As a manager, you’re responsible for helping your employees pursue their career aspirations and gain relevant experience. To succeed in their chosen path, the person must be confident in their own potential, find ways to develop their capabilities, and know how to identify good career opportunities. If you can support them in the areas below, you’ll not only help their career, you’ll also gain their trust and loyalty.

​BUILD CONFIDENCE
You can build someone’s confidence by trusting them with responsibility, praising them when they do a good job and telling them that you believe in their potential.
 
OFFER CHALLENGE
The best way to help someone develop quickly is to give them tasks that stretch them and allow them to acquire new knowledge and skills. Ideally, your employee should spend half their time in their comfort zone and the other half just outside it.
 
PROVIDE INSPIRATION
You can help someone build their capabilities by identifying an interest of theirs that could be expanded upon. Sharing related ideas and recommending further reading or experiences can fire their passion for the topic.
 
REMOVE OBSTACLES
People sometimes need help overcoming obstacles to their career progression. For example, your employee’s prospects may be hampered by the prejudices of other managers. As a manager, you should seek to counter these through advocacy or ethical argument. Other obstacles, such as personal limitations, are best addressed via coaching or encouragement.
 
GIVE FEEDBACK
Feedback is a valuable gift (see Section 3.3). The most powerful feedback you can give comes from observing someone doing something right and celebrating it in public.
 
DISCUSS CAREERS
To help someone flourish in their career, you need to look out for opportunities within the team, or elsewhere within the organization, that would help them develop and progress faster than they might in their current position. If this means they leave your team, at least you’ll know you helped do what’s right for them.