People use social skills to communicate and interact with others, both verbally and non-verbally. These are the key principles, to build a positive and healthy relationship with others.
In our journey through the social skills, we have already looked at our capacity to be visionary and the power of influence in our relationships. Therefore, it is now time discuss developing others.
However, before trying to develop other people, you must be able to develop yourself first. As a leader, you probably have heard these expressions countless “walk the talk”, “role model”, “be the example”. These are clichés but they explain the leadership role and the responsibility it carries.
READ MORE: The Human in HR: How Soft Skills Win the Marketplace
The truth is, as a leader people will mirror you even if you don't want them to. Therefore, it is crucial to be curious, open to learn and share new knowledge when it comes to development. Leaders should show the way, but also be humble to learn from others in the team.
In this concept of multi-dimensional development, different factors such as biological, cognitive, and socioemotional changes are interconnected and could influence individual development. These aspects are also considered when transforming the working environment, which influences employee’s wellbeing (mental, emotional, and physical).
Learning occurs in many ways and during a lifetime, but through different paths and models. In this sense, one of the key leadership goals is to foster and create an environment where team members could learn continuously and extract lessons learned from their mistakes.
Developing Yourself
To develop yourself, you must be self-aware, which is the art of going deep inside of yourself and be able to accurately self-assess. Identifying your strengths and improvement areas is the first step to go through this self-development process, which will happen when you have ownership and a high commitment to yourself.
This ownership and commitment to development will resonate with your own employees. As a leader, you will be more interested in their work, capable of understanding their development needs and acting to improve their performance.
Although self-development is an ongoing process that brings improvement, it is sometimes quite challenging and naturally, a difficult task. One of the reasons is because we tend to prioritize others rather than ourselves and because there is no “fixed” self to be developed. The fact is that behavior and social skills can change through time in response to different contexts and needs.
Additionally, people's perception of their competence often differs from their true level of competence. This variation happens, because people usually think about the difficulty of executing a task and not if they were able to complete it or not. There is a tendency to evaluate the effort, the time that we dedicated to executing the task rather than the performance, the value added and the result itself.
The dilemma is, if you are not aware or you do not recognize your own areas of improvement, you will not be able to accurately self-evaluate your performance. As a consequence, your team will also suffer due to the same circumstances.
Developing the Team
To promote team development, leaders should provide an environment of psychological safety, where people could feel safe to show weakness and ask for feedback. It requires openness and courage to ask and receive honest feedback from others and being able to review and develop new skills.
People should aim to have as a few blind spots as possible, and it is possible through constant feedback. In my experience, one of the best methods of ensuring ongoing honest feedback is by having frequent one-to-one sessions with your team focusing on continuous improvement actions. Within these sessions, it may help to ask these questions of your employee:
- What should you stop doing?
- What should you keep doing?
- What should you start doing?
There are ways to overcome barriers to development, strengthening your self-awareness and your self-confidence. Instead of trying to develop the competency gaps, you should focus on what your employee is good at.
A good way to teach your team members how to do it is through the steps below:
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Accept your expertise
Do not compare yourself to other professionals, compare your current self to your old self. It could help you to realize how far you have come and how much knowledge you have gained and developed along your journey. The aim should be to reach your best version and overcome your fears and insecurity.
Recall weaknesses
Make an accurate self-assessment about your own abilities. We all have areas where we are very strong and areas we need to improve on. Like a diary, make a list of your strengths and the areas you need further development, and act on them.
Stop focusing on perfection
It is important to take time to appreciate and feel proud of yourself. Learn to celebrate your achievements and victories. Why not implement a reward system for your success?
How Self-awareness Can Support This Process
Self-confidence is an ability and as such it can be practiced, trained, and developed. It is about persistence and repetition. To build self-confidence you need to go through a complete self-awareness process.
Finally, as a leader, you should see development as a lifetime process and reinforce a learning culture that can create multi-dimensional development opportunities. This approach creates a more holistic and humanized working environment, which stimulates learning and risk, promoting better results for the individual and organizations.
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