As a leader in a small business, creating development plans for your employees and leadership is critical to achieving long-term success.

By focusing on your values and long-term goals, you can create a roadmap for your team's growth and development.

Keep reading to learn how to create development plans based on your values and long-term goals.

Step 1: Define and Understand your Values

The first step to creating development plans based on your values is to define what your values are. Values are the guiding principles that drive your business, and they should be a reflection of what you stand for. Some examples of values might include:

• Integrity

• Teamwork

• Innovation

• Customer service

• Growth

You may already have defined your values, but now you can start to think about how to incorporate them into your development plans.

Step 2: Identify Long-Term Goals

The next step is to identify your long-term goals. These are the objectives you want to achieve in the future, such as growing your business, expanding into new markets, or increasing profitability.

By identifying your long-term goals, you can create a roadmap for how you want your team to grow and develop.

Step 3: Assess Current Skills and Capabilities

Once you have defined your values and long-term goals, it's time to assess your team's current skills and capabilities. This will help you identify any gaps in your team's knowledge or abilities that need to be addressed. Consider conducting a skills assessment or performance review to get a better understanding of where your team stands.

Step 4: Create Individual Development Plans

Based on your assessments, you can create individual development plans for each employee. These plans should be tailored to the individual's strengths, weaknesses, and career aspirations. Consider incorporating training programs, mentoring opportunities, and job shadowing experiences to help your team develop the skills they need to achieve your 12, 18 and 24-month goals.

Step 5: Develop Leadership Programs

In addition to individual development plans, it's essential to develop leadership programs to help your team develop the skills they need to become effective leaders. This might include leadership training, coaching, and mentoring programs. By developing your team's leadership skills, you can create a pipeline of future leaders who can help you achieve your long-term goals.

Step 6: Monitor Progress

Finally, it's crucial to monitor progress regularly. Check in with your team regularly to assess their progress and identify any areas where they need additional support. Celebrate successes and address any challenges that arise promptly.

Creating development plans based on your values and long-term goals is critical to the success of your small business. By focusing on your values, you can create a team that is aligned with your mission and vision. By identifying your long-term goals, you can create a roadmap for how you want your team to grow and develop. By creating individual development plans and leadership programs, you can help your team develop the skills they need to achieve your long-term goals. By monitoring progress regularly, you can ensure that your team stays on track and achieves the results you need to succeed.

Identifying gaps within the capabilities of a team may have an assessment bias when it comes to self-assessments and reporting biases. Reach out to us here and schedule a free 30-minute call to see if we can help identify some of the gaps within your culture and the leadership skills you’re hoping to build.