team forward and meet the increasing pressures of the fast-paced tech industry is crucial for any company in this sector.
Most business owners know the amount of work that goes into finding the correct person for the job, yet once that all-star has been found, it’s just as important, if not more so to ensure their talent is further identified and developed.
The difficulty, however, can be spotting the potential leaders among your staff and developing their skills to ensure they become the organisation’s next leaders.
So, here’s what companies should do to ensure they are fostering talent and developing the skills of their employees:
Look for engaged staff
The most promising leaders are most likely to be fully invested in a businesses core ethos and have a clear knowledge of the strategic aims of the organisation.
Granted, how engaged an employee is in company values and culture can be a difficult thing to measure.
Managers need to keep a keen eye out for signs of employee unhappiness or a disconnect between senior management and low-mid level workers.
The best leaders will strive to learn and contribute to the overall goals of the business, something managers should be able to spot when they see it.
Reverse mentoring
Disengagement between senior management and the rest of a company can be the failure of the C-suite not having clearly articulated the strategic aims of a business, rather than due to a lack of potential leaders in the lower levels of business.
A useful way to overcome this issue and foster leadership is through reverse mentoring.
Companies can run reverse mentorship programmes where top leaders meet with employees to learn from each other and share information.
This not only ensures they are on the same page strategically, but gives potential leaders an unparalleled exposure to senior management and may encourage them to strive for the top positions.
Offer transparent career paths
An organisation should be acutely aware of the aspirations and professional goals of its employees.
Gone are the days when a promotion comes from a tap on the shoulder. Instead, how to climb to the top of an organisation should be crystal clear.
This includes allowing all employees the opportunity to apply for promotions and keeping them up to date with any restructuring or new positions.
After all it’s hard to foster leaders who can’t clearly see the top of the career ladder.
Team-building
It’s also important not to underestimate offsite team building days and seminars.
They can often highlight employees’ core values and talents, while offering time to get to know members of staff out of the everyday working environment.
A win-win for all involved.
Put employees through their paces
Managers should also look to put employees out of their comfort zones and ensure that team members go through an experience where they have to use certain skills and thought processes that they don’t usually.
This could also include throwing in a couple of tasks to test their multitasking abilities.
This will push team members and give them a personal insight into other areas of the business that they might prefer and excel in.
Continuous assessment
Assessing staff is essential to developing their skills and fostering potential leaders in a company.
Not only does it allow managers to identify employee weaknesses and improve on them, it helps businesses identify the roles that are best suited to certain members of staff.
Remember, just because an employee isn’t excelling in one area of the company doesn’t mean they aren’t suitable in a different role.
It is only when employees are in the most fitting roles for their abilities that true leaders can be fostered within an organisation.
Feedback loop
Finally, always have a feedback loop between employees and managers.
This is essential when it comes to knowing what areas of leadership development need to be looked at more closely and built upon.
It is only through having your ear to the ground with regards to what employees think of the workplace environment and company culture that organisations can adjust accordingly and truly get the best from their workers.
Sonya Curley is the managing director of Harvey Nash Ireland.
If you want to share your opinion, advice or story, email opinion@fora.ie.
