Your Final Destination

Harry Kissinger once said, “If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.” 

When you set out to go on a vacation, to a conference or to visit family out of town, you always start with the destination.  Your start with where you will end up.  From there you can begin working on the logistics of travel, mode of transportation, cost, accommodations, activities to do or sites to explore while there.  But until you determine, first, where you are going, all those other items don’t matter.

So it is true with leadership development.  Unless we have a destination, an understanding of what we, our team, or our organization should look like, as leaders, we really can’t plan effectively or strategically how to get there.

As an organization, the first step is to determine what a Description of a Developed Employee (DDE) looks like.  This is essentially your workforce “branding.”  Start off with the statement, “when people encounter or interact with one of our employees, we want that individual to experience ____________ and leave the interaction feeling ________________.” With that at your foundation, you can begin recruiting new employees with those qualities and help develop those qualities in your current employees.

But it doesn’t stop there.  The next step is to describe what a Description of a Developed Leader (DDL) looks like.  Think beyond middle management and think C-Suite level.  This is where your final “destination” comes into account.  If an employee started out in your organization and worked themselves up through the “ranks,” what qualities and skills would this leader emulate.  It helps to be very specific when laying out your DDL.

Now that you know where you are starting from, DDE, and you have determined where you are going, DDL, you can finally begin the development strategy and plan. 

Reach out to learn more about how MaxQ Leaders can help you develop strategic and well planned leadership development paths.