I think that the key things to help people grow are (in order):
- Helping them find their Ikigai
- Empowering people
- Working on development goals (see below and Development goals)
1. Helping them find their Ikigai
One of the best things you can do to help people develop is help them to find a role where their strengths are fully leveraged.
2. Empowering people
Ask more from them, give them challenges they haven’t faced before, and get out of their way so that they can impress you.
3 . Working on Development goals
- Four steps (note that you get them to generate a lot of the ideas / do a lot of the work)
- Collaborate to set a goal
- Deadline, Behaviour, Quality
- Probably long deadline: otherwise just a feedback issue
- Collaborate to brainstorm resources
- Collaborate to create a plan
- Just the first few weeks, DBQ style
- The direct acts and reports on the plan
- Direct reports because that's easiest: they have info, they can do it quicker, their time less valuable
- See also Development goals, for the sort of plan that I think is most likely to succeed