Developing others is the skill of bringing the best out of others to enhance themselves and the organization. As a leader, how do you assess your leadership ability? Based on your own achievements and development or based on how many of your people got promoted to other divisions or to more responsible positions? What kind of work environment would that be? What would it do to your productivity if every employee knew that you had their future development in mind when assigning work, assessing criticism, or managing projects? Leaders who have the willingness of helping others to grow in tandem with themselves are confident enough in their own abilities. They recognize that helping others to achieve their goals is a win-win situation and it makes them feel connected to and invested in others, which in turn enhances a sense of belonging and teamwork.

How to develop others:

• Use coaching and mentoring: Classroom, online, books, coursework. One of the by-products of developing your people is that you gain satisfaction and stature as a result of their success. Who will you help today?
• Build a learner mentality: Encourage your people to think of themselves as professional learners as well as (job title). In meetings and one-on-ones, ask: What are you learning that is new or different?
• Get ongoing feedback from multiple sources: The key words here are ongoing and multiple. Ongoing: performance improves with the information that is provided as close to an event as possible. That way, the situation is still fresh and the details clear. Multiple sources: when I do 360s for clients, I always insist on feedback from people outside of the person's direct chain of command, even external customers if there is a lot of customer interaction. When someone is working across boundaries on a project, there's a wealth of information available about the ability to build relationships and influence outside of the power sphere.
• Give first-time tasks that progressively stretch people: No one grows from doing the same thing more and more.