We were working with a client recently on their great desire to allow their team to grow in their roles. They told us the team had commented on their desire to see a future in this creative company, and to know what their path might be. And these two leaders, with a deep heart to serve, wanted to know how to give their team a clear path of their growth in the company.
For caring leaders, this produces a conundrum. They desperately want to give their team what they want (a clear path for growth) while balancing the realities of what a company can afford in its investment in higher salaries, or bigger roles that a company is not yet ready to support. We’ll develop some principles around this conundrum at the end of this article, but bear with me as I give you some context using a metaphor.