How Leaders Develop the Potential of Others

Perry Holley:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I’m Perry Holley, a Maxwell Leadership facilitator and coach.

Chris Goede:
And I’m Chris Goede, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. Our goal in this podcast is not only to help you as an individual leader, but to help you think about how am I developing the people around me and on my team. That’s. That’s the end state. That’s the goal to lift the level of the organization of your leadership. And we’re going to talk about that today in just a minute, in a little bit more detail. Before we get started, I want to encourage you to go to MaxwellLeadership.com/ExecutivePodcast.

Chris Goede:
There you can download the learner guide. You can leave a question or comment for us. Or maybe you need some help developing as a leader and want to go on a coaching journey. That’s what Perry, myself, our entire team do, as well as facilitate content and organizations. You just fill out that form and let us know. Well, as I led in our intro there, what we’re going to talk about today, and the title is how leaders develop the potential of others, the potential of other. How do you get to a place where you’re developing that potential that you see in the. In the people around you? And that is what our goal is.

Chris Goede:
That’s why we do what we do. That’s why we’re on the road. That’s why you were international. That’s why you, you know, three weeks, you know, on planes, like, we’re out there helping teams and organizations develop the potential. And John Maxwell says the greatest legacy a leader can leave is developing other leaders. Made me think about his book called the Leader’s Greatest Return. And oftentimes people be like, oh, well, is that a financial return? Like, what’s the.

Perry Holley:
What.

Chris Goede:
What happens to my P and L when that happens?

Perry Holley:
No, no, no.

Chris Goede:
It’s about developing the potential in people and then seeing them flourish out in the workforce or in another team or what they’re doing as a leader. That brings such great pride to me as a leader, when I see other leaders doing that, that’s a great return on investment. And so the challenge here is, and the opportunity is how do we discover that in. In them? Like, how. How do we discover that potential, that seed. But this is why this is so important. Perry and I, I think the last couple of episodes Talked about, you know, going from a soloist to a conductor. And we looked at both sides perspective of having development plans.

Chris Goede:
Having the plan is one thing, executing it is another. And it’s super important. And here’s why. In Gallup it said 87% of millennials and 70% of non millennials rank development opportunities inside organization. So extremely important to them that some are making choices on whether or not to join the organization or stay in the organization based off of the development of their potential inside that organization based on their opportunity.

Perry Holley:
Perceived opportunity.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. Like what’s the plan? What does that look like? So the reason I wanted to bring that as we think about this is we’re going to give you a roadmap today how to develop the potential and others. And it’s super important that not only you do it, but that you actually have this plan laid out and your team is aware of it.

Perry Holley:
Yes. Good. Well, I couldn’t start any discussion around looking at potential of others. I started doing this recently on coaching calls, especially with new people that I’m coaching, which was why do you want to be in leadership?

Chris Goede:
Wow.

Perry Holley:
Answer me that question and you’ll see people lock up in their face like, why do you want to be in leadership? And many of us don’t think about it, but you should think about it. Why are you in leadership? And is it to. I wanted to be important. I think if I think back to my first, my driven goal to be a first line manager at IBM was I want to be important, I want to be the boss, I want to be whatever. And those are really bad reasons. And thinking about the second question was how do you see people? And do you see people as a means to your end of results and winning the business and success, or do you see them as valuable tools, assets, team members that you can grow and develop and help over time? So this idea is, starts with if you’re going to develop the potential in others, motive matters. Why are you doing it? And do you, do you have a genuine desire to focus on other people? And I just can’t tell you how many times I see now it comes clear to me that many of the leaders are not focused on the person. They’re focused on what the person can do.

Perry Holley:
For me, John Maxwell would call that are you motivating or manipulating? Manipulating getting something for yourself. Motivating getting something for the team or for the betterment of the organization. So I think you got to slow down and look at people’s gifts, their temperament, their passions. You got to Start knowing, I think about the five levels or at level two, that are you not only building relationship, are you connecting with people? Do you understand what lights them up? What, what really gives them energy and what sucks the energy out of them? Can you. Do you know enough about your people to do this? And sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s not. And, and I’m dealing with a number of leaders right now, especially the, their, their leading younger folks. They go, I don’t know what they want. Well, I understand that.

Perry Holley:
And I’m thinking a few leaders that led me probably said, I don’t know what Perry wants, but, but we, is it okay to go and start to figure that out over time? And so to look at, at their past successes, look at the things that bring them joy, look at opportunities where they naturally gravitate toward things. You were mentioning a couple people on our team that you see that they show up, they go, I’ll do that. And you know that they put themselves into positions because they’re energized by something. So I think you start boiling it down is why are you in leadership? How do you see people and are you willing to do the work to find out what’s inside them, what drives them, what lights them up and how you can help now mold that into greatness?

Chris Goede:
I like that we talk about the leadership lens quite a bit. I wonder what is our lens when we look at other people around us on our team? What, what is the lens is the lens of potential opportunity for growth, right? The development opportunity, or to your point, what’s the motive behind it? Where your lens is like, no, that is an asset that we’re using to, to move the needle forward. And I think if you could shift your lens, it would give you a different perspective on, on the potential and maybe even allow you to see some of those things that you just mentioned in people that aren’t always prevalent, right? That you look at it.

Perry Holley:
Well, you know, we see this, you know, I’ve talked about a lot. We see this in the generational challenges that an older leader, either an older millennial or Gen X baby boomer. I, I was coaching the guy, I said, what’s. He goes, I’m really struggling with this Gen Z, this, these youngest people. I go, well, tell me more about that. He goes, I said what’s the issue? Goes, oh, they’re a bunch of self entitled snowflakes that can I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said now you’ve just stereotyped an entire generation based on what I don’t don’t do that. So that, how do you see people? How do you, are they valuable in any way? Well, yeah, they’re pretty good technology and they, they really have a drive to get there.

Perry Holley:
Okay, let’s, let’s, let’s glass half full of this for me and tell me what is the, what is the value they bring. And now tell me how you see them in a way that can help me develop them. But you’re never going to develop a person if you see them as a self entitled snowflake weakened in whatever he said. I was, I was so shocked. I guess I shouldn’t be shocked. You see it more often than not, probably. But yeah. If you’re stereotyping people.

Perry Holley:
No.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And in our, one of our trainings that we do, helping and coaching people through these different generations, because there’s five generations in the workforce, one of the content pieces that Perry helped us developed was the leading multi generational teams. And I think it’s in there that you have a slide that puts up and it says, man, this, this generation’s entitled bunch of snowflakes, this and that. Right?

Perry Holley:
And they’re gonna kill us all.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And you leave off who the author of the quote was and everybody’s like, that’s right, like that’s true. And then you put it up. I think it’s like Socrates, 400 BC. 400 BC right. And you go, oh, so this happens.

Perry Holley:
At every generation, every generation thinks.

Chris Goede:
And so how do we begin to change that? And so I love what you’re talking about. It’s how do we identify, how do we find these opportunities and then help nurture and care for them in our people? We gotta, we gotta encourage them in those areas. We gotta give them opportunities to let it shine, to pull it out and let it grow. When you encourage people that are on your team or inside your organization in areas that they are gifted, like Perry said, you got to look for it, you got to find it. What you’re really doing is you’re saying to them, hey, I believe in you. And now more than ever, there’s a belief deficit in our people. I think not only in leadership, but also our people. And they need people to come around, do it authentically, make sure that you use specifics.

Chris Goede:
But man, don’t ever miss the opportunity to speak encouragement into them. And then as you see that and as you give them opportunities to grow and that potential in them, small ones at first, bigger ones as they, they gain your trust. But what you’re actually telling them Is that you do trust them both in the small and the big things. And so, man, if you put those things together, I promise you, I believe in you. You’re looking for that encouragement to give them opportunity to let them kind of fly and spread their wings. You’re saying, I trust you. If you put those two things together, I think what you’re going to see is an incredible growth track and development track of the people around you.

Perry Holley:
I’ve told this story before, but one of the leaders I had a very senior leader. I was in a senior role, and he was even more senior. But I felt like I couldn’t do anything right for this guy. If I turned in the work to him. If I said it was blue, he’d say it was teal. He had something to say about everything. And I was thinking, I said, man, I gotta quit. I gotta get out of this.

Perry Holley:
This is. It’s just too hard. I can’t do anything right. I explained it to my wife and she says, tell me more. And so she’s listening and she says, I don’t know, it sounds like he’s trying to make you better. It’s not like he’s trying to grow your potential. Wait a minute. What? And it occurred to me, and when she said, I mean, the instant, like a lightning bolt of truth, that I’d never had a leader that was investing in me.

Perry Holley:
I never had a leader that saw more in me, more potential that could be developed.

Chris Goede:
So you didn’t know what that I.

Perry Holley:
Didn’T know felt like. And I. And I thought, oh, my gosh. I doubled down and went back and said, every time he opened his mouth, I’d lean in, I’d have taking notes. I’m like, tell me more. How did I screw that up? Tell me how I can be better. And because I realized that this guy was really believed in me and he really saw more in me. And I was thinking I was pretty good at the level I was, but he’s thought, no, come on, man, you can do more than that.

Perry Holley:
And funny story was that he. Six months later, he announced his retirement. And I wanted to cry. And I thought, well, how do you go from quitting to crying in six months? Is.

Chris Goede:
That’s the next episode.

Perry Holley:
You realize that somebody’s actually taking an interest in you. So when you’re saying that I’m going, Do people on your team know that? You see, are you. Are you encouraging their. That they have potential? Do you. Are you telling them that they have more, but they’re going to have to Work to do it and you’re, you’re.

Chris Goede:
There to help and use specifics so they, they understand, they comprehend. It’s not just, they feel like it’s just hot air.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. Fast forward a few years. I, I wrote a book and my, when my book came out I asked him to do an endorsement. So I said, and he did on the back cover. So I sent him a copy of the book and I said, and I don’t notice it by the way, if you wouldn’t mind, go on Amazon and evaluate, you know, give me rating. Up to that point on Amazon I had, you know, all five star reviews. Amazing, amazing. All five.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
Perry’s the Walks on Water. Perry, Perry this. And I go, he, he said thanks for the book. I wouldn’t give you. I read the book and I gave you a review and well done. I go out on Amazon, four stars I get, but I read it. If I read the review, it was like if you didn’t look at the stars, it was a five star write up with a four star rating. And I, so I, now we’re not, we’re not working together.

Perry Holley:
We’re just friends after a career together. And I said, hey dude, why’d you give me a four? He goes, seriously, are you a five star author? Yeah, that’s your first book. He’s still doing it to me. He’s still, he’s still calling me to a higher level.

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
And then I realized I smiled every time. If I ever go out there and look at that four star, just smile. That is a great message he sent me that we’re not, you’re never a five star. Come on, keep, keep working in to do that.

Chris Goede:
So by the way, let me just say if you want to go see if you can find that review, it may still be out there. It’s on Amazon. Perry’s book repeat the remarkable. And so maybe that’s homework for you guys to go out there and take a look. But it’s a great book and, and you need to make sure you pick a copy of that up.

Perry Holley:
So here’s an important distinction though when you think about potential is that raising people to a higher level isn’t just about dumping information and skills and training on them. That’s all helpful. You can build skills for sure one way. But we’re talking here about development and we often get into this about equipping versus developing equipping skills for the job. Developing is much higher level component. It really like leadership development, communication development, productivity development. It’s a, it’s a bigger life type of skill, not just a job type of skill. But.

Perry Holley:
But it’s really about drawing out what’s already there, but helping to really edify it and get them focusing on the areas of potential where they can be better. But again, understanding the people the person is so critical to this is that the more you understand them, the more you understand, like you were saying, how they can fine tune for them it’s not just one size fits all.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, yeah. What does that lens look like not only overall, but the specific in those individuals? So let’s walk through some of the truths that every leader really needs to remember. We’ll kind of go back and forth on these. We’ll pick a couple of them. I’ll start with the first one which is just remember everyone wants to feel worthwhile.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Chris Goede:
Leaders who communicate value will actually unlock a ton of loyalty. Yes, that’s great. But also effort. We call this discretionary effort. Like what are you doing in a way that people want to be a part of what you’re doing that they give you discretionary effort. By the way, they’re doing that in their own natural skill set. You don’t see too many people giving discretionary effort and thing they don’t enjoy doing.

Perry Holley:
Right.

Chris Goede:
And so you’re getting the best of them through that discretionary effort. If you’re leading and influencing them in.

Perry Holley:
The right way, you think about how do you. How do you communicate? I value you.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Perry Holley:
You can tell me I value you.

Chris Goede:
Right.

Perry Holley:
But I’m watching a lot of other things to see, you know, do you ask for my input? Do you seek my voice into things? Do you encourage me to bring a point of view? Do you challenge me on my point of view? Do you let me know that you need me, that I’m important to you? We talked about in our courses on inclusion being an inclusive leader. Do you. Does everybody on your team feel like they belong? Are they in the inner circle with you? Are they an outsider?

Chris Goede:
Yeah.

Perry Holley:
All kinds of great things come with letting people know that I value you.

Chris Goede:
And part of that is even we teach the appreciation part, the appreciation language. What does the team what their individual appreciation language. And are you, are you meeting them where it needs to be?

Perry Holley:
Another one is a second idea was. And I think you’ve hit it a bit so we can move past it. But encouragement is such a, such a huge thing. And I often tell we do a lot of 360 assessments for leaders where the people above them, beside them and below them have evaluated them. One of the 65 questions that they’re evaluated on is, my leader knows when I’m discouraged. I am stunned by how low this rate’s in almost every review I do. Hey, leaders, encouraging people is free. Yeah.

Perry Holley:
It’s easy, and everybody needs it. Everybody needs to be encouraged.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. All right. The third one that we want to share with you is people are naturally motivated. They. They have a motivation to be where they’re at, be a part of your team. And so as a leader, you don’t need to force motivation on them. What you want to do is remove the barriers and get them excited. Give them resource them in a way that brings out the best in them.

Chris Goede:
Like, you don’t need to motivate them to do that. Just remove any barriers that may be stopping that potential from showing up. Resource them in a way that may actually just kind of magnify that potential they have in them.

Perry Holley:
Yeah. You hear leaders say, my people or my team are not motivated. How can I motivate them? Hey, well, first hire motivated people.

Chris Goede:
But.

Perry Holley:
But maybe you could just move some things out of the way. Maybe you could put them in areas of their. Of their gifting and strength. There are lots of things that could be going on there.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Perry Holley:
Next one I think about is the. The law of buy in is that people buy into you before they buy into whatever you’re asking them to do or whatever the challenge is. And they want to trust you. They want to believe in you. They want to know that you care. So this influence you have flows from this area that you’ve done. The things that people are watching you, and they’re saying, yeah, you know, if Chris is in, I’m in. If Chris is going, I’m going.

Perry Holley:
So if you’re calling people to a level, if you’re calling them to develop their potential, are. Are they like, what do you want from me? Are they questioning you? They’re not bought in. If they’re saying, all right, boss, I’m in, I’m in.

Chris Goede:
I love that. And then the final one here is making sure you understand your. Your team and your people. Perry and I, we always are sharing just resources and tools and assessments and things that allow you not. And there’s not just one of them that’s like, you know, the end all, be all. It’s. It. They’re.

Chris Goede:
They’re tools. They’re part of the process that allows you to learn and understand more about your people, whether it’s their values, whether it’s how they’re hardwired whether it’s their purpose, but all of that helps you develop them. It helps you understand where. Where they are at, where you need to meet them and making sure that you then invest in that area.

Perry Holley:
You know, there are a couple of practical things that I had written down, but I’m. Some of them are very common, sensical. But I want to ask you about one of them. The commonsensical ones we talked about. About. Make encouragement at daily discipline. Letting people know you believe in them doesn’t need to be a rare event in your life. Celebrate any progress that you see.

Perry Holley:
Don’t not just perfection. Notice if they’re making slow and steady steps. Call it out. Ask questions to help them discover their own strengths and passions. I mean, look at how you could use like a coaching type of a method. But the one I wanted to ask you about, one of the suggestions was create opportunities that stretch people beyond their comfort zone. And I wonder, give us some reality of that in the workplace. Do you.

Perry Holley:
Do you find opportunities for that? Do you have to be creative with that? Is that a intent? You have to be intentional to do that?

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I think you got to be extremely intentional to be able to do that. I also think you have to have enough awareness and enough lens of what you see in the team to put them in an environment to be able to do that. Because it could go one of two ways. You could, let’s say, hey, I have an opportunity. I’m going to be out of town. I’d love for you to lead and facilitate our next meeting. Well, if they’re not comfortable doing that or I haven’t set them up the right way to do that, it’s not in their potential that’s going to put them in a really bad spot. And it may be the most unengaged meeting you’ve ever been a part of.

Chris Goede:
But if you know that they have that in them and you spend time and you resource them in a way, and you start by, hey, I want you to facilitate a meeting. And then you coach them through it, you listen to it, and then all of a sudden you say, hey, I think you ought to facilitate that meeting in front of the client. And then, hey, I think you oughta, right? And you just. And they just keep adding on. But don’t put them on a keynote stage with Perry Holly the first time that they don’t. They don’t.

Perry Holley:
They’re not.

Chris Goede:
They’re not experts at public speaking, but you know, they have potential in there because of what you see and what you’ve Learned about them, what you’ve heard from them, and. And then you just start putting them in smaller, small wins. Right. Just kind of just get that momentum going for them. That. That’s probably what I would say is how do you put them in position to build momentum over the potential that they have that gets to a point to where they’re on the big stage? In this example, speaking in front of.

Perry Holley:
A lot of people, I will tell you some of those meetings where you do delegate it. It’s some of my favorite, because they’re so nervous. They go really shortly, 15 minutes and then we’re out of here. So I don’t know if that’s just me.

Chris Goede:
That’s too funny. All right, so let me just add this as I get off of. Of that, which, by the way, that we’re recording this right now in 2025. I know what Perry’s plan is for 2026. It’ll be not to attend one of our meetings.

Perry Holley:
See how many weeks I can go and miss my. My Miss Streak.

Chris Goede:
That’s right. So let me just add this, though. We want you to treat this development process personally. It’s not a formula. We say all the time you have to lead people the way they need to be led. You have to communicate to people the way they need to be communicated to. It’s the same thing with developing them. The way you’re going to develop Perry is going to be different than the way you’re going to develop me as a leader.

Chris Goede:
You need to understand that. And so you need to continue to encourage them through the process. But it’s going to look a little bit different and make sure that you tailor the approach to meet what they need to pull the potential out of them.

Perry Holley:
And I’ll just give it back to you. But say this how you see people, that everybody has a seed of success in them, and your job is to cultivate that seed, to water that seed, to fertilize that seed, and to get them to grow into the true contributor on the team and beyond to what they can do. It doesn’t have to just be for your team. It can be for the organization, taking them outside. There’s lots that can be done, but you’ve got to see them as worthy of that attention. Go ahead.

Chris Goede:
So as we wrap up here, I mean, this is a must have for leaders. Like, you have to have this lens. You have to have this bias towards developing the potential in your people. You’ve got to build that leadership. Bench the succession planning we say have succession plan at every level inside the organization, not just the founder or the CEO or the executives. Right. You got to have. It’s a must have.

Chris Goede:
So as I kind of close and wrap up four things. One, see the individuals on your team for what they could be, not what they are. Now, I’ll never forget, oh, this is a long time ago. Sarah and I were dating and engaged, about to be married. And her dad told her some wise wisdom because I must have been frustrating her at some areas along the way. And he said, listen, Sarah, you need to see him for what he could become, not what he is. And I’m just going to leave it right there. She married the future and she married the future future.

Chris Goede:
And so I want to challenge our leaders to see what your the potential in people could be. Stretch them through experiences. Perry just asked me a great question. What are the experiences that align with their potential? Make sure they’re aligned and if they are, then stretch them with some experiences. Share your wisdom with us. The third one, what is it that you have that you’ve experienced that you can share with them? And then finally, and we talked about this as we started, man, create pathways of growth. Document it so that people know inside your organization that that’s a priority for you and you will win number one, the talent game when you’re hiring. But you’ll also keep the talent on the team if they’re very, very aware that there’s a pathway for their growth.

Perry Holley:
Fantastic. Well, great stuff. As a reminder, if you’d like to know more about the five levels of leadership or our other podcast offerings, you may learn that at MaxwellLeadership.com.ExecutivePodcast can also leave us a comment or a question there. We love hearing from you. Very grateful you spend this time with us today. That’s all from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

Transcript created by Castmagic.