BUSINESS NEWS - Developing effective leaders is essential to building stronger businesses, improving team performance and creating sustainable growth, according to Kevin Dixon, Chief Growth Officer at The Unlimited.
Dixon believes organisations need to move beyond traditional management approaches that rely on giving instructions and making decisions at the top, towards developing employees who can take ownership, think independently and help others grow.
“South Africa doesn't need more bosses. It needs more leaders,” says Dixon. “There's a big difference between telling people what to do and helping them discover what they're capable of. One creates followers. The other creates people who can go on to lead.”
He argues that businesses become more resilient when leadership development extends beyond senior management and becomes part of everyday workplace practices.
“If everything depends on one person at the top, your business can only grow as far as that person's capabilities allow. But when you develop people who can think independently, take ownership and grow others, you create something far more powerful.”
Four ways to develop better leaders
According to Dixon, leadership cannot be developed through promotions or once-off training sessions alone. It requires consistent effort, practical experience and a willingness to learn from mistakes.
He identifies four areas businesses and aspiring leaders should focus on.
1. Take responsibility for yourself
Effective leadership begins with self-awareness and accountability, including how people respond to challenges, make decisions and interact with colleagues.
“You can't expect accountability from others if you're constantly making excuses yourself,” says Dixon.
He believes strong leaders should be willing to acknowledge mistakes, accept feedback and continue learning rather than trying to appear as though they have all the answers.
By demonstrating accountability, leaders can also encourage employees to take responsibility for their own decisions and performance.
2. Give employees the opportunity to solve problems
Managers who make every decision and solve every problem risk creating teams that depend on them rather than developing their own capabilities.
“If you're making every decision and solving every problem for your team, you're not developing leaders. You're developing dependency,” Dixon says.
He advocates giving employees clear responsibilities and expectations while allowing them the space to make decisions, learn from mistakes and work through challenges.
This requires a balance between offering support and allowing people to develop their own problem-solving skills.
“At The Unlimited, we talk about not denying people the privilege of struggle,” he says, explaining that growth can come from overcoming difficult situations.
The aim, he adds, is to coach employees without automatically stepping in to resolve every problem for them.
3. Demonstrate the standards you expect
Leadership also requires managers to set an example through their own actions and to work alongside employees when challenges arise.
At The Unlimited, the approach to developing people includes teaching, demonstrating, observing and providing feedback. This allows employees to practise new skills and improve their performance with guidance.
Dixon says leaders must ultimately be willing to step back and allow others to take responsibility.
“Your job isn't to make yourself the most important person in the room. It's to help other people become confident enough to succeed without you.”
This means building trust, providing constructive feedback and helping employees develop the confidence to manage difficult tasks independently.
4. Measure success by the people you develop
For Dixon, leadership success should not be measured only by immediate team performance, but also by the development of the people within the organisation.
He encourages leaders to consider whether their employees are becoming more confident, making better decisions, taking greater responsibility and helping colleagues develop.
The Unlimited applies this philosophy through its Dragon Hunter programme, which focuses on developing future leaders.
The underlying principle is that leadership development should continue throughout an organisation, with established leaders helping others build the skills needed to lead in turn.
Dixon believes this approach can support long-term business growth by expanding the organisation's leadership capacity beyond a single individual or management team.
Leadership development can extend beyond the workplace
Dixon believes the benefits of developing leadership skills can reach beyond business performance and influence how people approach opportunities and challenges in their personal lives.
“When someone starts believing in themselves, taking ownership of their future and realising what they're capable of, that doesn't necessarily stop when they leave work,” he says.
For businesses, investing in leadership development can therefore mean more than preparing employees for promotion. It can help build a workplace culture in which people take initiative, support their colleagues and contribute to the development of others.
Dixon believes organisations should reconsider how they measure leadership, shifting the focus from the number of employees reporting to a manager to the number of people that manager has helped develop.
“The greatest thing a leader can build isn't a bigger team. It's another leader.”
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