Career Development Means Growing Your People

Your team is telling you the truth every day, but not always with words. When leaders treat silence as satisfaction, careers stall, engagement drops, and “development” turns into a once-a-year checkbox.

Greg and I talk through the Management by Responsibility (MBR) mindset and why leadership is about accountability for employee growth, safety, and long-term well-being. From there, we make the case for a simple shift that changes everything: stop framing the conversation as a performance review and start treating it as a career review. That one change moves the tone from judging the past to building a future, even in small organizations where promotions may be limited but coaching, mentoring, and skill growth are always possible.

We also dig into 360-degree feedback done right. Used ethically, 360 feedback becomes a powerful development tool that surfaces patterns across communication, collaboration, follow-through, and leadership presence. Used poorly, it becomes a scorecard or a weapon. We share how HR and leaders can shape clear, behavior-based questions, then “test” feedback with real observation and follow-up so it turns into learning instead of defensiveness.

Finally, we connect the dots with Individual Development Plans (IDPs) and SMART goals, showing how to translate feedback into a practical roadmap with regular check-ins. You’ll hear a mentoring story where one small behavior change reshaped perception and helped a young manager grow into a VP, proving that tiny actions can change trajectories. If you found value here, subscribe, share the show with a leader you care about, and leave a review so more people can build careers the right way.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Leadership Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Well, hello, and welcome to our podcast, Success, Secrets, and Stories. I'm your host, John Wondolowski, and I'm here with my co-host and friend, Greg Powell. Greg? Hey everybody. And when we put together this podcast, we wanted to put out a helping hand and help that next generation and help answer the question of what does it mean to be a leader? Today we want to talk about a subject that I think supports that concept. So in today's podcast, we're going to focus on a topic that affects every organization, every team, every individual who has chosen to show up for work each and every day. How leaders help employees they work with grow, develop, and succeed. It's the core of leadership. And it isn't about authority, titles, or hierarchy. Leadership is about responsibility. As managers and leaders, our responsibility is to develop people to work with us and treat the employees not as interchangeable labor, but as valued resources. Create the work environment that simply pays the bills is the absolute minimum an employer can do. That's a baseline. That's not a goal. The purpose of this podcast is to help leaders understand that they actually signed up when they accepted the leadership position to be a leader. Much of what Greg and I discussed on this podcast is the framework called MBR, which stands for Management by Responsibility. MBR is built on a simple yet powerful idea. Leadership begins with accountability for growth, safety, and the long-term well-being of your staff. At its simplest level, every employee has made the conscious decision, through their own free will, to work for the organization that they are part of today. Embedded in that decision is not implied trust. Employees trust that the organization and the leaders within it will create a safe, respectful, and encouraging environment. They trust that the work will either meet the requirements of a living wage or provide an opportunity for growth, development of skills, and sometimes moving forward in their careers.

Ask Employees What They Want

SPEAKER_01 2:51

And when you really think about it, if you want to understand the goals and aspirations of your employees, the solution is almost embarrassingly obvious. Just ask them. That sounds simple, but it's surprising how rarely it actually happens. Leaders assume they already know what their employees want. Or worse, they assume that if an employee hasn't said anything, then everything must be fine. But you know what? Silence doesn't mean satisfaction. And more oftentimes than not, it means people have learned that no one is listening. There are many different ways to ask those questions and many different settings where those conversations can take place. One-on-ones, project debriefs, informal check-ins, or structured career conversations. But the reality is that leaders who genuinely care enough to ask will stand out, especially in organizations where career discussions are rare for non-existence. If you work in a culture that doesn't prioritize employee development, and you take the time to do it anyway, you're going to stand out like a neon light. Helping an employee take that next step in their career is not quick and it's not easy. It's actually pretty time consuming as a process. It requires listening, patience, and follow-through. But most organizations do appreciate leaders who invest the effort to help employees grow. Whether that growth happens within the team or somewhere else in the organization or even beyond. At the end of the day, leadership should always hope that people leave better than they arrived.

Career Reviews Beat Annual Reviews

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah. And unfortunately, many organizations still anchor their entire approach to employee development around the annual performance review. And honestly, it's about as low of a bar as you can set for a meaningful interaction between you and your employees. When performance reviews are reduced to a checklist of minimum requirements, or worse, a bait and switch for a possible dismissal, they become far more than just counterproductive. It becomes aggressive. Employees learn quickly that the review is about survival, not development. Leaders learn to treat it as a compliance requirement instead of a leadership responsibility. Over the years, I've advocated for a simple yet powerful shift. Replace the term performance review and use career review. That change alone resets the mind. A career review invites conversation about the future, not just judgment about the past. It shifts the tone from here's what you've done wrong, to here's where you're going, and here's how I can help you achieve your goals. So smaller organizations, the opportunity for advancement may be limited, but their leaders are never limited in their ability to help employees think beyond their current assignment. Growth doesn't always mean promotion. Sometimes growth means expansion of their skills, confidence building, and preparing someone for a role that doesn't exist just yet. This forward thinking kind of approach is coaching, mentoring, and career planning. It is one of the greatest gifts a leader can offer, especially to employees working in roles that may not feel particularly engaged day to day. They might include jobs in positions like support services and maintenance and housekeeping and food service and technical positions. Many of these individuals in those positions aspire to grow in either their technical expertise or look into roles of leadership within their field. The problem isn't the lack of ambition, it's the lack of conversation. It's the leader's job to engage those conversations, to encourage employees to think ahead and to help them make a realistic path forward.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

So in previous podcasts, I talked about the power of 360 degree feedback. Know that feedback is a gift. It's actually a tool that collects insights from your peers, subordinates, managers, multifaceted to provide a more complete view of an employee's performance, especially around soft skills like collaboration, communication, accountability, and leadership presence. A well-designed 360 review includes clearly defined skills and competencies that reflect how employees actually demonstrate their abilities on the job. If you've never implemented a 360-degree feedback process within your department, it can be incredibly enlightening and sometimes a humbling experience. But here's where leaders often get it wrong. They treat the feedback as a scorecard instead of a data set. 360 feedback is not meant to deliver a verdict, it's meant to surface patterns. For example, if one person says an employee struggles with communication, that's an opinion. As my daughter would say, that's one data point. If eight people say the same thing, that's a signal. And that signal doesn't mean the employee is a bad person as far as communication. It means there's an opportunity to test, explore, and even improve a specific behavior by communication. Beyond task performance, 360 feedback captures elements such as cooperation, follow-up, reliability, tone, and approachability. These indicators often reveal whether an employee is truly engaged in their role or simply going through the motions.

360 Feedback As Patterns

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, but once you've collected the feedback, the real question becomes what do you do next? This is where most organizations fail. Feedback reports get generated, distributed, brief discussions, and then quietly filed away. No testing, no follow-up, no behavior change. What's the point? Feedback documents can only be misleading, especially when they're highlighting extremes over a long period of time, say 52 weeks. One outstanding achievement or one poorly executed task can disproportionately influence how people remember someone's performance. That's why the feedback should be treated as a starting point, not a conclusion. Leaders need to sit down with the employees and say something like: here's what I'm seeing in the feedback. Let's test this together. Testing feedback means observation of behavior skills intentionally. It's meant to ask follow-up questions. It means validating whether the feedback reflects the consistent pattern or the situation. For example, if feedback suggests that an employee appears unapproachable, the leader might ask, When do you feel the most stressed during your day? How do you think others experience you when you're under pressure? Would you be open to trying a small behavior change and see what happens? It turns feedback into cooperative experiments rather than personal attacks.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

And this is where the role of HR becomes very critical. Human resources must ensure that any 360-degree feedback system is applied correctly, ethically, and consistently. Leadership should be involved in shaping the questions before the feedback forms are distributed. Because vague questions create vague answers, but clear, behavior-based questions create actionable insight. Again, a single negative comment should never outweigh a body of positive input. Compliments and concerns should carry equal weight, and feedback should always be framed in a way that encourages growth rather than defensiveness. So when HR and leadership and employees treat feedback as a shared tool, not a weapon, it becomes one of the most powerful development mechanisms an organization can use.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

So let's just step back and summarize this portion. 360 feedback is valuable for identifying strengths and areas of concern. But feedback alone doesn't drive improvement. Application does. Once leaders have the information, they must build something that helps the employee take that next step, whether it's performing their current role more efficiently or preparing for future opportunities. That's where the concept of career review is ultimately the goal that you want to discuss. And then there's that next level of a career review, which is called an individual development plan or IDP. And that's when that comes into play. An IDP allows leaders and employees to take the feedback, test assumptions, define goals, track the progress over time. It transforms abstract feedback into concrete action.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

So one challenge we've discussed in previous podcasts is a significant demand on both leadership and employees' time when it comes to career counseling and ongoing feedback. And honestly, this is where many leaders fail. Not because they don't care, but because they don't make the time. Perhaps they don't look at this as an investment of time. They schedule the meeting once a year, check the box, and move on.

Testing Feedback With HR Support

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Yeah, and I want to say this plainly as possible. Leaders have to make the time. From an MBR perspective, limiting career conversations into a single annual review is a dereliction of duty. Leaders are responsible for developing their people. That responsibility comes from their role, whether it is written into the job description or not. Yes, it can feel uncomfortable to do these things different than the rest of the organization, given. Thinking outside the box invites criticism. As often as it invites praise. But leadership isn't about staying comfortable, it's about making a difference. Encourage employees to do their best work and to support their career growth is one of the most meaningful things a leader can do in return.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

That brings us to another tool that goes beyond traditional performance metrics, individual development plans, or as we like to call them, IDPs. So let's take a deeper dive into individual development plans. An IDP expands on the annual review by integrating organizational key performance indicators, or KPIs, with personal growth goals. While KPIs track operational success, IDPs recognize creativity, initiative, learning, and behavioral change. Projects are a great example. Assigning a project outside someone's routine responsibilities allows leaders to observe new skills in action. It also creates a low-risk environment to test readiness for future roles. IDPs provide a platform for setting career goals and defining clear, measurable action plans, and management role is to establish realistic goals, remove obstacles, and provide coaching along the way.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

One of my favorite moments during an IDP conversation was when employees would tell me that they wanted my job. Instead of feeling threatened, I saw it as an opportunity. I would normally respond and ask, great, how do we get you there? The question immediately reveals whether the person is serious about advancement or not. And I was surprised how often many of the employees had already taken steps on their own for preparing for advancement, going back to school, pursuing certifications, asking for stretch assignments. Employees understand that growth requires effort. Organizations' responsibility is to engage them in meaningful work that supports that growth.

IDPs And SMART Goals

SPEAKER_01 15:32

You know, another key MBR tool is the use of SMART goals. We've talked about SMART goals a lot over the last few years. Goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. SMART goals allow leaders to test progress objectively instead of vague statements like improve communication. You might define it as a SMART goal and say, hey, why don't you lead two cross-department meetings this quarter and request feedback afterwards? Because when IDPs are reviewed regularly, quarterly, or even monthly, they become living active documents rather than some sort of paperwork exercise.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

And this is where leadership truly makes a difference. Employees are looking for coaching, mentoring, and an honest challenge. Regular check-ins shift the development from a punitive process to an encouraging process. When employees feel supported, their focus expands beyond just meeting KPI requirements to pursue meaningful progress. Handled correctly, organizations' goals and personal goals reinforce each other rather than competing against each other.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

One of the most rewarding outcomes of this process is watching advancement opportunities materialize as a result of consistent feedback and IDP conversations. John, you've implemented this approach across multiple organizations. Would you share an example where testing feedback over time made a tangible difference?

The Smile Coaching Story

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Yeah, absolutely. The one that comes to mind first, I worked for a third-party organization that worked within hospital systems. And the firm worked with facilities and food services and housekeeping and other operational teams. I served as a senior director to oversee three hospitals and also participated in hiring panels. During one of those interviewing panels, I met a young candidate who had recently completed his degree but lacked experience. After the interview was over, many of the panel members felt that he was too green to be hired, and I disagreed. I said that he reminded me of myself. Later, I was asked to take over another struggling hospital system account and mentor a new manager, which happened to be the same guy that we were talking about during the panels. Over six months, we used the feedback and coaching and weekly check-ins to address communication and perception issues. One day, I walked into his office, picked up the pen on his whiteboard, and wrote the word smile. It wasn't sarcasm, it was data. Feedback consistently showed people perceiving him as distant and unapproachable. We tested one small behavior change, being intentional about his facial expression and his presence. The impact was immediate. Engagement improved, relationships improved. Years later, by the way, he's a vice president now. He still refers to that moment. That's what mentoring is all about small, intentional actions that change trajectories.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

So while it wasn't labeled a formal IDP, it actually functioned exactly like one.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah, exactly. And a strong IDP includes feedback and KPI leadership behaviors and SMART goals and asks for consistent follow-up. When it's done well, it becomes a matrix, but actually it creates a roadmap.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

To wrap this up, 360-degree feedback anchors performance and SMART goals drive engagement. And combine them both into a forward-looking plan. Unlike performance improvement plans or PIFs, which essentially focus on avoiding failure, IDPs focus on advancing success.

Wrap Up And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 19:38

And that's the shift. It's saving jobs and building careers, not how careers end. You want an IDP, not a PIP. And that's where leadership really matters because you can write either one. Write the one that really makes an effective change. You should be writing IDPs. So if you like what you've heard, I've written a book called Building Your Leadership Toolbox, and we talk about tools like this. And it's available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and other sites. The podcast is what you've been listening to. Thank you so much. It's also available on Apple, Google, and Spotify. A lot of what we talk about is from Dr. Durst and his MBR program. If you'd like to know more about Dr. Durst, you can find out on SuccessGrowthAcademy.com. And if you'd like to contact us, please send me a line. That's wando seventy-five periodjw at gmail.com. And the music has been brought to you by my grandson. So we want to hear from you. Drop me a line. Tell me what's going on, what you like, and what you would like to hear about. And it's always helped us to create content. Thanks, Greg. This was fun. Thanks, John. As always. Next time. Yeah.