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Are You Playing a Role in Your Team's Professional Growth?

Are you regularly talking with those you supervise about their individual professional goals?

Too often these conversations are left for the once a year evaluation or they never happen, but that is a topic for another day. When was the last time you had a discussion with someone you supervise about their goals and aspirations? If you are not asking them, are you really serving as anything more than their supervisor?

Some managers do not see that as their responsibility, their job is to make sure that tasks get completed and goals get met. Others feel that if they help their staff gain more experience or additional skills that the person will just end up leaving. Some get worried that if they help their team take on new opportunities, they will not get their assigned tasks done. Unfortunately, there are also others who feel threatened that someone they supervise might know more, get an opportunity, or recognition that they desire.

There are hundreds of articles about employees leaving for a better manager not just a better job or more money. In sports, people often talk about coaching trees, which for those that do not know, is the lineage of a head coach, who has had several assistants, who learned from, were groomed by, and then went on to be a head coach themselves. Clearly these coaches talked with their assistants about their goals, showed them how to be successful, and then helped them find opportunities. I imagine that these type of leaders attract people to work with them because of how they work with those under their leadership.

Are we doing this with our team?

It was always sad to see a valuable team member leave, but I learned the hard way, to celebrate their success and opportunity. In a previous role, we were just starting to turn the corner and make some real progress after a challenging year and a half, when a key member of the team told me that they were talking a new job and were really excited. My first thought was about how this could impact our continued growth and the impact on our team, which clearly showed on my face. It was pretty clear how disappointed he was at my reaction. In that moment, I stopped being a mentor, friend, leader and turned into a supervisor whose main concern was how it impacted me and our efforts.

Thinking back on that interaction still bothers me to this day. A big part of being a leader is finding ways to help your team get better and help them achieve their own goals as well as the goals of the organization. Since then, a regular part of quarterly individual goals meetings is to ask my team members about their professional goals and aspirations and how I can help. For some team members that is a hard question to answer, but it is important for them to consider and also important for them to know that I care about their professional growth.

Are you acting like a mentor/leader or more like a supervisor?