Develop Leaders This Week

Why wait for the next conference or training event to equip up and coming leaders when you could train them this week.  There are some extremely valuable development opportunities taking place in your organization this week and you may not even realize it.  What may look to you like boring ordinary meetings or events are actually exciting development opportunities for others.  Evaluation meeting, planning meeting, team meeting, management meeting, project meeting, one on one meeting, performance review meeting, budget review meeting, staff meeting or a particular organizational event all hold development opportunities for potential leaders.  We must learn to use what seem like ordinary daily events in the life of our organization as teaching opportunities for those who have yet to be a part of these types of environments. 

For example, let’s say you have a management team of four people that meet every week to review organizational priorities, goals and progress.  It’s likely there will come a day when that team will no longer consist of those same four individuals.  At some point someone new will be promoted to a seat on the management team.  So on occasion invite high potential leaders to sit in on these meetings as a developmental opportunity.  But in most organizations no one steps inside a Management team (or any other team) meeting until they are inducted into that team.  By bringing young or potential leaders into these type of environments you’re allowing them to see how you run meetings, make decisions, establish goals and priorities, evaluate, interact as a team and a whole host of other important leadership concepts.

6 questions to help you make the most of the weekly learning opportunities in your organization:

1. What are the meetings and events on the schedule this week?
2. What are the potential learning opportunities at these meetings or events?
3. Who should be invited to observe one of these meetings or events this week?
4. What specifics do you want them to watch or listen for at the particular event you’re inviting them to?
5. How will the experience be debriefed to ensure maximum learning has taken place? 
6. Who will be responsible for carrying out this debrief?

Leadership Challenge:  Take 20 minutes at the start of next week to plan at least one development opportunity for one of your up and coming leaders.