Growth

What does this word mean to you? To me, there is growth in position and growth in mental abilities. Both are needed in order to have a successful team and business. I am not just referring to your people, but also to you as a leader. Over the years I have watched peers and employees grow into incredible leaders, business owners and vibrant members of the community. I myself have grown tremendously from what I would say was a strange and crazy trip from the years 18-the present. Who I WAS definitely has shaped who I AM. The struggles I went through have helped define who I have become as a manager, a boss and now a business owner.

When I was 23 I was promoted to store manager of my first store. YES…23! I find that to be an unusual fact about my management career (although now that doesn’t seem so weird to others).  I was fresh out of college and my boss left to have a baby. I think back to that person I was at the time. A 90’s club kid. If you don’t know what that means believe me…I shouldn’t have been running a multi-million dollar business, but I did so with determination to be the best store manager I could be. I soaked up all the knowledge and advice I could get.

“Someone believed in me and gave me the opportunity. They knew I could be molded into what they needed me to be and grow into the position they saw for me.”

–Me, at 23, becoming a SM for the first time.

Think about that for a second and ask yourselves, when was the last time you hired someone or promoted someone with this idea in mind? The idea that there was a spark in someone and YOU wanted to develop it so that person could meet their true potential and grow into a manager that you knew they could become. This has now become one of my favorite management style traits. It leads me to the best part of being a manager…developing 

My favorite position on a management team will always be… manager–in-training or key holder or sales/team lead or department manager.  Whatever you want to call it, they all mean the same thing, a developmental managerial role with keys. You have the chance to mold someone into a position that they themselves didn’t know they had in them. It is a position that reflects a spark you, as their leader and mentor, saw in them. It is a position that allows them to explore what type of manager they want to become. It is often the first time they have ever had a lot of responsibility and definitely the first time they have ever managed people. I like to observe how they handle the first day of responsibility and go from there by asking a series of questions in my mind. Will they become power hungry? Will they become an associates’ confidant? Will they embrace a way of thinking and become a leader? How will they handle a tough situation? What type of direction will they give? When will they realize that they are in charge and have to make decisions? It is at that time that spark happens in them. They either love it or hate it. When I see it, I start the development process and steer them in the direction that makes sense to them. There is no forced training plan or process, just an open mind to learn.

The same goes for any person new to a role. Everyone handles their new responsibility differently. It is important not to hinder their growth through trying to get them to learn the way you did. I have talked about being a chameleon before and now it is more important than ever. Your management training abilities have to be on point or you may lose that spark that originally got them there in the first place. No one wants that. No one wants to start over. No one wants to feel like they failed someone. This is how you grow as a manager and into a leader that can respected. An accomplishment that means something.