I’ve never met a Leader who will verbally come out and say that they want their team members to fail. That would be like shooting yourself in the foot.

Yet, leaders put their team members in positions to fail every single day.

It’s not intentional. Most of the time they don’t even know they’re doing it.

But leaders are stripping power away from their people to get the job done.

You can change this. You can make it so that the people in your Organization can succeed and thrive.

It’s easier than most leaders think. So, what does it take to empower your people to succeed?

5 Ways To Empower People On Your Team To Succeed

1. Create individualized development plans:

Your employees can struggle to succeed because they don’t know what to do next. Previously, I’ve found myself wondering what was next for me in an organization. I didn’t have the leadership above me to give me insights on where I needed to grow or what I needed to do. It felt like I was floundering.

I think back and would have loved to have a personalized development plan. This plan would have helped me to see the opportunities in the organization, what I could do to grow myself to fit into those roles, and have a person to help coach me along the way.

An individualized development plan is a significant help on your people’s pathway to success.

2. Provide mentorship opportunities:

Not every organization can offer this for everyone but every organization can provide at least a few mentorship opportunities. Your top-level executives have a vast amount of knowledge and, more importantly, influence.

Imagine if you leveraged this correctly. You have your top-level executives schedule in 15-20 minutes of time every week or every other week to sit down and share their wisdom with a team member. 

You’re now pouring into the success of your people from the best of the best of your organization. Yes, it will take away from some of their important activities, but there’s no activity more important than developing the success of your people.

3. Hand over the reins:

It can be challenging for a leader to hand over the reins of responsibility to others, but it has to be done. Your time is valuable. There’s only one of you, but there are multiple people on your team. Each one has a unique skill set that can do things you cannot do.

Hand over the reins of projects that are outside the scope of your knowledge or that you don’t have the time to do. You can expose your team to skills, talents, and passions they didn’t know they had. 

Handing over the reins doesn’t mean you’re giving up. It means that you see an opportunity for your people to shine.

4. Help them become autonomous:

In relation to #3, you need to help your people become autonomous. Successful people don’t check in with someone on every decision. Rather, they make a decision and live with the consequences.

You do this with your team by giving them the power to be autonomous. Give them a particular area of the business to be over. They don’t have to ask someone every time they need to make a decision. Instead, you allow them to run with their choice. 

There’s a caveat. These team members, while autonomous, are responsible for the results. 

5. Remove barriers to their success:

Last, but certainly not least, is that great leaders remove barriers to the success of their people. It’s probably been a long time since you were in a direct report position. You’ve likely forgotten the barriers you overcame to get to where you are today.

Talk to your people. Hear what they’re saying are challenges. Then, find ways to remove those barriers.

It may be as simple as upgrading outdated equipment, providing a new CRM software, or allowing remote work.