Growing Future Leaders

“Great leaders create more leaders, not followers.” ~ Roy T. Bennett

If you want to move up and succeed in an organization, one of the best things you can do is grow other people into leaders.

Train your replacements, so that they can back-fill when you get promoted.

Find out what each of your people aspires to do professionally, and guide them to develop into the professional fulfillment and success that they want.

Empower your team members to take on more decision-making roles on your projects.

Trust your top performers with more responsibilities and authority. You will still be there in a mentoring role, but give them the ability to make decisions without running every little thing by you.

Set an expectation that everyone in the organization is expected to continue to grow as a competent professional throughout their careers.

Look to long-term needs of the firm and train people to fill roles that will become available through expansions, retirements, and increasing market-share, so that you can promote from within.

Build a “deep bench” of competence, and you can spend time away from the office (client site-visits, professional conferences, and even *gasp* vacations), and things will continue to run smoothly in your absence.

(quote source: https://quotations.nimblefoundation.org/2024/04/12/leadership-quotes-blog19/)
(image generated by Midjourney)