John Eades* says leaders should never be afraid of coaching their team to be the best versions of themselves — even if it means they might end up moving on.
When it comes to someone developing into the best version of themselves, we’ve been tricked into believing a common myth.
It’s the idea that people develop into this version of themselves on their own.
We have all thought this or even tried it.
If you just read enough, practice enough or watch enough, your growth and development will take of itself.
There is one big problem with this idea: You are only going to be able to take yourself so far on your own, and it’s not going to be the best version of yourself.
This is where leadership comes in. At the core of leadership is helping someone to become the best version of themselves and excel.
There are many reasons leaders stop short of helping their team members excel; one of the most common is the fear of losing top talent.
Recently, one of the most important people in my professional journey left the company.
It was a mutual decision to allow her to take a great position and challenge herself in a new organisation.
While it will be hard not having her on the team, it’s the right thing to do for her.
If you take nothing else away from this article, please remember this: Losing talented people is a challenging part of leadership, but it’s also the purpose of it.
When you look at exceptional leaders, it is not uncommon to see their most talented people often taking a similar path with an upward trajectory.
So how do you help your people become the best version of themselves and excel?
Here are four tips to keep in mind.
You can’t do it for them
You have to start with the mindset that you can’t do the work required to become the best version of themselves for them.
In a recent episode of the Follow My Lead Podcast with Chief Executive of The Siegfried Group, Rob Siegfried, he shed light on this exact subject.
“The transformation process has to come from you. Leaders can help someone transform themselves (with development opportunities), but we can’t transform for them.”
Create opportunities for development
If you settle for the same opportunities, output or effort people give on a day in, day out basis; there won’t be much growth happening.
It would help if you challenged people with development opportunities.
There is a big sign in my gym with a quote that reflects the importance of this: ‘If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you’.
Development opportunities come in many forms, such as industry events, distributing books, sharing blogs, bringing in a speaker, and many others.
Instead of getting caught up in how you do this for your team, the key is that you are doing it.
Build a love tough and thick skin culture
Last year, I went to Kansas City to help develop managers’ leadership skills at Amsted Rail.
Part of the day included a tour of the facility and learning the process of building steel train wheels from start to finish.
They use extreme heat to mould the steel into circular wheels.
Without the heat, the wheels would never become the best version of themselves, and I have found that this process can apply to future leaders as well.
To become the best version of yourself often takes some heat, such as ‘love tough’ and ‘having thick skin’.
The best leaders recognise this, and they make sharing the truth in a constructive way a big part of their culture.
The danger of this kind of approach is if the people you are trying to develop don’t know you care about them, you risk your tough love having the opposite effect.
So keep in mind the wise words of one of my mentors: “Rules without relationship leads to rebellion.”
Be an uber-coach
One way a leader separates themselves from being a manager is the mindset they take to coaching others.
In our Coaching for Excellence workshops, I teach leaders to embrace the mindset of an ‘uber-coach’.
Leaders must be willing and able to coach team members anyplace and anytime when needed or required.
If you are going to help your people become the best version of themselves, you must coach them like crazy.
While outside professional or executive coaches can provide tremendous perspective, they can’t coach daily.
If you lead a team, it’s your responsibility to make coaching your people a top priority.
Doing these things as a leader will not work on 100 per cent of the people you pour into.
It will work on the individual who has come to a point in their journey where they cannot move forward anymore without the help of someone else.
That is when your efforts will propel them into becoming the very best version of themselves, allowing them to move onwards and upwards to bigger and better things.
*John Eades is the Chief Executive of LearnLoft a leadership development company. He is also the host of the Follow My Lead podcast. He can be contacted at johneades.com.
This article first appeared on John’s LearnLoft blog.
