Help Them Stretch and Keep Their Growth Prospects in Shape

Unlock the right opportunities for your team members

December 17, 2024

Managers face significant challenges, and one of the toughest, yet critically important is to foster the growth and development of the next generation of leaders. The right opportunities can be pivotal in their career trajectory and setting them up properly can help both their short-term job deliverables and their longer-term career aspirations. One new manager, Sam, faced this situation with his team:

Sam came to me a few years ago when he first started managing a small team. He was very good at the fundamentals – setting clear goals, meeting regularly with his team, motivating performance and setting a high-quality standard. He and his team were meeting every objective, projects were delivered on time, and his co-workers loved working with him. Sam had mastered getting his direct reports to perform at a high level in their current roles. But he noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Despite the success of his team members, there was a sense of dissatisfaction beneath the surface.

During one of our 1:1 meetings, Sam admitted that he was picking up on subtle signs of disengagement within his team. “They’re doing great work,” he said, “but it feels like they’re losing energy. I’m not sure what it could be.”

After a few weeks of observations and conversations with his team members, it became clear that Sam’s team wasn’t just restless – they appeared bored, as if they weren’t learning anything new. While they were sharpening their technical skills, and delivering on their day-to-day responsibilities, they weren’t being challenged in ways that would prepare them for bigger opportunities. “They want me to help them stretch,” Sam told me, “But I’m also trying to get ahead. How can I help them?”

Making a thorough career plan is an important responsibility for everyone. As a manager, you play a pivotal role in helping your team members realize the short-term and medium-term goals included in their plan. You can have a positive impact by creating chances for your direct reports to stretch and grow. Here are the ABC’s of creating stretch assignments for your team:

A. Understand Their Strengths and Aspirations

It’s essential to understand each person’s individual strengths, weaknesses, and career aspirations. This is the first step to finding meaningful learning opportunities. You can do this as part of your routine interactions with your team members.

Regular One-on-One Meetings: assess where your direct report is excelling and where he or she is struggling. You can also use these meetings to check on their goals and aspirations.
Skill Assessments: During your performance reviews, at the conclusion of a major project and at regular intervals, it’s important to gauge current skill levels and identify areas for development.

Feedback with Actionable Insights: Give specific, routine and timely feedback about what is done well and what can be improved. Include actionable steps that can be taken to improve performance.

B. Provide Meaningful Stretch Assignments

With careful planning, stretch assignments can provide opportunities for your employees to strengthen key skill areas or develop new skills. Stretch assignments are tasks or projects that are beyond someone’s the current job but are achievable with additional effort and support. Here’s how to assign them effectively:

Plan for Capacity: Assess whether your team member has the ability to manage the additional work required to take on a stretch assignment.
Align with Career Goals: Ensure the stretch assignments align with the career plan and goals.
Set Clear Objectives: Define what success looks like for the stretch assignment and set measurable goals, including milestones and timing.
Balance Challenge and Support: Provide enough challenge to stimulate growth, but also offer support and resources to avoid overwhelming them.

Some of the best examples of successful stretch assignments involve crossing over into different functional areas. For example, a marketing colleague can work with Finance on preparing monthly or quarterly reports, or a supply planner can work with a sales colleague to better understand the customer.

Managers can delegate some responsibilities and assignments to direct reports who are ready to take on more leadership development. Delegation can be a powerful tool, but it requires clear intent, thoughtful planning and the right timing. Here’s how:

Select Appropriate Tasks: Assign tasks that will help build on leadership skills that are already emerging.
Think About Small Increments: Adding small incremental responsibilities can help the stretch work feel more natural and set the team member up for success.
Empower Decision-Making: Select some of your responsibilities that will help your team member strengthen their critical thinking, business acumen and decision-making skills.

Delegating some of your managerial responsibilities can help your emerging leaders grow into their own future roles as leaders. Preparing them to take on leadership responsibilities by delegating some of your managerial tasks to them will help them learn while having your guidance and oversight.

C. Encourage an Environment of Learning

Creating a culture where growth and learning are a priority can enhance your team’s development and increase engagement. There are so many elements that managers can implement to create the right setting for learning:

Opportunities for Continuous Learning: When possible, make sure your team is aware of opportunities for further education. Encourage them to attend company events and to make the most of learning resources that HR makes available.
External Resources: Share with your team the external workshops, webinars, articles that you leverage for your own growth. Encourage your team to share with all teammates.
Celebrate Learning: Acknowledge and reward efforts to learn new skills, regardless of the immediate outcome. Ask your team to seek innovative sources and to help their colleagues find them too.

Many companies or departments implement a “Lunch and Learn” program where team members or subject matter experts present on topics that are important to their work. Managers may even assign the planning of these sessions to one of their direct reports so they can develop their own skills in managing and leading department-wide events.

Call To Action

It took Sam a while to really understand where every member of his team was in their learning curve and everyone’s capacity to take on stretch assignments. He also understood that his own stretch assignment was to find meaningful opportunities for them. By embracing an individualized approach, he was ability to see some of the energy in his team shift. His direct reports saw their colleagues taking on new tasks and learning new skills. This positive reinforcement helped increase the team’s engagement.

Helping his team deliver on this month’s or even this year’s objectives was the baseline for Sam. He wanted to become a strategic leader who was focused on both the present and on building his team’s future. He was striving to be a great leader who invests in his people’s growth and creates opportunities that stretch their skills for the future.

Providing opportunities for your direct reports to stretch is not just beneficial for their personal and professional growth, it also strengthens your team and organization. Remember these 5 parts to figuring out how to create stretch assignments for each person on your team:

Understand their aspirations
Give constructive feedback
Assign meaningful tasks
Create an environment for learning
Lead by example

A manager’s investment in the potential of each of their team members today will help develop the leaders with the right skills to shape the success of our businesses tomorrow.