Stop Doing It All: The Best Leaders Build Leaders Already On Their Team

Learning how to delegate and empower your team

Leadership is more than “being in charge” and making decisions.

(Good leaders already know this!)

It’s about serving your team, modeling desired behavior, and teaching your team to guide others to be leaders.

The mark of a truly successful leader is the ability to cultivate leadership qualities within their team. Creating a sustainable cycle of growth and development separates an excellent leader from an average leader—dare I say, a badass leader.

So in this blog, we uncover 6 ways to nurture future leaders and develop them from individuals already on your team.

1. Start With a Foundation of Strong Values

Leadership is rooted in values. Full Stop.

What are your convictions? How do you stick to your vision? What are your professional and personal priorities, and how do they affect your work?

One of the most foundational ways to develop leaders within your team is to embed a robust set of core values. By embedding, we mean living them, not just placing them on your walls.

What are some of ours? Integrity, accountability, empathy, and resilience. Now – share yours.

These values become the guiding principles for all actions and decisions. Regardless of your industry or service, these ideals must transcend race, age, gender, socioeconomic status, etc., and be threaded into authentic human relationships.

Model these behaviors (easier said than done—trust me!) and encourage your team members to exemplify these values consistently. Leadership by example is a powerful tool for teaching others to lead.

2. Foster a Culture of Mentorship

Mentorship, in this instance, can be tricky.

As someone who wants to impart good habits and better principles, sometimes it doesn’t matter how badly I want to do this if I don’t have an audience.

The “audience,” in this case, are the individuals who are looking at me: the team members I’m leading and the mentees I’m intentionally connecting with.

No one cares what you know until they know you care.

This maxim fosters a culture of mentorship. When I embody this, I have a much better chance of genuinely connecting with those around me.

But it doesn’t stop (or start) with me as the mentor!

I am the mentee of a few amazing individuals I admire.

While working at Medtronic, I reported to Jason Moore, a compassionate, honest, and fair leader. I greatly admired his ability to see the best in everyone.

I’ve had some amazing conversations with Bud Moeller, whom I met when he was inducted into the Georgia Tech Hall of Fame. He’s given me some tough but necessary advice that pushed me to become the leader I was meant to be.

As a former COO, I am grateful to consider my former boss and Florence Healthcare CEO, Ryan Jones, as a mentor. I admire his ability to build a company, his passion for people, and his willingness to advise me on my career.

I work to encourage others to seek mentors in all areas of their lives – spiritual, educational, executive, philanthropic, and relational.

The list could go on, but the truth remains: one of the key strategies when trying to foster a culture of mentorship is to seek a mentor (or two!) myself.

Developing future leaders is synonymous with creating a mentorship culture. I encourage you (and you encourage your current leaders) to take a genuine interest in your team members’ growth.

This can be through formal mentoring programs or more informal coaching sessions. The key is to make mentorship a relational and valued aspect of the leadership role.

3. Emphasize the Importance of Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is like wearing deodorant (“stick” with me!)

If you have it and use it, you know you have it. You know when you’re lacking; you know when you’re covered. You likely need to “re-apply” a self-awareness frequently, lest you start stinking up the place.

If you don’t use it, everyone else can tell. And if you don’t use it, you might think you don’t need it. Eventually, you’ll push people away with just your aura — no words or actions needed!

Although this isn’t a soap box about the moral of body odor etiquette, I think you can smell what I’m saying.

Self-awareness allows leaders to understand their strengths and weaknesses and manage their actions accordingly. This is powerful and sometimes overlooked.

A self-aware leader is more likely to be successful in developing other leaders. Good leaders can become great leaders by modeling self-awareness and intentionally addressing growth areas.

As individuals look up to us, it’s vital that we genuinely are introspective and vulnerable and encourage these ideals in others because we can then speak to our teammates at a human level.

A leader without self-awareness can be seriously repulsive, and working under one is the pits. (OK, puns done!)

Encourage ongoing self-reflection and provide tools like 360-degree feedback, which helps leaders understand how others perceive them. This understanding fosters better leadership development and a more thoughtful approach to nurturing others.

Self-awareness! It ain’t a Secret. (nor is it Old Spice!)

4. Provide Opportunities for Leadership Practice

The rubber meets the road with this one.

They must grow in experience to foster the next generation (or even the next iteration) of leaders.

Theory and advice can only go so far. To be leaders who build leaders, we must provide ample opportunities for our team members to practice leadership.

Be creative. Be thoughtful. Be intentional about how you provide experiences for your leaders to practice.

Relinquish control (if that’s a problem for you, then this is a great exercise), and give your team the grace and space to try.

Let them fail! Let them succeed! And remember: every failure is a step toward success.

Propose a coworker to lead an internal project, grant autonomy for someone heading a committee, or consider green-lighting an initiative for new small-team management.

But don’t just stand by and tap your foot. Be a good leader! Support your people. Encourage your coworkers. Mentor and train your teammates. Avoid micromanaging (remember how much we hated being micromanaged?).

These opportunities allow potential leaders to experience the challenges and rewards of leadership in a controlled, supportive environment.

5. Teach the Art of Feedback

One of my favorite parts of the feedback fiefdom isn’t in the “coulda-shoulda-woulda” part.

It’s asking questions and diving into the conversation that follows.

Now, why is that? What a great question!

Asking questions and holding a conversation as a style of feedback does a few different things:

Questions open up a discussion and avoid a monologue or lecture.

Questions let individuals explain their reasoning, decisions, and actions from a position of confidence — meaning they can choose how to answer without assumptions being made on their behalf. (And if there are assumptions, we can ask to clarify!)

Questions get us thinking. And I don’t know about you, but my favorite coworkers, leaders, mentors, and friends are the ones who think.

Questions do all of this — and more — and can provide an incredible, more profound level of feedback that might have otherwise been impossible.

Now flip it:

Can your team members ask us questions without us feeling attacked or getting defensive?

Are we fostering an environment for growth and exploration?

Do we act out of intentional thought? Or do we make decisions at a whim? (Is one better than the other? Asking for a friend.)

Are we open to feedback on what we’re good at and bad at?

If you are open to feedback, you can likely encourage this behavior in the leaders you are developing.

Teach your leaders to give constructive feedback and ask questions—to you, to others, and themselves!

Encourage feedback within your organization across multiple departments and levels. This open communication helps create a culture where continuous improvement is embraced by everyone, regardless of age, stage, or wage.

Feedback is an essential skill for any leader. So why not have it over a conversation with genuine questions and intentions? It’s a great way to build leaders and relationships with those already on our team.

6. Don’t Be Scared To Analyze Successes & Failures

Embracing the thoughtful practice of analyzing the why behind successes and failures is where we learn our lessons.

Everyone says, “You learn more from failure than from success,” but did you know we can learn a lot from both?

Why did that proposal get accepted so quickly?

Who on my team is crushing it – and why is that?

Where have we failed in the past in Q3 – and how can we better succeed like we typically do in Q4?

A good leader helps other leaders analyze successes and failures and often asks their teams to reflect on recent activities.

And with this one, we gotta practice what we preach.

We must do the same when teaching leaders to handle successes and failures gracefully.

Analyzing and celebrating successes publicly can boost morale and motivate future leaders, yet we leaders should take time to consider what we are doing well.

Is the team succeeding as it is currently set up? Am I adequately explaining and delivering company, team, and individual objectives?

Where am I winning? (HINT: That’s a very okay thing to ask!)

Where am I failing? (HINT: also an excellent question – if it leads to action and change and isn’t rooted in self-deprecation or doubt).

So don’t be scared to analyze your W’s and L’s. If you’re in a leadership position, your coworkers and colleagues look at how you navigate your successes and failures, so use your opportunity to lead by example.

And if you have the right culture within your organization, chances are you’ll be able to share your experiences and relay your thoughts, rationale, and philosophy to your future leaders.

Build Habits. Build Culture. Build Leaders.

Those six ideas get us thinking about how to be more intentional in using the role we’ve been given to help develop our emerging talent.

Building leaders who can build leaders is about creating an environment where leadership flourishes naturally, where good habits and good culture help mold great future leaders.

It requires a commitment to nurturing talent, encouraging growth, and valuing the principles of good leadership throughout the organization.

Focusing on these areas ensures our leaders succeed and inspire and develop the next generation.

And remember, this isn’t necessarily restricted to being a leadership strategy. It’s a growth strategy that can take your organization to new heights.

Got feedback? I have questions!

Which of these strategies resonates most with you?

What other concepts should we consider to grow the next generation?

How can we build new leaders who are already on our team further?

Are specific strategies better than others? Why or why not?

(And here I better stop, or else the questions will keeeeeeep comin 😉)