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Developing emerging leaders

It wasn't the several times that I almost died on the job. It wasn't when I fell off the roofs, or when I rolled the heavy equipment. However, I can remember specifically the day and time when I knew I had to get out of construction and move on.
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It wasn't the several times that I almost died on the job.

It wasn't when I fell off the roofs, or when I rolled the heavy equipment.

However, I can remember specifically the day and time when I knew I had to get out of construction and move on.

It was 35 below and I was demolishing a gas station for my employer. As I went to remove the toilet from the bathroom, water came gushing out of the tank and filled my boot. My foot immediately became cold and I walked for the rest of the day with frozen toes and a frosty foot. When I got off work that evening, I went home with the intention of getting a job where I didn't have to work out in the elements year around.

I signed up for a marketing class at the local college, "and the rest" as they say "is history."

Knowing when to look at your options and diversify your opportunities can be critical not only to your business but to your health. It is well documented that stress and over-stress particularly plays an important factor in disease, especially immune disorders.

Often in our businesses when we become frozen by inaction, cannot decide how to move forward or overcoming obstacles. We end up with such a level of stress that we get sick. Understanding that we need to make a change can be critical in determining how our lives will be lived out and how our businesses will survive.

More often than not, as a business coach looking at organizations and companies, I run into individuals who are leaders of businesses and at their wits' end. Perhaps they are affected by a number of company near-death experiences. Often, they may be having cash flow challenges, competition issues or challenging employees that leave their organization. They are always seemingly on the brink of disaster with the stress related to trying to fit a square block into a round hole.

In recent articles I've talked about the necessity of persistence. However, there can be a time when we realize we need to make significant changes for the sake of our health and the success of our organization. There are times as leaders when we need to recognize that our organizations have outgrown us and the skills we possess. It may be time to pass ownership or leadership to younger and more energized staff who are ready to step forward with the skills and knowledge necessary to lead our company to the next level.

Having clarity about when this time of change is needed can be difficult for leaders. Not only are we tied to the egotistical notion that we are the reason for the survival of our business, but we often believe, that the business will fail without our leadership. We don't recognize that times have changed, technology has moved on, we have been holding the organization back, or that perhaps we are just exhausted by our years of leadership. Regularly, as aging leaders we hold on to the reigns of change because we ourselves are unsure about what to do.

In order to feel comfortable in change, we need to have a number of viable options. Unfortunately, we leaders, business teams and companies, tend to think that our best option is to continue doing what we have always done in order maintain the status quo.

The problem with this is that we stagnate both as organizations and people. In order to adapt to changing environments and transform our organizations to meet the future needs of our stakeholders we need to make fundamental changes in our thought patterns and processes. Many times this requires enlightenment through self reflection and strategic thinking as well as the contributions of emerging leaders.

Development of the emerging leaders in our organizations is critical to the future success of fulfilling the purpose of our establishments. Unfortunately, most companies leave that development to chance. In most companies, there is little investment in the next generation of leadership. We wrongly assume that we will be able to turn our company over successfully to our kids, next level managers, or outside brains the day we turn off the lights in our office and hand over the keys. If we want to be successful in moving on ourselves or taking our business to another level where we can reduce our efforts and spend more time thinking strategically or on a beach somewhere, we need to develop a plan for the development of our upcoming leaders.

The question that leaders should be considering is "What am I doing to develop the next generation of leadership within the organization?"

Regrettably for most leaders the answer is frozen silence.

Dave Fuller, MBA, is an award winning business coach and the author of the book Profit Yourself Healthy. Need your emerging leaders developed? Email dave@profityourselfhealthy.com