We need to coach, empower and encourage them to stretch their wings. But when a team member first takes flight, it’s important to provide a safe place to land.

It’s not always easy to take that first leap if one believes that it’s an all or nothing proposition — fly or crash. All or nothing options create so much stress for people that they are afraid to leap in the first place. Even acrobats need a safety net when they’re learning, so give your people the same confidence. Encourage them to fly but let them know that (at first anyway) they have a safe place to land.

You may be encouraging team members to:

  • Take on more responsibility;
  • Make decisions on their own;
  • Lead a project team;
  • Supervise staff.

You can help them take risks that develop more confident skills faster by:

  • Providing ongoing support as needed (but they should ask for the help, don’t hover).
  • Coaching them through the process but not jumping in to do the work.
  • Providing constructive feedback if they don’t get it 100% right.
  • Allowing room for error but helping them learn from their mistakes rather than chastising them for making them.

In the run up to the 2010 Olympic Games, I encouraged one of my staff to take the lead on a media event. I coached him in understanding that in order to lead the event he had to make a leap — by taking charge of the process and establishing his leadership with the project team. He needed to step into his leadership role and trust in his ability to soar. But he was tentative and when we are tentative, we stumble. So he stumbled a bit and he knew it. He could tell me exactly where and why he stumbled.

He told me that he hadn’t fully owned his leadership role and that his hesitation diminished his effectiveness. But he still made the leap and learned from the experience, letting me know that it was largely because he had a safe place to land. His reluctant leadership was evident to him and me, but not really to anyone else. It didn’t detrimentally impact the event. But he recognized that being a stronger leader would have taken the event from good to great.

So the next time an opportunity to lead came along, he took a bigger leap. The “safety-net training” experience had given him the confidence to fly on his own. And he soared.

Now ask yourself – do you expect your team to jump without a safety net? Do you wait for them to fly or crash? Or do you offer them a safe place to land when they make that first leap? When leadership builds confidence and offers support for team members to make that first all-important leap, then everyone can soar.

~ Maureen Douglas, CPF-IAF. Mo writes, consults and speaks about the power of positive public, workplace and team engagement. Click here for Mo’s FREE e-Guide to Better Public Engagement. Follow her on Twitter.