Anyone who’s played board games with me before might tell you that I can be a little competitive. This even applies to family game night at my house with my children.
I know it sounds ruthless, but hear me out.
I love board games, and we play a lot of them. Ticket to Ride, Catan, Munchkins, you name it. Over the years, I’ve heard the occasional suggestion that maybe I should take it easy on them.
I don’t. Not because I’m competitive. Okay, maybe a little because I’m competitive. But mostly because I’ve always believed victory means more when it’s earned.
A few weeks ago, we were playing Ticket to Ride. My oldest daughter had been getting better for a while, but this game felt different. She was focused, planning her moves ahead of her turn. She wasn’t just following her own strategy anymore. She was watching the entire board.
At one point, she convinced her younger sister to place trains in a location that disrupted my plans. It was a surprisingly effective negotiation. Her pitch was simple: If she did it, Daddy would lose. More importantly, she understood why it mattered. She wasn’t just focused on scoring points. She was thinking ahead, watching what was happening around her, and adjusting her strategy based on the entire board, not just her own agenda.
For the first time, she wasn’t just playing the game; she understood it.
And she won. I was thrilled.
That night reminded me a lot of how I approach leadership development, not just with my children, but also with employees.
Why Leadership Development Matters
Early in my management career, I made a mistake that I suspect a lot of managers make. I held on to too much. If something was important, I handled it. If there was a difficult conversation, I took it. If there was a client issue, I stepped in. If there was a critical deliverable, I reviewed it, revised it, and sometimes rewrote portions myself.
On the surface, it felt responsible, but in reality, I was creating a bottleneck. I told myself I was helping my team succeed. What I was actually doing was limiting opportunities for them to grow. Just as importantly, I wasn’t building the kind of team that my clients truly need. A team with depth and problem-solving skills, that doesn’t rely on one person to answer questions.
3 Principles for Developing People
1. Growth Comes from Within, It’s Not Handed Out
As leaders, we can provide training, mentoring, tools, and guidance. What we can’t do is grow for someone else. Growth comes from experiences that require people to step up. People develop confidence by making decisions. They develop judgment by solving problems. They develop leadership by leading.
Nobody can do those things for them.
Just like I couldn’t hand my daughter a strategy plan for victory and expect it to mean anything.
2. Give People the Resources, Then Get Out of the Way
One of the biggest shifts in my leadership philosophy came when I stopped asking, “How would I do this?” and started asking, “What does this person need to succeed?”
Sometimes that’s coaching, sometimes that’s technical guidance, and sometimes it’s simply removing obstacles. Once people have what they need, leaders have to be willing to step back and let them work through the challenge themselves.
That can be uncomfortable. It may take longer. The final solution may not look exactly like yours would have.
That’s okay.
3. Develop Teams, Not Heroes
The ultimate goal of leadership development isn’t creating a team full of people who depend on their manager. It’s creating a team that can think independently, collaborate effectively, and solve problems together.
That’s especially important when serving clients.
The best client relationships I’ve experienced come from acting as an extension of the client’s team. Sometimes that means helping deliver a project. Other times, it means serving as a sounding board for an idea that may never become a project at all.
Clients don’t always need someone to tell them what they want to hear. They need people they trust to help them achieve their goals.
The stronger your team becomes, the more value you can provide to clients.
The Big Takeaway
Looking back, my daughter’s win wasn’t memorable because she scored the most points.
It was memorable because she earned it.
She developed a strategy, adjusted as conditions changed, negotiated an alliance, and figured out how to beat me fair and square. That’s the same outcome I want for the people I lead.
I don’t want them to become dependent on me. I want them to become better than they were yesterday. Developing people isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about creating opportunities for others to discover them.
Then, when they’re ready, let these future leaders plan their own strategy.
About the Author
Clarke Chauvin is the ITS Practice Lead at Neel-Schaffer, Inc., specializing in Intelligent Transportation Systems. He’s passionate about helping agencies deploy smarter solutions that improve the safety and efficiency of our roadways. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
