Title: Risk & Reward: How to Provide Development Opportunities For Your Team - Thoughtful Leader
Headings: Risk & Reward: How to Provide Development Opportunities For Your Team
Risk & Reward: How to Provide Development Opportunities For Your Team
What Is a Development Opportunity?
Development Opportunities Come With Risk
Risk Comes With Reward
How to Provide Development Opportunities, Safely
Selecting Development Opportunities
1. Believe
2. Ensure That the Development Opportunity Aligns to Your Team Member’s Career Direction
3. Make Sure There is Enough Support Available
4. Handle Their Business as Usual Work
5. Communicate With Relevant People About the Development Opportunity
About the Author: Ben Brearley BSc. BCM MBA DipProfCoaching

Content: For me, that’s part of the role of a leader and is just part of the fun! The key to your people successfully taking on development opportunities is to help them to do it safely. Getting out of your comfort zone is great, but it’s a little safer when you have some guard rails to hold on to. Let’s look at how you can do that for your team. Selecting Development Opportunities
The best development opportunities are aligned with the team member’s interests or aspirations and are a “stretch”. That is, they require the person to learn new skills, have new experiences and feel at least a little out of their depth to complete the work. However, the very best development opportunities are not just about your team members. They often also help leaders with heavy workloads or projects they can’t resource, by having their team members “step up” and take on the opportunity. Don’t be fooled. Yes – you’re putting someone out of their comfort zone, having them work on something new and unfamiliar.