How to Invest in Young and Emerging Leaders

By: Jessica Gendron

Last week, I posted a blog about investing in young and emerging leaders with the same fervor and enthusiasm that we invest in interns. Companies invest heavily in interns, yet many hesitate to invest in emerging leaders—despite the fact that interns often leave, too. Leadership development isn’t just about retention; it strengthens culture, drives innovation, and builds long-term success. Investing in your people is always a smart strategy. Yet the question arises, “What’s the best way to invest in early career and emerging leaders?”

Young and emerging leaders require two things: content and context.

Content: The Foundation of Leadership Development

Content helps individuals learn, grow, and develop the leadership skills necessary to take on greater responsibility and lead teams effectively. These skills include navigating conflict, effectively giving feedback, delegating, building relationships, influencing others, and communicating effectively.

At the end of this blog, I’ve provided a list of core leadership skills that transcend industry or position. These skills can often be developed through various formats: internal classes, external academies, online courses, MBA programs, or leadership certificate programs. Development can occur within an organization or though external opportunities.

Most businesses and organizations understand this part of the assignment. They offer internal leadership development programs or fund external opportunities for high-potential young leaders. This represents the content side of leadership development.

In fact, this is a big part of our business at The Center for Leadership Excellence. We host two Emerging Leaders cohorts annually and provide outsourced training programs to a wide range of organizations on core leadership topics. However, through this work, I often encounter participants who struggle to see how their new skills can be applied in real-world situations. I’m often met with phrases like, “I could never do that,” or “That would never work for me,” or even, “That’s not how we do things [at my company].”

This resistance is not a result of bad training. It is the result of lack of context.

Context: Expanding Capacity to Apply Leadership Skills

Context is our capacity to understand new information through the lens of our current experiences. This is often the missing piece in leadership development – not because organizations don’t care, but because it’s not always approached intentionally. New and emerging leaders need help seeing leadership in action to fully understand the principles.

Think of context like a bucket and content like the water you pour into it. Senior leaders have large buckets, while new leaders have buckets the size of a cup. When we pour too much content into a small cup, it overflows (and not in a good way). These leaders don’t have the capacity (or context) to process all of the new information being thrown at them. Our role isn’t just to fill their cup; it’s to help them grow the cup itself.

Growing Context in New Leaders

Young and emerging leaders need to observe leadership skills in action and understand how those concepts are applied daily. Here are some effective ways to grow context in young leaders:

1. Job Shadowing: Traditional job shadowing can often mean following someone around passively. To be effective, it needs to be intentional and robust. Young leaders should be matched with senior leaders, but with clear objectives and a structured schedule of shadowing opportunities.

For example: If a young leader needs more context around navigating complex relationships, a senior leader can identify opportunities that would showcase this skill. But wait, there’s more! Afterward, the senior leader should debrief with the young leader to tie observations back to the leadership concepts. That requires reflection questions for discussion and 20-30 minutes of a leader’s time:

• • • Talk to me about what you observed in that meeting? How did it relate to our focus area(s) [the outcome(s) identified]?
    • What were some skills used related to what you’ve been learning?
    • What questions do you have about how I handled the situation?

Rotational programs and internships can also be valuable, but their value depends on clearly defined learning outcomes and follow-up discussions. These moments help young leaders “connect the dots” between theory and practice and are critical to codifying the leadership lessons.

2. Case Studies and Real-Life Stories: While case studies are common in training programs, real-life stories shared by leaders can be even more impactful. In internal programs, invite leaders to discuss specific situations where they applied the leadership principles. For external training, maintain regular check-ins with participants (ask for a syllabus or learning outcomes) to discuss what their learning and share relevant experiences from within the organization.

• • • Tell me about what you’re learning in your class/learned in that training?
    • Can you identify examples of these principles in our business?
    • Would you like to hear about similar situations I’ve encountered?

3. Role Play: Role-play allows young leaders to practice new skills in a safe environment. Create scenarios that are based in real workplace challenges, such as handling difficult conversations, leading meetings, or making tough decisions. Invite the leaders that provided the scenario to participate as the other individuals (not the leader) in the role play for greater authenticity. After each exercise:

• • • Provide constructive feedback
    • Discuss how the skills apply in real-life contexts
    • Allow the leader to share how they handled the situation.

4. Mentorship or Coaching? I have strong feelings about mentorship programs. I think there are a lot of them that simply don’t work because they lack purpose, structure, and clear objectives. Pairing young leaders with an individual to provide guidance, share experiences, and offer insights to their leadership challenges is highly effective. However, that level of support is not available from senior leadership. It’s not a scalable model. Engaging with a coach, however, can help young leaders reflect on their experiences, set goals, and receive feedback that is tailored to their development needs and a clear set of objectives.

Mentoring can be an effective context-building tool, particularly if it is used to build relationships with internal and external leaders and learn about their experiences. Again, it’s critical to identify the purpose, structure, and objectives for any program of this nature.

6. New Applications for the Same Lessons: Consider opportunities that provide stretch assignments or cross-functional projects. These experiences push young leaders out of their comfort zones and force them to apply leadership concepts in new contexts. For my fellow learning nerds, this represents a higher-level thinking skill called synthesis, where individuals take existing knowledge and apply it to a new problem. This is a way to assess whether necessary skills have been acquired or require further support.
7. Reflective Practices and Discussion: Ask young leaders to maintain a leadership journal in which they record daily experiences, challenges, actions, and lessons learned. Then, discuss those experiences routinely. Finally, ask them to analyze their actions and defend them using the leadership lessons. Justifying their actions based on a set of criteria (those foundational leadership skills) tells us if the skills have been understood correctly and acquired.

Conclusion

Investing in young and emerging leaders requires more than just delivering content; it demands a deliberate effort to build context. By providing opportunities to observe, practice, reflect, and receive feedback, organizations can help these leaders grow their capacity to apply leadership lessons effectively. When we invest in both content and context, we create leaders who aren’t just knowledgeable – they’re capable, too.

Learn more about The Center for Leadership Excellence’s Emerging Leaders Academy. Jessica can be reached at jgendron@cleindy.com.

Foundational Leadership Skills

• Effective Communication: Clearly convey ideas, actively listen, and adapt messaging to different audiences.
• Emotional Intelligence: Recognize, understand, and manage one’s emotions, and empathize with others. Possess a growth mindset.
• Navigating Conflict: Navigate disagreements constructively, having difficult conversations.
• Decision-Making/Critical Thinking: Analyze situations, evaluate information, consider alternatives, make informed choices confidently.
• Team Building: Foster collaboration, trust, and sense of belonging within teams
• Adaptability: Remain flexible and resilient in the face of change and uncertainty
• Delegation: Assign tasks and support transitions effectively, balancing workload while empowering others.
• Time Management: Prioritize tasks, manage deadlines, maintain productivity.
• Relationship Building: Who to build relationships with, how to build them, and why relationships matter in the workplace.
• Understanding power, influence, and politics in relationships
• Self-Awareness: Understanding your own strengths and gaps, and how others perceive you as a leader
• Feedback: Providing effective feedback in a productive way, seeking and accepting feedback regularly.
• Performance Management: Managing the performance and output of your team members.