Step 4: Coach Them

Nurturing benefits everyone. Who would not be more secure and motivated when his leaders believe in him, encourages him, share with him and trusts him. People are more productive when nurtured. Even more important, nurturing creates a strong emotional and professional foundation for workers who have leadership potential. The nurturing process involves more than just encouragement. It also includes modelling. In fact, the leader’s major responsibility in the nurturing process is modelling… leadership, a strong work ethic, responsibility, character, openness, consistence, communication and belief in people. Here are the things a leader must do to nurture the potential leaders around them.

Coaching Process

Build Trust

Trust is the single most important factor in building personal and professional relationships. Trust must be built day-by-day. It calls for consistency. People will not follow a leader they do not trust. It is the leader’s responsibility to actively develop trust in him from the people around him. Trust is built on:

Time – Take time to listen and give feedback on performance.

Respect – Give the potential leader respect and he will return it with trust.

Unconditional positive regard – Show acceptance of the person.

Sensitivity – Anticipate the feelings and needs of the potential leader.

Touch – Give encouragement.

Once people trust their leader as a person, they become able to trust this leadership.

Offer Time

People cannot be nurtured from a distance, or by infrequent, short spurts of attention. They need you to spend time with them, planned time, not just a few words on the way to a meeting. We live in a fast-paced, demanding world, and time is a difficult thing to give. It is a leader’s most valuable commodity. Peter Drucker wrote, “Nothing else, perhaps distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care if time.” Time is valuable, but time spent with a potential leader is an investment.

When you give of yourself, it benefits you, the organisation and the receiver. Nurturing leaders must maintain a giving attitude.

Believe in People

When you believe in people, you motivate and release their potential. People can sense intuitively when a person really believes in them. Anyone can see people as they are. It takes a leader to see what they can become, encourages them to grow in that direction and believes that they will do it. People always grow toward a leader’s expectations, not this criticism and examination. You can hire people to work for you, but you must win their hearts by believing in them to have them work with you.

Give Encouragement

Too many leaders expect their people to encourage themselves. Most people require outside encouragement to propel them forward. It is vital to their growth. New leaders need to be encouraged. When they arrive in a new situation, they encounter many changes and undergo may changes themselves. Encouragement helps them reach their potential; it empowers them by giving them energy to continue when they make mistakes.

Use lots of positive reinforcement with your people. Praise a person every time you see improvement. Personalise your encouragement. Remember, what motivates one person may leave another cold, or even irritated. Find out what works for each of your people and use it.

Exhibit Consistency

Consistency is a crucial part of nurturing potential leaders, just as it is in any other kind of nurturing. When you are consistent, your people learn to trust you. They will be able to grow and develop be because they know what you expect from them. They become secure because they know what your response to them will be, regardless of circumstances. When you believe in the potential leaders and consistently support and encourage them, it will give them the added strength they need to hang in there and perform well.

Hold Hope High

Hope is one of the greatest gifts a leader can give to those around them. Its power should never be underestimated. It takes a great leader to give hope to people when they can’t find it within themselves. People will continue working, struggling and trying if they have hope. Hope lifts morale. It improves self-image. It re-energises people. It raises their expectations. It is the leader’s job to hold hope high, to instil it in the people he leads. Our people will have hope only if we give it to them. Maintaining hope comes from seeing the potential in every situation and staying positive despite circumstances.

Add Significance

No one wants to spend time doing work that is unimportant. People want to do work that matters. It is the leader’s job to add significance to the lives of the people he leads. One of the ways is to make them a part of something worthwhile. Every leader must ask himself, “Do I want survival, success, or significance?” The best leaders desire significance and disburse their time and energy in pursuit of their dreams. Acting on your dreams adds significance to your life. To add significance to the lives of the people you lead is to show them the big picture and let them know how they contribute to it.

Provide Security

Norman Cousins said, “People are never more insecure than when they become obsessed with their fears at the expense of their dreams.” People who focus on their fears do not grow. They become paralysed. Leaders can provide followers with an environment of security in which they can grow and develop. A potential leader who feels secure is more likely to take risks, try to excel, break new grounds and succeed. Great leaders make their follower feel bigger than they are. Soon the followers begin to think, act and produce bigger than they are. Finally, they become what they think they are.

Reward Production

People rise to our level of expectations. They try to give us what we reward. If you want your people to produce, then you must reward production. People found their reward not in money, but in the personal recognition of their production. That is what gives significance and leads a person to give his personal best. Even a person who is industrious and hardworking will finally get demoralised if production is discoursed rather than rewarded. We must give positive acknowledgment and encouragement to the producers and we must be careful not to reward the idle. Take a hard look at your organisation. What are you rewarding?

Establish A Support System

Develop a support system for employees. Nothing hurts morale more than asking people to do something and not given them resources to accomplish it. Every potential leader needs support in five areas:

• Emotional support
• Skills training
• Money
• Equipment
• Personnel

Provide the people needed to get the job done. Create a support system for all the people around you. Increase it, or any individual, only as he grows and becomes successful.