Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Feeling challenged at work is an vital part of growth, motivation, and engagement. People need to feel like they are becoming a better a version of themselves if they are to do their best, want to keep working for you, and realise their potential.

In this article we talk about how we unlock the potential of people - through the angle of challenge, nurturing, and support.

“Who They Could Be”

The first step is crossing over to a Leaders’ mindset. While regular managers may pay close attention to who they have in front of them, what they are capable of doing right now. Leaders need to look at the people in front of them and see who they could become.

It’s an immensely powerful feeling to have a leader who sees more in you, than you do yourself.

Look at who people can develop into, if they are given the right development, equipped with the right tools, exposed to the right situations, and nurtured and supported along the way. It is then a your job as a leader to provide them with these conditions to realise their potential.

Let’s look at these conditions.

Challenged

As a leader, pay attention to if your people have been doing the same tasks for a little too long. Like a kid playing with the same toy over and over again, your people get bored. After the first few times of the same tasks, they’ve figured it out, and the same task just does engage them the same way it did. Well, of course not, they’ve outgrown it!

Here’s 3 different kinds of tasks you can give someone to make them feel challenged:

1. Increase difficulty: the easiest intervention of the bunch, give them something slightly harder to do. If they are used to fulfilling steps A to D of a process, consider throwing steps “E” and “F” into the mix.

2. Increasing responsibility: Giving them more autonomy, more decision making power, or more authority in regards to the task. Try to give them tasks that start to prepare them for the next level of your organisation.

3. New context: The same task in a different context can sometimes feel almost like an entirely new task.

Developed

Being challenged is one thing, but are you equipping your people with the capability to handle more challenge?

There are multiple ways to improve, yes, engaging in increasingly challenging tasks helps us push ourselves, but there are few replacements for actually picking up new skills and knowledge.

When it comes to development, think about these 3 parts:

1. Skills & Knowledge: Are you equipping your people with the skills and knowledge necessary for the next level of the organisation?

Why the next level? They should already be prepared for the job they’re currently doing. Develop for beyond, remember - the person who they could be?

2. Experiences: Are you exposing your people to new and higher level experiences? Expose them to higher-level conversations and meetings, they don’t have to necessarily contribute, but allowing them to observe and engage in bigger picture thinking serves to expand their perspectives and understanding.

Nurtured

Here’s the softer, but extremely vital, side of it all. People need to feel like they are being nurtured, like there is a person there who is invested in their growth, and they have a relationship with that person.

Sure, its well and good to push people, give them harder stuff to do, send them for courses and help them learn stuff. But nothing beats having someone who cares about your growth, and supports you through it.

Thinking back to school days, and remember that one teacher who was a little more nurturing than the rest of them. It makes a massive difference.

When making someone feel nurtured, turn to these 3 actions:

1. Teach: not to be confused with micromanage, teach them what you know when it comes to practical skills on work and how to navigate career.

2. Mentor: support their overall growth, personally and professionally. Share your experiences, lessons, failures in service of guidance and growth

3. Support: be a source of emotional support for them. Be there for them through challenging times, failures, and shortcomings, and help them move through them with a positive and productive mindset. Let them know it’s okay to fail, and be a source of strength and support for them to improve through each failure.

Wrapping It Up

Remember, the person in front of you can become so much more - if you want to help them get there. At the same time, if you wanted them to stay the same you can be a leader who clips wings too. It’s a great responsibility, to have the ability to affect someone’s potential.

Help them fulfill their potential. Or better yet, help them fulfill potential that they didn’t even know they had. Pay attention to who they could be!

Paying attention to “who they could be” is an key part of how we help leaders connect and engage their people.

Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you:

Explore My Relationship Accelerator program for leaders:

→ If you’re still struggling to unlock the potential of your people and would like to make some meaningful change - our relationship accelerator program helps your leaders learn all they need to know about building effective relationships to drive success - in one day. Check it out here.

Or reach out at [email protected]