Helping leaders develop other leaders is a mindset that may formally start in a leadership development program, but it’s a process nurturedover time and nourished through an array of everyday behaviors. Collectively, these behaviors sustain a culture of leadership development that broadens the scope of leadership thinking beyond those who have been appointed and anointed. Such a culture of leadership development also engages and encourages followers to discover and deploy the leader in themselves. Consider the following ideas—on meeting rituals, artifacts, symbolism, and institutional memory—to propagate a robust leadership development culture rooted in mutual trust and shared values that are understood, applied, and acted upon.
MEETING RITUAL
- Open staff meetings on a regular basis with this same question: “What are you reading these days for your own personal enjoyment?” Then close each meeting with a reference to something you are reading for your own personal enjoyment that provides your staff an insight into your values, concerns, and interests.
- Rotate meeting leaders among your staff. The designated meeting leader sits in the “leader’s chair.” The titular leader participates as a member of the team. Prior to the meeting, the meeting leader consults with the titular leader, develops the agenda, assigns any prep work, and designs and promotes a meeting theme.
- The meeting leader conducts a Leadership Learning Minute, a 60-second concept, quote, or book reference on leadership thinking specially selected to foment the meeting theme.
ARTIFACTS
A manufacturing plant leader found a 12-inch, grass-skirted hula doll that wiggled her way onto the leadership development stage. All 700 production workers began to think and act like leaders more than ever before regardless if they had any direct reports or budget responsibilities. Collectively, they set out to accomplish an unprecedented goal, a goal so high all agreed they would have to “shoot for the moon” to attain it. The plant manufacturing leader prominently displayed the hula doll in his glass-enclosed office so everyone could see her shimmying when they walked by. Periodically he would squeeze the air pump on the hula doll and she would ever so discretely “shoot the moon” (bare her derriere). The visual humor paid off. The production plant completed an unprecedented 100 days of perfect shipments, on time and defect free.
SYMBOLISM
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a symbol is worth millions. One leader of a mentoring program gave away colorful electrical connectors, the cap-like piece of plastic that keeps wires in a lamp, for example, connected and empowered. Mentors were asked to carry the electrical connector in their pocket or purse for the duration of their mentoring commitment. Mentors then gave their mentees a similar electrical connector to carry on their person whenever theymet. The electrical connector symbolized their synergy in their mutual career development in particular and the organization’s capability in general.
INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY
- Honor yesterday’s founders. Rename conference rooms after founders or celebrated leaders in your industry. Share stories that illustrate specific leadership traits of the company founder such as the CEO who had command of a fleet garage of trucks as part of his billion-dollar company but wrote out a personal check when he asked his mechanics to change a flat tire on his personal vehicle.
- Celebrate today’s heroes. Publicly recognize and reward subject matter experts, mentors, and coaches.
- Champion tomorrow’s leaders. Spotlight and reward current exceptional first-line employees nominated by their peers.
Peter Jeff is the author of “Leadership Mints, 101 Bite-Sized Ideas to Freshen Your Bottom-Line Thinking” and the founder of the blog that spawned the book. For more information, visit LeadershipMints.com or contact him on Twitter @LeaderMintsGuy.