Season 5 Episode SIX of the intrepid.MEDIA podcast series, Leadership on the Ground, with Erica Peitler and co-host Todd Schnick, editor-in-chief at intrepid.MEDIA
People Will Leave You For Good And Bad Reasons
[Tweet “The modern business leader needs to be VERY focused on talent but many are not”]
SEASON 5 EPISODE SIX – People Will Leave You For Good And Bad Reasons
Discussion Guide for this episode:
The modern business leader needs to be VERY focused on talent, and many are not. In fact, the leader needs discipline, philosophy, and practices around their talent approach.
HR plays an important role in talent yes, but the leader (CEO, GM) now have to play a much more engaged role with talent management.
“Hire for cultural fit, and train for technical skills.”
Leaders ALWAYS have to be looking for talent, both formally and informally.
It’s more than a matter of putting out a job description. You need to search for personality, skills, and behaviors as well.
Today’s reality for all leaders is that they have to take risks with talent, and make bold moves.
People will leave your organization for bad reasons:
Leaders push them into roles they are not comfortable in.
Leaders do not advocate on the behalf of their talent, putting them into positions where they can thrive.
Leaders are not developing the talent for success in the future.
How will talent leave you? Emotionally (become disengaged in the office)? Or physically?
Steps to become a better advocate for your talent:
Get to know them.
Learn their career aspirations.
Learn where their gaps are.
Stretch them.
Give them visibility to showcase emerging skills.
But, a very powerful way to advocate for talent is sometimes to encourage them to pursue an opportunity/challenge outside of the organization…one that you just cannot provide.
Think of the benefits this brings to the organization: trust, safe environment, loyalty, talent knows you have their best interests at heart, and very likely, the talent will be in a position to return to the organization down the road.
“You want to encourage ambition, and let people develop as fully as they can.”
If an employee leaves you emotionally, meaning they have mentally checked out and no longer really care about their work or the organization, how do you turn that around?
Talent will leave an organization if they sense leadership isn’t doing their job. And if talent suggests they are leaving simply for a larger paycheck, that is generally a sign that something else is wrong.
The final reality to understand here is that in the modern business world, talent moves around. People will leave your organization. Just be certain they leave for good reasons. And recognize that if they are leaving for bad reasons, those are opportunities you can fix.
