Good leaders provide ongoing professional development to their team members, but you can go one step further: The BEST leaders empower their employees to lead their own development. Give them the resources and trust to pursue personal and professional growth, and you not only create better employees – you help them become better people.
What are you doing to really engage the people in your team?
Last week, I delivered a keynote presentation for one of my favourite clients. They have engaged me before, and this time, they asked me to deliver my “Fit for the Future” presentation to their employees. And the brief wasn’t about how to be fit for the future in the workplace, but for them as individuals to be fit for the future.
It’s a great group of people, and I like working with this client. But this time, I enjoyed it even more – for two reasons.
First, this company recognises the importance of having happy, contented, and satisfied employees, not only in their work but in their personal lives as well. They’re willing to invest money, time, and other resources for people to become better people, not just better employees.
Second, it wasn’t the senior leaders or managers who engaged me for this presentation; it was the employees themselves. This company encourages their team members and employees to create networks of their own around areas of common interest, and they provide resources for these networks to help them with professional development in those areas.
I like both of those things: the fact that the company values their employees and that they have empowered their employees to find the professional development that’s most valuable for them.
Especially now, when there’s a war for talent and many employers are wondering how to attract and keep the best people, this is one of the best things you can do. Empower your employees, and trust they will do the right thing by themselves and by the organisation.
If you’d like to know more about this, I’m running an online presentation very soon about the future of work. This idea about attracting the best people is one of the four pillars to the future of work. This presentation is free, public, and it’s open to everybody. So please register, and share the link with others in your network as well.
