“But if I get someone ready to take on my role, I’ll be let go”. I guess that’s just a risk we all face, whether we develop our people to eventually take over our role or not.
What could also happen, and one of the key factors of my success when I worked in hotels, is the fact that as your team steps into your role, you free yourself up for even bigger and better things.
“It’s so difficult to find the right talent”. “We had to let go or the last few new hires. They weren’t a good fit, they didn’t show loyalty to our business, it was hard to get them to commit to delivering our expectations, didn’t get along with other employees…” – these are just some of the comments that I consistently hear from businesses all over the world.
New generations in the workforce have different needs to the ones you once had when you started work. They want to do work that matters, they want to feel heard and valued, and they want to know that the company is going to invest in their career growth. In exchange of that, they will show up for you with a level of capacity we rarely had before, and loyalty to help you accomplish your business goals.
Rather than keeping the focus on attracting new talent, let me ask you, what are you doing to keep the talent you currently have? Most times, when I walk into companies, I am surprised at how much talent exists already. On many cases, many employees are operating at a much lower capacity than they’re able to, getting bored and eventually becoming disengaged, until they start looking for another role in a company that will give them that zest for meaning and achievement.
Don’t wait for that to happen. Start looking at your people in terms of their potential, not their current performance. Also, keep an eye out for your own replacement, and start grooming them now. I challenge you to acknowledge that pretty much every single one of your employees can be challenged and stretched beyond their current job description.
We are so quick to do what we’ve always done. Current times dictate different measures. Take time to pause, reflect, and consider who should be doing what, who should be doing more, and who should be sitting in a different desk, rather than doing it all yourself.
I realise you could always do it faster and better, by if you keep it up, your people will never know what they’re capable of, and worse, you’ll never understand what you are all capable of achieving when working together towards a common goal. Let me assure you, on many cases, your people will probably have newer, more innovative ideas that will help change the course of your business for the better – even better you could have done it yourself.
Let go of your insecurities. The measure of a great leader is not how highly it performs, but how high the leader’s followers are able to raise up. Keep this focus in the long-term, and the results will be powerful.
I can honestly say in my own personal experience, as well as having coached and mentored hundreds of Executives worldwide, that empowering and mentoring others has always resulted into career growth and freeing up time and space to take on new and exciting projects.
So, allow me to leave you with this question:
Who Will Replace You, and Is He or She Ready?
Please leave your comments below. I’d love to hear from you.
To your success.
Isabel
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