Every organisation needs effective leaders to secure business growth. Leaders are crucial in managing and directing teams and employees toward productivity. But more importantly, leaders motivate and inspire people to do their best work because they find purpose and meaning in what they do.
While it is common for people to think that there are just natural-born leaders, more often than not, leaders are developed. Not everyone can or wants to be a leader, but anyone with the willingness and self-awareness to commit to constant improvement can be a leader.
Being a leader is more than a job title. A leader is a passionate individual who can positively influence people to act on a shared goal. While organisations can’t give everyone leadership roles, they can instil leadership skills into the work culture. Below are seven tips to unlock leadership skills in employees so everyone is a leader at work.
7 Tips to Unlock Leadership Skills in Employees
1. Identify the Leadership Skills Your Organisation Needs
Every organisation is unique and may require different skill sets from its employees. When planning your developmental strategies, consider the industry you belong to, the company culture you want to nurture, the size of your company, the roles of your employees, and your perceived challenges.
Here are some examples of leadership skills your organisation may want to develop:
To demonstrate how you can pattern leadership skills to address organisational needs, imagine a startup with limited resources. They’ll need to train employees to be innovative so that everyone can contribute fresh ideas for products and services, or new ways to reach more customers. On the other hand, organisations with high employee turnover may need leaders who have empathy to understand where the dissatisfaction stems from and propose initiatives to boost morale.
2. Invest in Employee Training
Investing in employee training is your organisation’s chance to provide clarity and practical knowledge to guide their performance. The location and nature of these training sessions can be adapted to your business setup. The goal is for them to be confident and reliable in doing their tasks because they know what is expected of them.
If your organisation has a remote or hybrid setup, you can host virtual training such as webinars or provide e-learning courses they can take at their own time and pace. Then, if you have a physical office or prefer in-person training, you can hold a seminar or workshop in a conference room.
3. Encourage Workshops and Focus Groups
To cultivate employee engagement and camaraderie, encourage managers to schedule workshops and focus groups where teams can freely share and discuss diverse perspectives on leadership. These can be in the form of debates, brainstorming sessions, or simulations of scenarios that require leadership intervention. By creating a safe space to voice their opinions, you’re harnessing your employees’ communication skills while testing their ability to discern and innovate.
4. Establish a Mentorship Programme
Establishing a mentorship programme involves providing employees with coaching sessions that allow them to hone specific leadership skills. The programme can be tailored to suit the needs of the specific department and team, as well as their schedules.
The mentorship programme can include one-on-one leadership sessions where mentees learn how to handle leadership challenges or through coaching supervision where coaches observe how mentees respond to new leadership responsibilities and provide constructive feedback.
We suggest you assign mentees to learn from mentors who excel in the areas they need to improve. For instance, someone who lacks discernment in high-stress situations can take notes from ICF-mentor coaches with expertise in conflict resolution.
At Kompass Consultancy, we help organisations gain great mentors by providing a Coaching Skills Certificate programme for employees in leadership or management roles. By equipping them with coaching knowledge and techniques, they’ll be able to lead by example, drive business growth, and boost morale within their respective teams or departments.
5. Provide Timely Feedback
Feedback, whether positive or constructive, is necessary for professional growth. Feedback from managers will reinforce the existing skillset of employees and/ or identify leadership skills they can improve on. Moreover, feedback strengthens communication lines within the organisation while sharpening the ability to delegate and become reliable.
Managers or team leads need to clearly communicate task instructions, check in with their team’s progress, and provide timely feedback to team members. This process allows managers to address task issues promptly and minimise errors while team members can adjust their approach to the task and feel supported to succeed.
6. Foster a Culture of Trust and Independence
Fostering a culture of trust and independence in the workplace fortifies the team lead’s coaching skills and improves the team members’ reliability. Managers must avoid micromanaging so that employees have opportunities for growth and development. Instead of dictating what and how employees should perform their tasks, we encourage managers to instil confidence and accountability in their team’s capabilities to deliver great work.
Managers or team leaders can assess each team member’s current workload and find ways to challenge them with stretch assignments. As a result, employees adopt a leadership mindset that makes them more accountable and proactive in problem-solving.
7. Connect Employees to a Shared Goal
Team huddles are vital to ensuring that the task or project objectives are met. Team leads or managers must be able to establish goals, break them down into smaller tasks, and delegate workload.
With everyone in the team aware of the overall goal, managers can motivate people to become efficient and inspire team members to take initiative. Moreover, everyone is being trained to have more empathy for one another as they go beyond what is expected of them to help struggling team members and contribute to the shared goal.
Final Thoughts on How to Develop Leadership Skills in the Workplace
Effective leaders can be developed when their organisation invests in their professional growth and nurtures their leadership skills. Every leader has their fair share of humble beginnings. With this in mind, we encourage management to pay attention to their team members so that they can spot and unlock leadership potential. By ingraining leadership skills in every employee, organisations give rise to better team collaboration. With every employee inspired to be a leader at work, organisations also secure a pipeline of future leaders.
At Kompass Consultancy, we provide coaching education programmes in partnership with the AoEC, which are accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ICF). Our faculty of industry-renowned coaches is dedicated to enhancing leadership performance and career excellence. To match your unique organisational needs, we devise customised coaching plans. Book a discovery call today, and we’ll be happy to hear from you and help you develop leaders.
