How do you groom young employees to take up highly responsible leadership roles, especially when they have limited experience?

I think the best approach is good old fashioned apprenticeship. Once the candidate has been vetted and you’ve determined that this is someone you want to develop, I think keeping them close and exposing them to the daily operating and decisioning processes is essential.

Once they begin to show mastery of the “mechanics” (or hard skills) I think parallel simulation is very effective. For instance, when it’s time to make a decision, bring them in to make an assessment and a judgment right along side you. Then you discuss the decision made and why. You know your apprentice is ready when their judgment begins to line up with what you would have done (or better). I was taught this way early in my career and have used it to train up my own reports.

Mr. Mccoy I agree with your style of mentoring an apprentice. The leader choosing a person is okay, but has anyone asked you to be the apprentice? Have you accepted an individual who wanted to grow as a leader?

You might want to develop a strong Succession Planning program. A good one identifies talents as far as seven years out. Develop short term (quarterly and yearly) development goals. Provide mentorship opportunity to guide them through the Leadership Development Process. Incrementally increase the person’s responsibilities. Remember. Leaders develop through continuous feedback and mentoring as they take leadership responsibilities.

encourage and expect that with every goal achieved, they engaged and included others in the solution. When reviewing project, use this time to see where they incorporated others, what challenges they faced, celebrate their victories in this arena. soon, they will begin not only to have a stable of assistance, but be developing their team along the way!

Aakash,
I agree with both Johns that apprenticeship and mentoring is the most effective way to do this.Excellent leaders take years to develop fully. You should start as early as possible and use project management/group leader assignments to identify potential.
Formal learning like training and seminars to expose them to theories and differing styles are also valuable in concert with applied practice. The military does an excellent job here.
Encourage cross functional mentoring. You need to incorporate coaching as well which is different than training.
There also needs to be a recognition that leadership is different than management. Both are essential skills and their is overlap, but it is not absolute.
If you can afford it, develop a leaderhip academy and make it competitive to get in. Everyone should not rise to leadership. It should be about demonstrated ability, not seniority.
Involve line management and operations. HR doesn't not have the market cornered on how to do this or teach it....

I assume your question has a long-term focus. Putting green folks, no matter how educated, into highly responsible leadership positions is fraught with potential disaster.

That said, Aakash, I believe in building open, single-entity management teams where new blood is entirely "in" on project creation, engineering and development, along with top level strategic initiative, owning a piece of the responsibility beginning to end. This approach takes apprenticeship and mentoring to a higher level, as a young up-and-comer is included and brought along by all members of the team, each with their own strength, talent, contribution and struggle. In the team your newbie can stretch their ability above a full safety net; grow and evolve in the presence of a fail safe. The perfect environment. Wish I had had it in my early years. LOL

Value and validate the opinions of the new blood, incorporate them where possible and provide, in the team setting, refinements to thinking where appropriate. And don't hold back. Not all interactions are easy, but sheltering does not a good leader build. For that matter, pussyfooting around uncomfortable interactions does not build good teams at any level.

Good luck!

Together, let's put the fun back into work!
Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com

If you wish to groom employees to take up highly responsible leadership roles, then you must have a well defined program for training coaching and performance assessment. Young leaders should be encouraged to take leadership development programs, and be coached by a mentor who has interest in developing this individual(s). They would have the opportunity to participate in actual decision making, and to discuss the results of those decisions.

360 Feedback should be a part of the assessment process. Any budding champion requires feedback on what he/she is doing, and how they could do it better.

The good ones may well feel they want to fly on their own sooner and leave. But if the mentor is doing his/her job those feelings can be eliminated before they get a chance to grow. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!

Good answers. Then again, remember that leadership is more than just experience,
it's about GUTS... to take responsibility and accountability to move forward.
Hence, when you look for potential leaders, do not stereotype.
And remember, whether a novice or a seasoned leader,
experience is about mistakes... attitude leads to success.

This is @TheGreatLight.

Leadership requires exceptional skills in many things. Some people are natural leaders and would most likely be practicing leadership outside of work. With these people you can review, with them, their strengths and weaknesses from real situations. You can work with them to see how they addressed their weaknesses to prevent negative situations in the future. From this review you will begin to see what the individual needs and, together, you can agree suitable mentoring and training plans. Then it comes down to practice, review, and more practice and review. Raising the bar as you go.

Briefly, I use Succession Planning, Coaching/Mentoring, Job Rotation, and Internships to groom young and/or new employees. They get face time with execs mentoring them, where they gather experience & knowledge; they also have a Personal Development Plan (PDP) to learn new skills and obtain company-specific knowledge. The PDP may also include Exec/Leadership Development courses to facilitate movement through the ranks.

The answers so far are very good but you are likely feeling that they are a bit obvious and generic. This is because it is impossible to identify one process. Young leaders have many different needs.

The one thing that seems to be universal is the opportunity to make mistakes in a safe environment. Screw up have been my most effective professor.

Here is a link to a podcast that gives some great tips on how one industry does this very, very well. http://peoplefirstps.com/planting-seeds/

Also, here is a link to a free training course for emerging leaders. It is an 8-part e-mail series that offers research, tips, techniques and practical application exercises for emerging leaders. http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/d.jsp?llr=bukh7cjab&p=oi&m=1109272013441