Everyday Development

Improving engagement and building both trust and a sense of purpose at work are central goals for many organizations today. And they’re central to developmental leadership, a new paradigm for leadership that Hudson Institute of Coaching CEO, Michael Hudson, lays out in his white paper, Rethinking Leadership. Developmental leadership is an approach that fosters development in everyday interactions, across all levels of the organization. It encourages both leaders and the employees they manage to establish a mindset of, “What could I change—or what could we change together—to improve the way we’re working?”

Michael expanded on these ideas in a recent article for Forbes, where, we’re happy to announce, he has stepped into a new role as a regular contributor. In his first article, 3 Easy Opportunities for Employee Development That Help Managers Too, Michael explains a number of key tenets for fostering everyday development.

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1. Create a safe environment for sharing

Excellent managers create environments where it’s safe to share—-especially in times of uncertainty. In another Forbes piece, Michael contrasts the examples of Nokia when confronted with the rise of the iPhone, and Microsoft, which had stagnated after 42 years in business. Where Nokia executives hid from an uncertain future, Microsoft’s Satya Nadell fostered a “learn-it-all” rather than a “know-it-all” environment. 

“Questions were valued over answers,” Michael writes, “treating every day as a new opportunity to experiment and learn, and most importantly, creating psychological safety for honest dialogue.”

Doing so requires the capacity to think clearly amid ambiguity, holding and managing difficult emotions without being overwhelmed. For leaders, this means resisting the urge to substitute familiar and rigid processes for engagement and to create psychological safety for difficult truths.

Then the job becomes helping guide employees to their own learning rather than jumping in to solve problems for them. 

In this way, managers become sounding boards, offering a caring ear, while also showing employees they believe in their own ability to problem-solve. 

Bain’s Manny Maceda agrees with this approach, writing in a recent MIT Sloan: Management Review article that leaders shouldn’t delegate the work of reinforcing culture.

“People processes are most effective when they heavily involve leaders who embody the desired culture,” he writes.

More on creating a safe environment for sharing:

• McKinsey on modeling vulnerability to build trust and growth mindset
• HBR on a sneaky threat to psychological safety – the nickname
• A LinkedIn post from Michael Hudson on how psychological safety is often misinterpreted

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2. Make learning part of the flow of everyday work 

Michael also discusses the importance of not saving feedback for reviews, but instead using regular, encouraging feedback sessions as an opportunity for micro-development, with check-ins where the manager simply asks questions and offers support. “What can I do to help support you in that?”

Even something as simple as an employee expressing confusion or frustration should prompt an interesting conversation that centers on incremental growth, prompting honest, non-judgmental reflection and supporting the person to discover what they can change.

Wendy Tan and Joo-Seng Tan discuss the central role of reflection, or meta-learning, to developing continuous learners in an October article for the MIT Sloan Management Review.

“The ability to reflect on one’s own learning process goes beyond learning techniques like mind mapping or heuristics; it’s about refining the way we approach growth. Meta-learning is the ability to stand back and think about what we want to learn, how to learn, the strengths and gaps in our learning process, and how to improve our learning.”

Reflection often happens unconsciously, but managers can guide and accelerate the process by making it explicit. The authors suggest offering opportunities for learning, asking specific questions to spark reflection, having the employee identify when and where they can use these new ideas, and helping them determine from whom and how they can solicit feedback. 

In an interview on the podcast, McKinsey Talks Talent, talent expert, Brooke Weddle, says:

“People view the role of the manager as important not just for evaluations but also for delivering feedback and helping employees act on that feedback in a way that informs a development journey.”

In a recent Future of Work survey, 85% of organizations indicated getting back into the office at least three days a week a top priority. But as Workforce Innovation board member, Neil Murray, says in an interview with Business Insider, there is no one amenity that will lure employees back into the office so much as other people, and in particular, leaders.

“What people crave is proximity to leadership for personal development,” he says.

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3. Make support a team effort

Michael also suggests taking advantage of group settings to brainstorm around an issue with which an individual may be challenged. New points of view bring insight and spark creativity, helping to generate enthusiasm, energy, and fresh ideas. For the people offering ideas, it can help shine a new perspective on their own challenges.  Managers benefit from brainstorming efforts too, as they make decisions while taking employee perspectives into account. 

As Shawn Cole writes in Smartbrief, it’s important to involve your team in decisions. 

“This people-first approach shows that leadership isn’t about having all the answers but about collaboration and learning from different perspectives. It can also develop leaders in the workplace, as it gives team members the confidence to voice their opinions and contribute to the broader mission.” More on scaling group coaching is available in our recent webinar, and in our recap here.

Taken together, these techniques benefit the employee, the culture, the wider organization, and manager, too. This is critical at a time when support for managers is severely lacking and manager burnout is surging, as Fortune reports. Employees like to feel believed in—and believing in them takes some of the responsibility of ensuring high performance off of the manager’s plate.

More on making support a team effort:

• McKinsey on creating healthy, innovative, and transformational teams
• Insead on using containment and group coaching to improve team dynamics

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Why Everyday Development?

Taken together, these techniques benefit the employee, the culture, the wider organization, and manager, too. This is critical at a time when support for managers is severely lacking and manager burnout is surging, as Fortune reports. (Michael’s most recent piece for Forbes explores short and long term techniques managers can use to help their team members address burnout.) Employees like to feel believed in—and believing in them takes some of the responsibility of ensuring high performance off of the manager’s plate.

We recently gathered leaders from across the coaching and people development world to discuss what they see in everyday development, and how they support everyday development in their work. Register here to watch the webinar and read through our recap here.

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