Before the Title: HR's Role in Growing Leadership Capacity
Author: Kanwaljit Chaudhry
We often begin developing leaders after we have given them something to lead. Someone is promoted into their first supervisory role. They join a leadership development program, receive coaching, attend workshops, or are paired with a mentor. All of these can be valuable. But by then, leadership development has already been happening.
Long before the title arrives, people are learning how to exercise judgment, influence others, navigate disagreement, take responsibility and make decisions when the answer is not obvious.
The question for HR is: Do we have to wait for the title to help those capabilities grow?
Create opportunities, not just programs
Some of the most valuable leadership development happens through work itself. A stretch assignment. Leading a small project. Presenting an idea to senior colleagues. Coordinating people who do not report to you. Navigating competing priorities. Being trusted to make a decision rather than simply carrying one out. None requires a management title.
HR can help organizations look at development as not only as courses people attend, but as experiences people need. That may mean encouraging managers to distribute meaningful opportunities rather than repeatedly turning to the person who is already proven. It may mean designing project work so different employees have opportunities to lead. It may mean making mentoring, coaching or job-shadowing available before someone enters a formal leadership pipeline.
The objective is not to make everyone a manager. It is to give more people opportunities to build capabilities that will serve them whether or not formal leadership is their eventual destination.
Make room to learn from experience
Experience alone does not necessarily create development. Two people can go through similar experiences and take very different things from them. What often makes the difference is the opportunity to reflect: What worked? What didn't? What did I notice about myself? What would I do differently next time? HR can help make those conversations part of development rather than leaving them to chance.
A manager checking in after a difficult project can ask more than, “Did we deliver?” A mentor can help someone examine why a conversation went differently than expected. A performance discussion can explore not only what someone accomplished, but how they influenced others, exercised judgment or responded when things became uncertain. These are relatively small interventions. But they help turn experience into learning.
Notice leadership before it becomes obvious
There is another role for HR: helping organizations broaden what they notice. Potential does not always announce itself loudly. The person who volunteers to coordinate a complicated piece of work may be demonstrating leadership capacity. So might the employee who brings people together when a team is stuck, asks the question no one else is asking, helps a colleague succeed without needing credit, or remains thoughtful when everyone else is rushing toward an answer.
If we look for leadership potential only among those who already resemble our current leaders, we may keep finding the same kinds of people. Creating broader opportunities allows capability to become visible before we decide who has it.
Pay attention to what the organization teaches
Organizations are also developing future leaders when they are not deliberately trying to. Employees notice who gets promoted. They notice what behaviour gets rewarded, whose ideas receive attention and what happens when someone makes a mistake. They notice whether managers share information or protect it, whether difficult conversations are avoided or handled respectfully, and whether asking for help is treated as good judgment or weakness. These observations become lessons about what leadership looks like here. HR influences many of the systems through which those lessons are reinforced e.g., performance management, recognition, development, succession planning and promotion among them.
That makes an important question worth asking: What are our people learning about leadership from the way our organization actually works?
The answer may tell us as much about our leadership pipeline as any competency framework.
Before the title
Leadership development does not have to begin with a leadership program. It can begin when someone is trusted with something slightly beyond what they have done before and supported while they figure it out. It can happen when a manager shares the reasoning behind a difficult decision rather than only communicating the outcome. It can happen when someone gets to lead a project before they have people reporting to them. And it can happen when an employee has someone who helps them make sense of an experience rather than simply move on to the next task.
HR cannot manufacture leaders. But HR can help create workplaces where people have opportunities to practise judgment, responsibility, influence and reflection long before a title makes those things part of their job description.
Perhaps the question is not only “Who are our future leaders?” It is also: “What are we doing today that gives future leadership capacity a chance to emerge?”
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post belong solely to the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of CPHR Alberta.
