GR8 Leaders serve the people they lead, which means they value and develop team members. This, in turn, increases organizational capacity and fosters the development of new leaders.
So, let's look at what 'value' and 'develop' mean. The dictionary gives these definitions.
As a leader, when you value and develop people, you focus on expanding their abilities and skills.
Value people enough to coach and mentor them to greater capacity
It Takes Your Time to Do This
It’s easy to say, “Agreed. I am doing that.” But, is it true?
Consider this: how much time do you take to get to know the people you lead? Do you know their strengths, weaknesses, gifts, personal goals, or how they will best fit with the others you are leading?
If not, you may not value the people you work with as much as you believe you do.
When you decide to actually value and develop people, it will take time to discover those answers for just one person. However, if you are like many high performers, you may think that doing so is a waste of time.
Of course, that’s bad thinking. Additionally, you may be aware that individuals who feel respected and accepted tend to be more satisfied with their work and perform at higher levels. However, when you value and develop people, it takes time to help them grow their strengths and abilities.
Two Critical Skills Will Help
Anytime you decide to focus on helping people grow, you use the two most important leadership skills. Do you remember what those two skills are?
Here are the two skills that most leaders aren’t taught to develop…
GR8 Leaders believes those are the two most valuable skills for leaders. Obviously, when you value and develop people, you will spend time with them listening and asking questions.
These same two skills are also necessary when a leader makes a critical shift in their approach to work. Unfortunately, this shift isn't taught explicitly to most new leaders. Therefore, new leaders struggle and fail when they do not know this mindset change.
Without this one change, leaders often take on too much work and fail to prepare themselves for higher levels within the organization. Worse yet, it will easily cause leaders to burn out and give up. And, you can't value and develop people unless you make this shift.
The Critical Shift
So, think about a new leader, or recall when you first started managing other people. Before your promotion, you were likely a high-performing individual within the organization. You did good work. Then, you were promoted and your role shifted from individual worker to supervisor. Unfortunately, at this point, most new leaders continue to operate as an individual worker doing good work. They have missed the critical shift they need to make.
If you want to become a great leader, you will need to SHIFT…
- FROM – doing good work
- TO – doing good work through people.
While leaders still have tasks to complete, they adjust their thinking to see how to achieve great work through the people they manage and lead. For example, they spend time working with the people they lead, helping them increase their capacity to lead in the future.
And, it increases your capacity to lead, because it frees you to focus more attention on strategic items.
The Benefits When You Value and Develop People
Of course, that shift reflects in the way people perceive you.
For example, the graph above is interesting research that ties into valuing and developing people. Note the title “When Leaders Treat You with Respect, You’re More Engaged.”
You may agree that when you value and develop people, it can imply that you respect them. Some leaders discount this valuable information because they often believe in the control model of leadership. However, consider the findings of this research.
When people felt their leader respected them, they had…
Unfortunately, in the same study of 20,000 employees, 54% reported not regularly receiving respect from their leaders.
Respect, value, and love are closely related. Not only that, but it is also time to do what will help the organization – value and develop its people. Stop focusing on yourself and learn to serve the organization and the people.
On the plus side, you reap significant dividends, as stated above, when you respect, value, and develop people. But, there is a price to pay, although it is actually very beneficial for you and the people.
What is that price or that obstacle? Well, it is the same obstacle all leaders must overcome - your tendency to focus on yourself. And when you do that, you will not take the time to encourage, value and develop people. But when you do, you help the people and the organization grow and develop.
Google's Research About Their Managers
Finally, some interesting research from Google about their own managers. They conducted a comprehensive survey of hundreds of managers and identified the following as the eight key behaviors exhibited by their best managers.
As I see it, five or six of those behaviors directly tie to how you value and develop people.
According to the research, here are two critical questions to consider. Will you start thinking about the people more and about yourself less? Will you take the time to value people enough to help them develop?
Your answers help you know whether you are on the path to GR8 Leadership or not!