The Secret to Keeping Your Best People Around

Let me be brutallyhonest with you, if your team’s success hinges on you being involved in everysingle detail and decision, it’s simply not a team effort. You’re not workingwith and through your team; you’re simply using individuals on your team to dotasks that you don’t want to do. This doesn’t require trust, it doesn’t requirecreativity on the part of others, it doesn’t require a team.

As a leader, it’s crucial that you realize thateffectively equippingand empowering others is critical to the success of your team (and your organization).Effective leadership depends on the success of your team.

A true team is creative, diverse in perspectives, interdependent, innovative, and high achieving.

Creating this kind of effective team requires us as leaders to embrace equipping and empowering others. Here’s the reality: micromanaging others kills creativity, innovation, motivation, and trust. When you equip and empower others to succeed, there’s no need for micromanaging.

Effectivelyequip and empower

Equippingand empowering others requires that as the leader, you make sure to provideeverything that the individuals on your team need in order to succeed at theirjob. This means making sure they have all the resources, skills, training, andsupport they need to do their job effectively.

Here’s thehonest truth: when you don’t do this, you’re essentially saying to your teammembers, “I know I say I want you to succeed and that I value you as a teammember, but honestly, your job isn’t really that important and you, well,you’re dispensable.”

I cannottell you how many times I hear from people that they don’t have what they needin order to do their jobs well. And shortly after I hear this from them, theystart looking for a new job. People want to be successful at their work!

When decidinghow to equip and empower your team members, there are several ways you canintentionally support them.

DevelopmentPlans

A crucial element for developing others is to create individualized development plans for them.  Just like you have your own development plan, helping others create one for themselves is one of the best things you can do to effectively equip and empower your team. Ideally, this plan will include the necessary assessment, challenge and support (ACS) for each one to reach their fullest potential.[2]

If youdon’t have the capacity to create a development plan for each person on yourteam, outsource it if you need to. The development of others is CRITICAL forretention. Research shows that the lack of development opportunities is the #2reason people look for a new job![4]

StretchingAssignments

In orderfor people to increase their capacities, stretching assignments can be the bestway to encourage this. Stretching, or challenging, assignments help peopledevelop skills and capacities they haven’t needed before. [5,7]  It will be challenging for them for sure, butwith the right amount of encouragement and support along the way, they’llcontinue to maximize their potential under your leadership. So, use theirdevelopment plans and determine the best kind of stretching assignments toequip and empower them for continued growth and success.

CelebrationTime

And lastly,it’s so important to celebrate people’s efforts and achievements regularly.While you may take the approach “why should I celebrate them when they aredoing their job,” you cannot underestimate the power of celebration andappreciation. Even if people are doing a good job, and they know it, when theyknow their leader sees them and sees their efforts and appreciates them, thisgoes a long way in motivating them, supporting them, and retaining them for thelong haul.[3]

Just thinkabout it for a minute: how long would you give someone 40 hours or more of yourtime each week without being appreciated by them?  If we’re honest, most of us would not stay forlong. So, find ways to regularly celebrate and appreciate your team in waysthat are meaningful to them.

People don’ttake a new position with the desire to start looking for another new one in a matterof months. So, if you’re ready to keep your best people, equipping andempowering them to succeed every time will go a long way in doing so!

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1. Heffernan, M. (2012 June). Dare to disagree. TED Talks.Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_heffernan_dare_to_disagree
2. King,S. N. & Santana, L. C. (2010). Feedback-IntensivePrograms. In E. Van Velsor, C. D. McCauley, & M. N. Ruderman (Eds.) Handbook for leadership development (3^rded.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons (pp. 97-123).
3. Kouzes,J.M. & Posner, B.Z. (2012). TheLeadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations,5^th ed. San Francisco: The Leadership Challenge.
4. Losey,M. R. (2005). Anticipating change: Will there be a labor shortage? In M. Losey,S. Meisinger, & D. Ulrich (Eds.), TheFuture of human resource management: 64 thought leaders explore the critical HRissues of today and tomorrow (pp. 23-37). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &Sons.
5. Pollitt, D. (2005).Leadership succession planning "affects commercial success". HumanResource Management International Digest, 13(1), 36-38. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.library.regent.edu/docview/214907455?accountid=13479.
6. Schein,E. H. (2010), Organizational culture andleadership, 4^th ed., Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
7. Yip,J. & Wilson, M. S. (2010). Learningfrom experience. In E. Van Velsor, C. D. McCauley, & M. N. Ruderman(Eds.) Handbook for leadershipdevelopment (3^rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons(pp. 63-95).