6 Steps to Establish a Leader Development Program in Your Company

One challenge for startups is establishing the first middle management tier. That awkward time when senior leaders are no longer able to be involved in all the day to day with their team.

Establishing a leader development program early is critical. Often, the originals “OGs” will go from individual contributor to first time leader. Building a support structure early will help your organization scale much easier.

1. Establish Competencies

Select 4-6 traits that you believe encompass your organization's culture and expectation of leaders. An example might be:

Results
Team Development
Collaboration & Communication
Technical Competency

2. Set Expectations

This is a continuation of the above, breaking down individual qualities of each competency to tangible examples and specific traits.

Drop Box has a great example of competencies and expectations at for engineering managers at: https://dropbox.github.io/dbx-career-framework/m3_engineering_manager.html

3. Create Manager Onboarding

When a new manager comes on board or there is an internal promotion, provide some basic coursework to set them up for success. Tools like Loom are great because different contributors can quickly record key information for others to view at their convenience. Post on your portal, internal Notion site or learning management system. Some recommendations:

Outline Manager Expectations (CEO or senior leader)
1:1s
Benefits
HR Support Functions
Performance Review Process & Promotion
Performance Improvement Process
Onboarding Process
Hiring Process & Interview Best Practice

4. Schedule Leader Development Sessions

Create an outline for the year, with detailed planning into the next quarter. This can help you pinpoint when you will host your all-hands meeting and provide enough time to plan logistics. Micro-planning the next quarter helps you sequence out topics and assign people to present topics. Leverage the whole team to assist with teaching, coaching, mentoring.

5. Host Formal and Informal Leader Development Sessions

This can take many forms including: Leader All Hands Events (preferably in person) - fosters collaboration, shared experiences, and provides time for dedicated focus to leader development. It also syncs the team. These are typically good for 90 days before they need to be redone in some way to keep momentum. Lunch and Learns or Coffees - dedicated time for leaders to come together and discuss topics (Delivery, New Tech Stack, New Company System, Leadership Soft Skills) Ask Me Anything Sessions - give managers time to submit topics/questions for answers

Lack of prep is what causes these to fall off the calendar. Don't be afraid to do "off the cuff" talks with your team. Keep a running list of topics and just go ad-hoc through them. Sometimes it's fine to just have a converstaion and pull some things up to talk through. Something is better than nothing!

6. Continually Drive the Conversation (Use All Mediums)

Email & Engagement (Slack, In Person, Virtual Drop-Ins to Team Stand Ups with a Focused Message) - people emulate leaders and success. What you talk about and engage with your subordinates drives the conversations at echelon.

What does this look like?

Sharing leadership articles, technical articles with your thoughts, or organizational goals and feedback will not only show where your priorities are, it informs the organization. It will alsol spur conversation at echelon. Great reads get forwarded throughout the teams and create shared understanding.

Closing Thoughts - It's a Long Game

Leadership development is a multi-faceted long game. While executing these steps well takes time, tackling one challenge of each area now will get momentum to iterate and grow as your company progresses.

Product/market fit, feature roll outs, sales, and other KPIs are great but if developing your people isn't one of the major priorities in the organization, it will fall by the wayside. The leadership team sets the tempo and example.

Next Steps

What's next?...Integrate these components into your OKRs and company priorities. Get them on your initiatives tracker. You'll be amazed at what happens.