Don’t Just Promise Development—Deliver It
Do you have a core belief about your work that you’re willing to shout from the rooftops? Mine is that promising development opportunities to ambitious and talented employees but failing to deliver on those promises is one of the fastest ways to erode the trust that is integral to the leader-follower relationship. Equally damaging is providing growth opportunities without clearly and explicitly identifying them as such to the individual you’re developing.
Authentic Leadership Meets Employee Ambition
In my last article I talked about the importance of authenticity in action, especially for leaders. Leading with authenticity requires acknowledging that many of your direct reports may be just as ambitious as you are–if not more so. At the same time, not everyone aspires to climb the traditional corporate ladder. Many valuable employees prefer deepening expertise in their current role rather than navigating the politics of higher leadership. Some of these individuals may be interested in different types of leadership opportunities like a cross-functional one that allows them to fully own and direct a specific process at your organization.
Regardless of which group your employees fall into, every single employee deserves a meaningful development path.
Beyond Traditional Development Tracks
Creating multiple career tracks (no easy feat in its own right!) is just the beginning. The real impact comes from empowering individuals to co-author the story of their development journey.
Ask powerful questions like:
“What interests you?”
“What work gets you excited?”
“What do you find most challenging about x project?”
These conversations surface opportunities for growth that traditional top-down L&D programs tend to miss. They allow your employees to tap into their domain expertise for unique perspectives on the future of their field, often revealing not only more relevant learning paths but also potential to keep your team and your organization on the cutting edge of innovation.
Aligning Individual Growth with Business Needs
After discovering an employee’s interests, connect them to organizational and team priorities:
How might their interests benefit the team or department?
What business goals align with their development wishes?
What’s the impact of not developing this talent?
Is retention at risk without appropriate growth opportunities?
From there, support can take many forms–stretch opportunities, certifications, workshops, conferences, online learning subscriptions, or mentorship connections within your organization. An effective and tailored L&D plan for an employee should have some combination of the above–though don’t limit yourself to just the types of support I’ve listed here.
The Hidden Costs of Misaligned Ambition
An insecure or inexperienced manager might see the ambition of their direct reports as threatening. The real threat, however, comes when employee ambition isn’t aligned with team and organizational objectives and values. Misalignment creates multiple risks:
Top talent exits for better opportunities
Managers become viewed as obstacles rather than enablers
Disengagement spreads, affecting team-wide productivity and morale
Consistency Builds Trust
As I mentioned in my last article, people perceived as authentic by others demonstrate consistency–they do what they say, and they act with integrity. When managers repeatedly promise development without delivering effectively, or fail to frame things like stretch opportunities explicitly as development, they appear to be inauthentic and damage trust. Employees question whether their manager is truly invested in their success, and once they start questioning that it’s very hard to put that genie back in the bottle.
The One-Size-Fits-One Approach
Learning & Development can be a bridge to create trust between an organization and its employees, between leaders and their teams. But promotions alone aren’t development unless they include opportunities to hone and deepen existing expertise and build new skills and connections.
The most effective approach is personalized. Regular, open conversations between leaders and team members about career aspirations and interests allow both parties to align their goals. Remember: ambition is energy. Part of your job as a manager is to channel that energy in your employees to benefit both the business and the individual.