Who Is Training Your Team to Be Leaders?

Who is training your team to be leaders? Who is teaching them how to motivate others, to have effective conversations, to create powerful futures for the organization? If I were to ask many leaders this question I’ll bet I would get answers such as:

We have a training department.

We outsource that to consultants and coaches.

We don’t really train our leaders; we expect them to know how to lead.

Have you ever thought about where your team learns most of what a leader does or does not do? I have a real shocker here for you; they learn it from you! Yes, you, that person reading this blog, you, the person who shows them how to act in every conversation you have with them. Are you aware that they learn what leadership is in your organization by the behaviors of the leaders above them? If you were not aware of that, let me challenge you to start looking at yourself. Here are, among other things, what your employees or team members are learning from their leaders:

How your organization treats learning:

Do you teach them to be open to not knowing, to asking questions, and then are you finding the teachable moments in each situation?

Or…do you teach them that to be successful you always have to have an answer, even if means the wrong answer, and pushing off mistakes?

The power of moods and emotions:

Are they learning to tap the power of ambition, joy, and wonder, creating an organization that is fulfilling its highest potential, and growing everyday?

Or…are they learning to let resignation and resentment rule the day, creating frustration and mediocrity for the organization?

How to treat one another:

Do you teach them that each person is a valuable member of the team, each with unique skills and talents that are leveraged to the success of the organization?

Or…do you teach that only certain employees are key players and they alone are the ones to make decisions and contribute the success of the organization?

Do you want to create an organization of high performing individuals and teams ? If you do you might want to take a good hard look at who is training your team. If that person has not mastered the skills necessary to train their team, maybe it is time you started training the trainer.