Leadership Lessons from Everyday Heroes

How to Foster Leadership Potential in Your Organisation

Recruiting senior executives is a time-consuming and expensive process that is fraught with challenges. Yet why do so many organisations continually overlook the goldmine of leadership potential that already exists within their ranks?

You probably have many extraordinary employees with the drive and creativity to make a difference. The skill is spotting them and providing the right opportunities to enable their leadership potential to take off.

Everyday Heroes

Patty Lake is one of my everyday heroes, and she told me an inspiring story about discovering leadership potential. Patty is an example of a leader who can teach you almost as much about leadership as famous business writers.

Patty had a woman on her staff who had worked in payroll for over twenty-five years. In all that time, the woman had never received a promotion and had not received a pay rise in several years. In fact, she was the lowest paid person for her job grade in the entire company.

No one ever asked for her opinion or input, or offered her training and development opportunities. She never rocked the boat. She simply did her job without complaint, but had received the lowest performance rating short of termination for many years. Nothing indicated any presence of leadership potential.

Clean Slate

When Patty started at the company, her manager agreed to give every employee a clean slate. Patty would not review past performance assessments or listen to old gossip. Instead, she sat down with each member of staff to learn about them and what they did.

The woman from payroll was one of a few employees who expressed an interest in learning more about her area of the business and developing her skills and capabilities.

Patty took the woman at her word and arranged participation in the local American Payroll Association (APA) chapter. She took the basic payroll seminar offered by the national APA, took computer application classes, and attended the state-wide conference. Her leadership potential blossomed!

Hidden Talent

The women-led a team for a customer's special-needs project, which was a highly visible and delicate undertaking. The outcome was phenomenal. She and her entire team were recognised and rewarded by the customer for their successful handling of the work.

She took her leadership potential further and went on to lead end-user training on a newly implemented web-based time and attendance system, and regularly contributed many creative and useful ideas in team meetings. She also planned to take the Certified Payroll Professional exam.

She earned a significant pay rise and an incentive bonus when she received her performance review. She cried and told Patty that all she had ever needed was someone to believe in her.

Developing potential leaders

This simple story is an excellent example of how discovering and developing the leaders within your organisation can bring huge positive value. You may have many existing employees with leadership potential right now. It's up to you to find them.

How Can Training Help?

Leadership training is often limited to senior executives, which overlooks the value it can bring to your frontline leaders. Learn about the huge value of training the everyday heroes within your organisation.
Why your frontline leaders need leadership training

Contributed by Patricia Fripp.