How can you balance driving results with supporting career development?

To balance results and career development: 1. Communicate Expectations: Clearly convey quality, quantity, and timeliness expectations. 2. Link Contributions: Help team members understand how their work aligns with the organization's goals. 3. Understand Aspirations: Know your team members' career goals, strengths, and areas for improvement. 4. Set Motivating Goals: Establish achievable and motivating objectives through open communication. Aligning expectations and goals fosters both performance and career growth.

Clear Communication: Share goals and expectations transparently. Collaborative Goal Setting: Involve employees in aligning goals with their career aspirations. Regular Feedback: Conduct timely reviews to track progress and offer guidance. Skill Development: Provide training for improved skills, linking to organizational needs. Recognition and Growth: Acknowledge achievements and provide opportunities for advancement. Adaptability: Adjust goals based on changing circumstances. Performance-Based Incentives: Design rewards tied to performance. Encourage Innovation: Foster an environment for innovative ideas. Career Guidance: Offer a clear career progression pathway. Engage Leadership: Ensure leadership involvement in employee development.

Driving for results and achieving individual development for team members requires a delicate balance and commitment from both the staff and line manager. Having regular conversations on Individual Development Plans/ Career goals is a key first step. Once there's alignment, both of them should commit to making it work and put systems in place to track progress based on plans shared. I ensure development of members of my team by placing them on stretch projects and assignments from time to time, coaching and mentoring. In a project setting however, the focus may be results but having debrief sessions to review learnings helps to ensure knowledge transfer.

I'd like to look at this from the angle of the age long conversation in organizational operations - ''The Leader vs Manager '' style of management. While both are important , I will tilt more towards having a 'Leader'' led style which seeks to achieve corporate objectives and also the personal objectives of the organizational goal ''drivers''. In achieving this model, there is concerted effort in identifying the personal/career goals of the team members and aligning this to the corporate goal - This leads to a Win - Win situation where every entity (individual or corporate) goes home happy and look forward to a happy ever after relationship ...

Balancing the pursuit of results with supporting career development begins with aligning expectations and goals effectively. This involves clearly defining job expectations, understanding employees' career aspirations, creating Individual Development Plans that bridge the gap between current roles and future goals, and regularly reviewing and adjusting goals. Recognition, training, leadership support, transparency, and feedback are key components of this balanced approach.

Coaching and feedback are essential for helping your team members grow and succeed. But it's important to be mindful of some common traps to avoid: Being too vague -When you give feedback, be specific and actionable. Focusing on the negative - It's important to give both positive and negative feedback. But if you focus too much on the negative, it can be discouraging and demoralizing. Not giving feedback promptly -Feedback is most effective when it's given soon after the event. Avoid waiting until a performance review to give feedback. Not being open to feedback - Coaching and feedback is a two-way street. Be open to receiving feedback from your team members as well.

Delivering coaching and feedback is crucial in maintaining a balance between team development and achieving desired outcomes. To foster growth, timely and specific feedback on performance and behaviour is crucial for an encouraging environment. Constructive feedback pinpoints areas for improvement while acknowledging strengths. Encouraging self-reflection and a commitment to excellence is crucial in any organization. Integrating coaching and feedback empowers teams to enhance performance, identify strengths and weaknesses, and align objectives with overarching goals. This fosters open communication, transparency, and mutual trust, nurturing growth. Embracing a coaching leadership style is crucial for ensuring a successful future.

Often people want to develop in areas that are not important to a company's strategic direction. I've seen this situation a lot in the consulting world. People want to attain certifications that look good on their resume. But the certifications are irrelevant to their current client work. People managers often have to play the role of 'company representative.' They must encourage growth but street people towards the kind of growth that helps the company the most.

Balancing driving results with supporting career development and encouraging learning involves providing opportunities for skill enhancement, cross-training, mentoring, and online learning. Recognizing and rewarding learning achievements, fostering a learning culture, and aligning performance evaluations with development goals are also key components of this balanced approach.

Career development lens should be wider! Often times we look at what is that one necessary skill that will help your team member succeed at his/her role within the organization. Adding a learning plan just to excel within that environment limits the long term career growth. Asking where the individual is headed is crucial to find out what learning to facilitate for them. This creates a vision for the individual and helps enable them to look at the bigger picture in life. As leaders, lets not just focus on the immediate but a sustainable career for our teams. This vested interest in their careers will organically balance higher performance with positive engagement.

Additionally, I will recommend including career development goals as part of their performance expectations. For instance, at my previous place of work, as a manager, 20% of my performance expectation was tied to developing my team and 15% was tied to developing myself. It is important to let your employees know that both business goals and career development goals are important for their growth and the organisation’s success. Let them also know what is it in for them. A clear career progression framework has the potential to motivate employees to develop themselves and work hard in preparation for their next role/job.