Leadership Horizons

Creating and Prioritising Development Opportunities for Leaders and Teams

• Lois Burton • Episode 8

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Every transformative leader shares a common trait—commitment to continuous growth. Great leadership isn't static; what worked yesterday won't necessarily lead us successfully into tomorrow. The relentless pace of change demands adaptation, yet many leaders struggle to prioritize development amid operational pressures and budget constraints.

 Drawing from over two decades coaching senior executives, I explore how the most successful leaders integrate development seamlessly into their leadership practice. They don't view learning as separate from leading—they recognize every challenge, interaction, success, and failure as an opportunity to expand their capabilities.

 This episode unpacks three powerful development approaches that require more intentionality than financial investment. We examine how coaching creates a confidential space for honest exploration and strategic thinking, with one CEO describing it as "the most valuable hour in my month." I share how mentoring relationships leverage collective wisdom, particularly through mentoring circles that build cross-functional understanding without significant time commitments from senior leaders.

 For those seeking immediate action, self-directed development offers accessible growth opportunities through consistent small actions—from 10-minute daily reflections to podcasts and targeted reading. The key isn't occasional intensive efforts but establishing reflective practices that maximize learning from everyday experiences.

 Beyond personal growth, we explore practical strategies for creating a development culture within your team—from modeling vulnerability about your own learning journey to integrating development discussions into regular team rhythms and celebrating growth when team members apply new approaches.

 Leadership development isn't just about becoming better at what you do—it's about expanding what you're capable of doing. Block 30 minutes in your calendar this week for reflection, identify one skill to strengthen, and create a simple mechanism for sharing learning within your team. Remember: meaningful development doesn't require extensive programs, just commitment, consistency, and the courage to step outside your comfort zone.

 

Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of Leadership Horizons. I'm your host, lois Burton, an Executive Coach and Leadership Development Specialist with over 24 years of experience working with senior leaders, executives and their teams. What drives me is a passion for developing authentic, confident leaders who can fulfil their potential, build extraordinary teams and create successful, resilient organisations. I believe that in our rapidly changing world, great, transformative leadership is essential to navigate both the challenges and immense opportunities before us. Today, we're focusing on a topic I'm particularly passionate about how leaders can create and prioritize development opportunities for themselves and their teams. Let's start with a fundamental truth the way we led yesterday will not lead us successfully into tomorrow. The pace of change in our world demands continuous growth and adaptation from leaders at all levels.

Speaker 1:

I've observed in my two plus decades of coaching that the most effective leaders share a common trait they're committed to ongoing development, both for themselves and their teams. They recognize that development isn't a luxury or something to be addressed when there's time or when there's resources. Rather, it's an essential investment that directly impacts organisational performance, innovation and resilience. When I work with executive teams, I often hear the same challenges we're too busy putting out fires to focus on development, or we don't have the budget for extensive training programmes. These are real constraints, but they're not insurmountable. In fact, some of the most powerful development opportunities require a minimal financial investment. They simply demand intentionality and commitment. The time factor is always going to be a challenge, but, as I said before, recognising that this is an essential investment of both time and money is part of that commitment and that intentionality. So today I want to explore three proven approaches to development that I think every leader should consider Coaching, mentoring and self-directed development.

Speaker 1:

So let's start with coaching. Obviously, as someone who's dedicated my career to coaching, I'm a passionate believer in it and I've witnessed it firsthand so many times, its transformative power, particularly for leaders. A skilled coach doesn't tell you what to do. Instead, they help you to discover your own answers and strengthen your capacity to solve complex problems. Coaching provides a confidential space for leaders to explore their challenges, receive honest feedback and experiment with new approaches. It combines deep listening with challenging questions that help you uncover blind spots and break through self-limiting beliefs. One CEO I worked with initially told me that he viewed coaching as a nice to have, which was better than a not nice to have, but still, six months later, he described it as the most valuable hour in my month. Why? Because it was the only time he truly stepped back from operational pressures to think strategically about his leadership and the organization's future. Coaching does require financial investment and it does require time investment, but it is extremely powerful, and I think most leaders who've experienced it would absolutely endorse that view.

Speaker 1:

For teams coaching can be equally powerful. Team coaching helps to build psychological safety, align around shared goals and develop more effective ways of working together. I recall a leadership team that was struggling with siloed thinking, which is a very common trait in many leadership teams. Through team coaching, they developed new collaborative behaviours that really made a difference to both them, how they operated and, ultimately, to their organisation, and one of the things that they absolutely experienced as a result of that was that they'd improved employee engagement, which had been a real problem for them prior to the team coaching.

Speaker 1:

I want to say something about mentoring as well, because, while coaching focuses on drawing out your own solutions, mentoring leverages the experience and wisdom of others, and I know that many, many leaders out there will have experienced both, but sometimes they do get confused, and effective mentoring relationships pair less experienced leaders with those who've been there before, and I encourage leaders to seek both mentors and become mentors themselves. When you're mentored by someone who's navigated similar challenges, you gain the benefit of their hard-won insights, and when you mentor others, you're forced to articulate your thinking, and one approach I'm recommending at the moment is creating mentoring circles, so, and group coaching circles small groups of three to four people at similar levels, but from different organizations or from different parts of an organization, and build cross-functional understanding. But they require less time from senior mentors and, obviously, if you create these internally, then they don't have to have a direct financial cost to them. The third area that I wanted to look at today is self-directed development, and this is perhaps the most accessible. This involves taking ownership of your growth journey rather than waiting for formal programs or assignments. I am facilitating a leadership program at the moment on which we have speakers, and the last two speakers we've had have really impressed me with the level of self-directed development that they have created for themselves and take responsibility for. So they do take responsibility for listening to webinars, podcasts, ted Talks. They read Many, many great leaders really do take time for reading and reading leadership articles or books, but they have a consistent habit of taking ownership of their own self-directed development, and it's very, very powerful.

Speaker 1:

Effective self-directed development often begins with an honest self-assessment. So what are your strengths and where do you need to grow? What skills will be crucial in the future? We've been talking about this throughout the life of this podcast so far and I'll be saying more about it in the future. Tools like 360 degree feedback, emotional intelligence assessments or simply asking for candid input from trusted colleagues can provide valuable insights and from there create a personalized learning plan. As I said before, this might include reading. It might include listening to podcasts, taking online courses or seeking out stretch assignments. The key is consistency. Courses or seeking out stretch assignments the key is consistency.

Speaker 1:

Small actions taken regularly yield greater results than occasional intensive efforts. So when I work with leaders, I work with them to establish some reflective practices that maximize learning from everyday experience. This might be as simple as spending 10 minutes at the end of each day asking what went well today, what could I have done differently, what did I learn? And again, when we build reflective practices into coaching, into mentoring, into leadership programs, everyone always reflects back how helpful the reflective practice is. Lots of reflects in there. The reflective practice is Lots of reflect in there. But yeah, everyone always does say that the reflective space is so valuable to them and yet when we're in the press of every day, that becomes the part that often can slip and we don't create a structure and a habit around that. So for me, with the people that I work with, I really try to help them to establish that and create a structure and a habit that means that it happens consistently.

Speaker 1:

Lastly, I want to look at how you extend these approaches beyond yourself to create a development culture within your team. It does begin with modeling the behavior you want to see. So sharing your own development goals and the steps you're taking to achieve them is very powerful for your team. Being transparent about your learning journey, including the challenges and the setbacks this humility and vulnerability creates psychological safety for others to admit their own development needs. Secondly, integrate development into regular rhythms for your team. You can make it part of your one-to-one conversations, your team meetings and, obviously, your performance reviews. But one leadership team I've worked with begins each meeting with a five-minute learning share where one member briefly discusses a recent insight or learning experience. Again, these things don't have to take a huge amount of time. They can be really quite small and take five minutes or 10, but they are powerful. And but it does need to be consistent.

Speaker 1:

Thirdly, recognize and celebrate growth. When team members apply new skills or approaches, acknowledge their efforts. This reinforces that development is valued and worthwhile. Fourthly, provide resources and remove barriers. This might mean allocating budget for external development where you can, creating a library of learning resources and, most importantly, protecting time for learning activities. Finally, development has to be connected to purpose. Help your team to understand how their growth contributes to the organization's mission and their own career aspirations. Development becomes compelling when people see its relevance to what matters most to them. I was having a conversation earlier today when someone asked me about how you continue to motivate people who might not necessarily be interested in career progression at this time. Finding a way that they can still develop within an existing role is one of the ways that you can keep people motivated. So it might not be about gaining promotion, but it certainly can be about growing within their role. And, as I said, the development becomes compelling when people see that it's got relevance to what they are doing and what matters most to them.

Speaker 1:

Let me leave you with some practical first steps that you could take this week. So for yourself, block 30 minutes if possible. If you can't do 30, block at least 15. Into your calendar this week for reflection on your development needs and your aspirations. Identify at least one skill or capability that you want to strengthen in the next three months. Reach out to someone who might serve as a coach or a mentor and subscribe to one high quality resource. That might be buying a new book, it might be subscribing to a different podcast, downloading a newsletter, but something that is relevant to your development focus For your team. Add development discussion to your next team meeting agenda and build in time for one-on-one conversations about each team member's growth aspirations. These might already be part of your one-to-ones and if they are, that's absolutely great, but if they're not, incorporate them. Identify one team capability that needs strengthening and create a plan for how the team could work on that. And fourthly, create a simple mechanism for sharing learning resources and insights. It might be something similar to what the team I talked about previously are doing, so that kind of five minutes somebody shares the results of some new learning or a new insight. It could be something different, but creating some form of structure and simple mechanism for sharing learning can be very, very powerful.

Speaker 1:

Remember, leadership development isn't just about becoming better at what you do. It's about expanding what you're capable of doing. It's about widening your horizons, which obviously is one of our core themes for this podcast. As we wrap up today, I'd like to share a perspective that has shaped my coaching practice. Development isn't something we do in addition to our work. It's an integral part of the work itself.

Speaker 1:

The most successful leaders I've coached don't separate leading from learning. They view every challenge, every interaction, every success and every failure as an opportunity to grow. They're curious, reflective and intentional about their development journey. In our rapidly changing world, this continuous growth mindset isn't optional. It's essential. The good news is that meaningful development doesn't always require extensive programs or huge financial investment. It requires commitment, consistency and the courage to step outside your comfort zone.

Speaker 1:

I hope this episode has provided practical insights for creating and prioritizing development opportunities for yourself and your team. Next week, I will, as promised, be welcoming my first guest, dr Lloyd Gregory, someone who I have worked extensively with and who is now in a really exciting and challenging role as the Director of the Joint Research Office for King's College, london and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. We're going to be focusing specifically on leading collaboration, building robust and creative partnerships and the importance of strategic communication. I'm really looking forward to that and I know you will enjoy hearing his insights. Until next time, this is Lois Burton. Thank you for joining me on Leadership Horizons, where we explore leadership at its most transformative. Remember, the future of leadership knows no bounds.