Companies around the globe are working hard to develop a culture of learning and development because they understand that their future success lies in their ability to continuously improve the knowledge, skills, and abilities of their employees at all levels. Therefore, to meet this talent development challenge, a course of action for developing others can be instituted which emphasises the leader’s role as a facilitator and coach.  The process is known as Leader-Led Development (LLD).

LLD is an ongoing and dynamic series of job related interactions between a more senior-leader and a leadership development teammate designed to improve the teammate’s performance and increase his/her readiness for future leadership roles.

Research shows that roughly 90% of all learning and development occurs right where you find your people—in the workplace, on the job, based on what they are given to do.

70% is acquired through on-the-job activities like taking on a new task, solving a vexing problem, trying a new approach, applying new skills or competencies.

20% comes from working with one’s own leader, an executive coach, peer advisors, or role models.  The residual 10% includes classroom sessions, reading materials, on-line training, and self-study workbooks which will be used to supplement your workplace experiences.  As such, the Leader-Led Development (LLD) process Thomas Kayser and I advocate leans heavily on the job itself (the key 90%) and its array of interpersonal activities as the main forum for learning and development.

It is not a particularly difficult process to implement. But to have the necessary horsepower to make a difference, it must be made a high priority by the CEO, and managers at all levels and they need to be held accountable for carrying out the LLD process on a routine, timely basis with all their people.

In this case timely and routine translate into a single monthly of 45 minutes to 1 hour with each employee.

No Silver Bullet

Don’t look for ten steps toward being a perfect LLD coach because there is no generic method that will work for you and everyone else.  LLD coaching is an individualistic process.

Essentially LLD means asking each teammate who reports to you what they need from you in order to do their current job better and to increase their capacity to act.  Your teammate’s, with respect to LLD, are your customers! They will define what successful coaching is--not you.

Put in place a simple system or structure that allows you to sit down with each person, one-on-one, once a month to run through six simple questions:

(1) What am I doing well that is helping you be successful?

(2) What am I doing that you wish I was doing differently because it is hindering your effectiveness?

(3) Do you have enough of the right information needed to do your job?

(4) Are you satisfied with the degree of influence you have in decisions that affect your work?

(5) What new tasks or assignments do you aspire to where I can help prepare you for them?

(6) Am I available when needed to coach and counsel you regarding on-going or new projects/assignments?  Am I an asset to your personal growth and development?

This takes the responsibility for defining developmental success out of your hands and puts it where it belongs--with each of your teammates. Therefore you can never go wrong in making these questions the heart of your LLD session.  Of course, you can add to this core set of questions from time to time, but these six remain a part of every session.

Demonstrate That You Care

You did this initially with Step 2 of course; however, you need to reinforce it by doing it regularly so it is inherent in your style of leadership; it’s how you operate. LLD is not a one-shot deal.  It simply involves routinely sitting down with each person, once a month, and talking over what’s going on within the framework of the six questions.

LLD IS SERIOUS BUSINESS BECAUSE IT OFTEN MEANS CHANGE

Keep in mind, however, asking these six questions with any team member implies that you are interested in collaborating with that person to make changes wherever possible to improve identified problem areas in the current working relationship.

Be sure to document results from each session and create little action plans, with intervening touch-points, where a change is involved.

Therefore, don’t ask these questions with any teammate if you have no intention of forming a collaborative partnership with the person to make your mutual situation better.

With thanks to: Thomas Kayser is author of two new books: Building Team Power: How to Unleash the Collaborative Genius of Teams for Increased Engagement, Productivity, and Results, McGraw-Hill, 2011 (from which this article was excerpted); and, Mining Group Gold: How to Cash in on the Collaborative Brain Power of a Team for Innovation and Results, McGraw-Hill, 2011.  Contact Tom at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it