Intentional leaders desire to inspire, influence and grow the talent in the organization. It can begin by just dedicating part of each work day to focusing on people. Even 10 or 15 minute conversations have the potential to drive and energize talent. Remember that we always say, “Every conversation is not a coaching conversation, but every conversation uses your coaching skills.” David Rock offers components of conversations that include the following that all say “you matter” and “you add value.”

• Career growth (and goals)
• Contributions (made)
• Collaborations (having impact)
• Innovation (strategies and moves)

Providing coaching, leading training and modeling are hallmarks of a great leader. Often there is a fear of being vulnerable or even feeling insecure, which are stumbling blocks. Cori Hill says in her research that, “Power messes up our ability to learn.” Leaders set the example of learning, which sometimes requires the admission, “I don’t know.”

Hill has these strategies for leaders who want to create a culture of talent development:

1. Act as a role model. Be transparent about your own need to learn and develop and share how you’re able to do it. Embrace vulnerability: leaders are never more powerful than when they are shown to be learning.
2. Reinforce the value of learning. Go beyond the baseline conversation about goals. Ask about what they want to accomplish and what they feel their gaps are. When someone completes an assignment, celebrate both the outcome and the learning, especially if the assignment wasn’t completed as smoothly as everyone would’ve liked.
3. Build sustainable processes to support development. Leaders should be expected to coach and develop their people. At a minimum, everyone knows what areas they need to improve, and for those with particularly high potential, career tracks are developed that give them a sense of where they can go inside the organization.
4. Reinforce shared values. Employees should be able to link their everyday tasks and responsibilities to the values, goals and mission in the organization. People need to understand why what they do is important.
5. Leverage problems as opportunities for real world learning and development. What’s an acceptable failure needs to be clarified and that way, by incorporating stretch assignments, employees can seek out challenges where they can develop without feeling like mistakes will set them back in their career or jeopardize their job. Learning organizations see problems as opportunities.

What if our favorite question to ask is, “What have you learned recently that is impacting your work?” When the entire organization sees itself as a learning organization the results = high performance for all. And that is what it is all about…being and doing our best!

• How do these ideas/strategies align with your own?
• What strategic plan are you wanting to put INTENTIONALLY in place to grow your talent?

Forbes Leadership; 2011, Ben Hansen contributor