Welcome to Friday 411, issue #125. In 4 minutes, with 1 insight and 1 action, you’ll make yourself promotable by developing the leaders around you.
1 Insight:
If you want to multiply your impact as a leader, don’t just do the work—develop other leaders who can do the work with you and beyond you.
We spoke with a leader, Andrew, who recently spent most of his career in corporate before launching his own company. Over the years, he was consistently promoted into roles with more responsibility, influence, challenges, and pay. We asked him: What made you stand out?
Andrew’s answer was simple yet powerful:
“I always raised up other leaders, including a person who would take my job. Everyone on my team knew how to do a variety of my responsibilities. So when they needed me for a new role, I already had a replacement.”
If you lead leaders but are not actively developing them, you’re setting yourself and your team up for problems. Let’s talk about why that matters and how to fix it.
The High Cost of Not Developing Leaders
When you don’t develop the leaders around you, everyone pays the price. Here are just a few of the catastrophic effects we’ve seen:
- Bottlenecks build up.
If you’re the only one who can make certain decisions or solve key problems, progress slows. Or stops. Your team becomes dependent on you instead of empowered by you.
- Burnout skyrockets.
If you carry all the leadership weight, you’ll get exhausted. Your team will feel unclear and unsupported and burn out right along with you.
- People flee.
Top performers don’t want to sit around waiting for a chance to grow. If you don’t develop them, they’ll find someone who will.
And perhaps worst of all:
- You’ll miss your next opportunity.
If you’re the only person who can do your job, no one wants to promote you. If you were to move up, your role would become a vacuum someone would have to scramble to fill.
Be the kind of leader who makes it easy for others to promote.
Three Simple Ways to Develop Leaders Around You
You don’t need a fancy certification or a five-step performance model to start building leaders. You just need to be intentional. Here are three of the simplest ways to raise up the leaders around you:
1. Delegate Responsibility (Not Just Tasks).
Giving away tasks may save you a little time, but you have to keep pursuing people to assign them bit by bit.
Giving away responsibility develops leaders.
This is exactly what Andrew did. He gave away big pieces of his work.
But you can’t throw people into the deep end. They need structure. If you want to delegate leadership well, make sure you communicate:
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- What success looks like – What’s the goal or outcome they’re aiming for?
- How they’ll be measured – How will they (and you) know they’re doing well?
- How much authority they have – Can they make decisions without you? Or do they need permission before deciding?
- Where to go for support – How can they bring problems or questions to you without feeling like they’ve failed?
Delegation isn’t abdication. It’s preparation.
2. Share the Resources That Shaped You
Think about the leadership books, podcasts, and mentors that have made you better. Now ask yourself: Have I shared those with anyone else?
One of the best ways to shape someone’s leadership mindset is to let them in on the ideas that have shaped yours.
Here are some of our favorite books from last year.
Even better? Point them to the specific podcast episode, chapter, or quote that made the biggest impact on you.
We’re big believers in the power of leadership resources. That’s why later this year, we’re releasing our newest book: Unleashed Leadership: How to Solve the 7 Issues Holding You Back from Your Greatest Impact.
It’s the first in an eight-part series to help you and the leaders around you grow in Character, Competence, Capacity, Clarity, Community, Culture, and Consistency.
Keep an eye out—it’s the kind of book you’ll want to hand to your entire team.
3. Connect Them to a Community
Leadership is lonely.
Even if you have a team, you’re the one responsible for results.
You make decisions they may not understand. You carry burdens they’ll never see.
If you’re lonely, imagine how your developing leaders feel.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Every leader needs a place where they can be honest, ask questions, and get feedback from people who understand the weight of leadership.
That’s why we’re launching the Unleashed Leadership Community later this year. It’s a space where leaders from different companies and industries can connect, grow, and build each other up. If you’re leading leaders and want a place to sharpen your skills and theirs, this will be for you.
Stay tuned for more info!
You Can’t Afford Not to Develop Leaders
You don’t need to build a formal training program or lead an internal boot camp.
Raise up the people around you. It’s the most strategic thing you can do as a leader.
When your team grows, so do you.
1 Action:
Pick one leader you work with and delegate a meaningful responsibility to them this week—then walk with them through it. Don’t wait for a perfect moment. Start now.