Why aren’t people stepping up to do what’s needed around here?
This question or variations of it - more often quietly yelled inside a senior leader’s head than actually asked out loud - is both more common and important than most people realize.
There are two main factors that affect how our people “step up”: how they are individually equipped and how the team and culture indirectly influences that individual person to take action.
I’ll tackle ways we can best equip people individually below and will save how we as leaders can shift the team and culture for our next blog post.
Why can’t people just do what we need them to do?!?
Recently I heard this frustration expressed at a multi-day offsite with the senior leadership team of one of our clients. The CEO was trying to spark a response in his team, to get them to react, figure out what was wrong, and then go fix it.
While this CEO was absolutely correct that there was a problem with people not taking initiative and doing what’s needed, this presenting problem wasn’t the real problem.
The real problem was that people, especially the leaders reporting to the senior leadership team in the room, haven’t been equipped to lead others well. In this case, that’s understanding how to go beyond what they need personally to instead “step up” with courage to meet the needs of the business.
On the surface, it could look like a lack of personal motivation.
Based on my experience, it’s more likely an inability within those leaders due to lack of development support.
What usually happens in leadership development…unfortunately
In most organizations, people advance by being productive in a certain expertise or function. High performers are then offered work lead duties where they help organize work with the help of others doing that same work. If they continue performing well, the next step is often a player-coach position, where they keep doing the things they’re great at and get more authority to direct others. And then supervisor, manager, and eventually a leadership position.
Unfortunately, these same people are rarely provided support to develop their people- and leadership-development skills as they advance. Kouzes and Posner, the authors of The Leadership Challenge and The Truth About Leadership, found that on average people in leadership positions get their first formal development support after they have been in a leadership role for ten years. 10 years!
That’s a lot of missed opportunities.
What actually works to help people develop as leaders
The best organizations start with a mix of challenging assignments and roles, layer on mentoring and coaching support, and then support leaders-in-development with formal courses and training. A common rule of thumb is 70% challenging work, 20% mentoring, and 10% formal development.
In addition, these organizations make sure the formal development courses have lots of practical application of the new perspectives, ideas, and understanding being learned while the courses are underway. The leader-in-development connects with their supervisor to understand how best to try out new practices within the framework of the mission and values of the organization. And together they use feedback loops to adjust both the results and the learnings to get the best outcomes for all involved.
When leaders have practiced the skills needed to step up, to take responsibility, to engage others in both quick-fix and long-term solutions, and to ensure communications flow both ways as they work through challenges, the entire organization benefits.
So what’s next for you?
If leadership development is strong and going well in your organization, congratulations! You’re ahead of the curve. If instead you believe an exploration of what’s working, what’s not working yet, and what could be better in your leadership development would be useful, we’d be honored to have an open conversation about what you’d like to do next. Set up your call by using this form here.
PS. On Thursday, December 12th, we’re hosting a free, interactive webinar “Dealing with the Leadership Development Dilemma: What You and Your Organization Really Need.” We’ll talk about what’s working across different organizations and crowdsource ideas and actionable tools for effective professional development. Register here.
