How to Foster Leadership Growth in Your Organization

The current competitive environment in which businesses are running requires them the ability to efficiently strategize and scale their main activities in order to survive in a complex market scenario. In this context, businesses must rely on capable leaders who can contribute to the overall progress of companies and organizations. As leaders are not born ready for such a huge challenge, leadership is a skill that can be developed and constantly supported by any business.

In this article we take a look at the importance of leadership in businesses and how you can foster leadership growth in your organization.

Leadership in businesses

The term “leadership” has been used in the past to often designate a person with years of experience in a strategic role of a business, like for example, a veteran manager or even an experienced supervisor of a team of less-experienced team members.

Despite still existing today, such an image and concept behind leadership in businesses has changed and currently encompasses many examples that are not necessarily attributed to years of practice or age.

In a broad view, being a leader consists in influencing and motivating team workers in order to help them to be their best version and thus enhance team´s results. A good leader is usually recognized as a leading example, that is, the leader is considered as a reference in his/her area of expertise and carries out working duties with excellence and protagonism. In addition to the technical performance, a leader has well-developed interpersonal skills which leads to admiration and team recognition. All these characteristics together make a reference leader a person who manages to maintain the motivation and tea’s productivity.

In this sense, anyone in a team can and should develop a leadership mindset and associated actions which do not depend on any type of working title or role.  

Nowadays, businesses that take leadership seriously, aim at supporting the growth of capable leaders in all levels, in order to not fall behind in their markets.

Promote leadership growth in your organization

To foster leadership growth in a business, it is necessary to cultivate leadership by observing some important aspects, as follows:

1. Identify long-term goals

To specify the leadership roles and requirements, businesses need to identify which are their goals in the long run. This is preferably carried out with the help of reliable data, so that it is important firstly to define Key Process Indicators (KPIs) related to all teams and departments. Next, it is possible to implement a leadership development plan to afford the definition of the required leaders in the business, thus minimizing guesswork and being more assertive.

2. Support rewards

Rewards and recognition of team members are important aspects that contribute to identifying and maintaining business leaders. Additionally, it helps validate if the person you are trying to transform into a leader also has the required profile and desire to follow this path.

3. Stimulate business purpose

This means to connect the work of team members directly to the main purpose of the organization. By doing so, it is possible to show the value that a team’s work has on the success of the business. Additionally, it helps create a mutual sense of engagement which leads to higher commitment and stimulates leadership growth.

Fostering leadership growth with Kanban

The Kanban method is a powerful tool to foster leadership growth in organizations. This can be achieved by understanding and employing one of its main principles which refers to the encouragement of acts of leadership at all levels in a business.

These acts of leadership may be derived, for example, from recommendations based on observations by team members aiming at practices of constant improvement. This means that everyone in a team can and should want to improve. Changes are not just restricted to the team manager. The entire organizational hierarchy must have this mindset and to implement improvements in daily activities which in turn affords leadership.

Another important aspect required by the Kanban method which also allows leadership growth is to follow evolutionary changes rather than revolutionary changes. Evolutionary change is achieved incrementally through insights gained by team members by taking acts of leadership during their daily work.

In order to obtain leadership growth through the Kanban method, it is also important that the organization promotes a favorable environment for change. It makes no sense in encouraging team members to improve if they are stopped when trying to improve something new. In order to have small changes, there needs to be a reward for small acts of improvement.

Benefits of promoting leadership

Encouraging leadership growth throughout your team members’ careers is crucial for the working team to obtain valuable opportunities to grow and, at the same time, for your business to stay competitive in a dynamic market.

Therefore, by promoting leadership in your organization, not only a winning culture for the entire team is achieved but also your team members can benefit from professional development which also leads to better commitment of the team and a positive environment to business growth.