Who Are Your People Leaders?
I’m a naturally curious person and love asking friends, family, and even strangers, about their careers, passions and what they love to do. I’m always so inspired by those that have had unique journey’s and taken winding paths to get to where they are. Through a lot of these conversations recently, something that has come up with my peers that are in the middle of their careers is the topic of people leadership. Let’s be real, it’s not for everyone, but in most circumstances how do you grow within your company or even field, without becoming a people leader? This is something I’ve been thinking about for months and while I don’t necessarily have the answers, here are some ideas on how to solve for this.
Creating People Specific Leaders
As a business owner, think about creating a role to specifically lead the team. Maybe that’s a General Manager, or Chief of Staff. This role would specifically manage the day to day and big picture people management. They would partner with skill specific leaders who can act as mentors, on how each individual is performing on their work, and would be responsible for managing their performance. Their sole focus would be management. This would allow your skill specific leaders to do what they do best! It would free up time for them to be more innovative and focus on big picture initiatives. While they would provide mentorship to the team members, they would not be responsible for them.
Obviously this requires more headcount, but consider the possibilities of freeing up your skill specific leaders time to explore greater initiatives!
Allowing Leaders Dedicated Skill Focus Time
While the above wouldn’t work in every organization, what could you do for your leaders to allow them time to use their skills and passions? Try allowing each to have an afternoon per week to focus on their specific skills. Let’s say you have a Developer who is extremely talented and has worked their way up in your organization. Now they spend most of their time managing a team of developers and not getting the opportunity to utilize their skills. Encourage dedicated time per week for them to focus on innovation, and allow them to do the actual work. You would be surprised at the solutions and ideas that could come out of that!
Training Programs
Most places are really keen to develop their leaders' leadership skills, but what about the skills that got them to where they are? Encourage skill specific training, classes, workshops or conferences even as your employee expands in their career. There is always room for learning and growth, and while leadership training is super important, it’s also important to remember how they got to where they are and what their interests are. This allows your leaders to stay on top of the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in their field and helps them remain competitive and effective in their roles.
Empower and Delegate
There are so many reasons why empowering your team and delegating effectively are so important, not only for the leaders but for the team members themselves. Delegating tasks enables teams to be more scalable and adaptable to changing priorities and workload fluctuations. It allows leaders to distribute workload more evenly and respond quickly to shifting demands and priorities, and provides more time for them to focus on the big picture.Trust your team members to take ownership of their work and empower them to make decisions. This will build confidence and increase performance! By delegating tasks and projects according to each team member's strengths and skills you will free up your own time!
The path to professional growth shouldn't always have to lead to people leadership roles. The goal is to find innovative solutions that honor individuals' skills and passions while maximizing their impact within the organization. Whether it's creating specialized leadership roles, allowing dedicated skill focus time, investing in skill-specific training programs, or empowering and delegating effectively, there are numerous strategies to foster growth and development without necessitating a shift into a strict people leadership role. As we navigate our careers, let's remain open to exploring alternative paths that align with our strengths, passions, and aspirations. After all, true growth often lies in embracing the unexpected and charting our own unique journeys.
