#55 The Most Simple Yet Effective Tool to Turn Your Team Into Superstars

The 360 Leadhership Podcast, Episode 55, 11 January 2023 by Lucy Gernon

Are your current career development conversations with your team helping or hindering them?

During the year, as a leader, you need to have performance conversations with your team and set goals for the quarter or year ahead. It is your job to develop your team, yet so many leaders are not sure how to have effective development conversations.

This conversation needs to delve deep into what your employee wants from their role, as well as discussing actionable steps on how to get there. This conversation might also include feedback for you as a leader on how you can improve on supporting your employees to reach that goal.

It is important to not only talk about things they can improve on, but also discuss where their strengths lie and what they are excelling in. This can give them reassurance and confidence which will help project them to where they want to be with the help and support of their leader and team. Sometimes, work is so busy that we forget to praise and thank our employees for doing a great job as it is easier to focus on what is going wrong than right.

In order to do this, leaders need tools to be able to coach their team through these conversations and have the ability to pull out answers from their employees. Are they happy where they are right now? Where do they want to be? How exactly can you help them get there?

If you’re in a development conversation with your team member, it should feel very different to the usual business conversation or one to ones to touch base on business objectives and business updates. I recommend your  development one to one’s  should be a monthly 30 minute conversation focused purely on your team members development. This is not the time to talk about business problems.

Sometimes, you’ve got so many business deliverables, that it’s easy to focus on all the tangible business goals like hitting certain KPIs and metrics and outputs. And sometimes when it comes to development, it definitely goes on the back burner for a lot of leaders (unless you work in HR).

Some leaders pick out their best people, and might spend a bit more time with them. But really, everyone on your team needs you. That’s your job.

So I want you to allow yourself the time and space to actually give to your team. Because one of the most rewarding things in the working world is spending some time with your team members, helping them grow and expand and seeing results – that’s when you know you’re doing something right.

But how do you develop your team effectively? Tune in and find out.

Here’s the episode at a glance:

[03:56] Your new favourite leadership tool explained and how to use it

[05:34] How to identify your employee’s goals to drive success

[08:43] How to help them identify strengths and foresee obstacles

[10:52] Powerful coaching questions to help your team member figure out the next steps

[13:11] How to hold your team member accountable and keep them motivated

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