5 Tips for Leadership Looking To Encourage Employee Growth

Image Source: Pixabay

You want your employees to always be growing — in their roles, within their personal lives, and toward the company’s goals for the future. Consistent growth in your employees can result in great things for your business, including more productivity, innovation, and loyal customers.

Unfortunately, many company leaders stifle employee development. Many don’t have the resources to make it happen. Others don’t want employees to leave. Some just don’t care. And their businesses are paying the price.

Be a leader that encourages employee growth by following these practical tips.

Connect With Employees in Clear and Transparent Ways

Inspiring growth in your employees first requires you to get to know them personally. Knowing who they are at their core will help you develop personalized development plans for each employee, something so vital for growth.

You can start building these relationships with transparent interdepartmental communication. Be honest and open in every interaction with your employees. Do more listening than talking.

Also, ensure employees connect with each other clearly and transparently. The closer they are to one another, the better they work together. And as they work together, you can discover untapped talents and additional avenues for growth.

Moreover, better communication in the workplace and a closer connection with your employees make understanding and accommodating their needs easier.

For example, people with neurodivergent traits have a range of neurological differences that show themselves in various ways. Diagnoses like autism, Tourette’s, and dyslexia fall under this category. Because neurological differences can affect language, cognitive, and motor skills, as well as sensory experiences, it’s essential to consider their unique needs to facilitate growth.

Whether it’s training, education, or a job-related responsibility, you must create accessible and individualized tools to meet the needs of your employees adequately. Without them, they won’t be set up to excel, hurting their confidence, self-esteem, and, ultimately, their growth.

Assess Your Leadership Style

Every leader has a particular style. They manage, communicate, and work with their employees in a certain way, whether intentionally or not. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having a particular leadership style. But, the mistake many leaders make is not adapting to the team they oversee.

Using a leadership style your employees don’t resonate with almost guarantees slow growth. This is because you play an integral part in their morphing into “them 2.0.” So, if you’re constantly at odds with your employees and making them feel inadequate, it will affect how they elevate.

It’s wise to assess your leadership style as you learn more about and make deeper connections with your employees. Consider the feedback they’ve given you and what you’ve heard from those above you. Then, be honest about whether the way you lead is helping or hurting employee development.

If you’re hurting, it’s time to make some changes. Research other leadership styles that can potentially work better for your team. Once you’ve landed on the one you want to adopt, slowly but surely change your leadership behaviors.

Adopt the Right Mindset

Employee growth won’t happen without the right mindset. Your thoughts influence your behavior. So, you want to ensure your employees have a positive, growth-oriented attitude, so their actions prompt evolution.

A mastery mindset is an excellent choice for any leader looking to encourage employee growth. A mastery mindset is rooted in believing wholeheartedly you can do something and allowing that belief to prompt action and influence how you think and feel.

If you instill self-confidence and belief in your employees, you can inspire a mastery mindset. Always give them props when they do something great. And spend even more time uplifting them when they’re lacking. This will help them keep striving, thus prompting growth. 

Facilitate Professional Development

A lot of growth happens in professional development settings. Employees can advance their skill sets, increase their knowledge, build beneficial relationships, and grow traits like confidence.

Facilitating professional development should be on your to-do list. Map out uptraining, cross-training, educational, and other professional growth opportunities your employees would enjoy and appreciate.

Be sure that you properly compensate employees who take advantage of these opportunities and give them time off to complete them. That way, they can focus entirely on their chosen opportunities and evolve. 

In addition, you can facilitate professional development through mentorship programs.

Create Mentorship Programs

Your employees can absolutely take steps toward growth on their own. But many of them will need someone to hold their hand through the development journey to reach each stage seamlessly.

Mentorship programs can offer your employees precisely that, someone to guide them through critical periods of growth. You’d be spreading yourself thin if you tried to take every employee under your wing.

So, consider creating one or multiple mentorship programs for your employees. Talk with other leaders, owners, and even employees to see if they’d be interested in mentoring interested workers. 

Your mentorship could be as informal as allowing employees to shadow someone in a position they’re pining for. Or it could be a formal mentorship program where your employees go through a signup process, match with a mentor, commit to a schedule, and work through different tasks with their mentor.

Conclusion

As a business leader, you should take pride in helping your employees grow. Continuous development breeds confident, productive employees dedicated to taking your business to the next level. The tips above can help you encourage employee growth rather than suppress it.  

About the Author: Luke Smith is a writer and researcher turned blogger. Since finishing college he is trying his hand at being a freelance writer. He enjoys writing on a variety of topics but technology and business topics are his favorite. When he isn't writing you can find him traveling, hiking, or gaming.