Creating Future Leaders

Each day presents you with opportunities to develop the leadership capabilities of those around you.

You just have to be willing to hold up a mirror.

Let’s say that you participated in a group decision meeting that was called by one of your direct reports.

> During the meeting, some dissenting views from the other meeting participants emerged.

> Things got heated toward the end, and the meeting ended without a clear resolution.

EXERCISE

Say something like: “As you know, I’m very interested in helping you develop as a leader. I’d love to use that last meeting to explore a few things together. Would you be up for that?”

Thinking | “When the dissenting views started to emerge, walk me through what was going on in your mind.”

Feeling | “On a scale of 1-10, how frustrated were you? How did this show up in your interactions?”

Behavior | “I really liked how you chose to pull up the TPS report toward the end of the meeting. What were you trying to accomplish when you did that?”

Opportunities | “With the benefit of hindsight, is there anything you would have done differently or even better?”

By holding up a mirror, you can use real-world context as a launch point for your aspiring leader’s heightened self-awareness and skill development.