Prepare and reflect

In this phase, work on assessing not only your employees, but also yourself. This will help build an important foundation moving forward. Know yourself, your management style, and communication style as you work on building trusting relationships with your employees.

This step should be self-reflective and information-gathering. Grow your knowledge of your employees and their current levels of readiness for and commitment to their own personal and professional development.

Developmental conversations will be different for each employee and will likely shift throughout your time working together. Conversations about where development interests and opportunities lie are not "one and done." Revisit them over time. This will help you calibrate your conversations to your employee's current context.

Below are some questions to consider prior to your earliest developmental conversations and/or when an employee shifts gears with their developmental goals.

Self-reflection

• How have I helped so far?
• Am I looking forward to this meeting? If not, what's the issue and what should I be doing about it?
• What aspects of my identity do I bring to developmental conversations? Do I bring any unconscious biases or assumptions?
• Have I completed any personality or leadership assessments? How can these help me understand my approach to developing my team?
• What are my motivations in this relationship?
• What are my responsibilities in this relationship?

Reflect on your employee

• What do the employee and I have in common? How are we different? Will this affect our conversation? How?
• How much experience does the employee have in their current position? In their overall career path?
• Does the employee have existing personal or professional goals?
• Holistically consider what you know about the employee in both personal and professional realms. How does this information impact their current capacity for development?
• Has the employee completed any personality or leadership assessments? If so, how might these inform your conversation?
• What is the "big picture" for this employee? What drives them?