How to turn employees into leaders

Help them grow through experience

If your desire is to grow employees, you need to provide them with experiences that are outside their norm. Extra training in house or helping them pay for formal education can be good ways to help them grow, but you can also find small ways to give them more leadership duties that will help them get used to managing people and tasks.

Make them solve their own problems

Often your employees will come to you for help, and it may be best to not give it to them right away. Sometimes you can actually help an employee grow by giving them a chance to figure out how to solve their own problems. You can point them down the right path, but by letting them stay in control, you’ll help them learn how to figure out what they need and how to get it.

Make sure they have a mentor

The best way to learn about leadership is from a leader. As you’re giving an employee more management type tasks and responsibilities, there is no doubt that they’ll hit roadblocks from time to time. Make sure they have someone (whether it’s you or someone else) they can go to for advice when they need it. Even if there’s nothing specific they’re dealing with at the time, it can be helpful to receive words of wisdom from someone who’s more experienced than they are.

Teach the importance of networking

Networking not only produces valuable contacts, which can produce new ideas and knowledge, but will also teach your employees people skills that they will use every single day. If your employee becomes a great networker, this will benefit not only the employee, but the company as well.

Show trust

One way you can teach an employee that you trust them, is by instilling an ownership mentality. Do this by letting them make decisions on their own without having to run every little thing by you. Once they realize you trust them, they’ll begin to feel confident as leaders and will start to believe in their own decisions.

John Pettit

John Pettit

John Pettit is the Managing Editor for CUInsight.com. Through news, community, press, jobs and events, he keeps credit unions digitally informed throughout the day. Web: www.cuinsight.com Details