Tired of Owning All the Development Work Yourself?
3 questions to help your people take real ownership—and lighten your load.
If supporting your team’s growth feels like one more thing on your plate—onerous, time-consuming, and demanding—you’re not alone.
A lot of managers are told to ‘develop their people’ but not shown how.
So they end up doing the heavy lifting themselves. But real development doesn’t happen when you’re in charge of it—it happens when your people are.
To better illustrate this challenge, let’s play with an analogy.
Imagine career development is like going on a road trip.
On a road trip, you need a driver who stays focused on the road ahead, directionally knows where they’re headed, and they’re able to make quick decisions as situations arise. They’re in charge of the vehicle.
And then there’s the co-pilot.
A great co-pilot makes sure the driver doesn’t get lost, helps navigate new areas, and is invested in the journey.
Both the driver and co-pilot have a role to play, and together, they make the road trip a success.
Bringing it back to career development, who is the driver and who is the co-pilot?
Too often, I find managers sitting squarely in the driver’s seat. They are telling their people what to develop, they’re creating the development plans, and they feel enormous pressure over the fate of their people’s promotions.
It’s time to get your people into the driver’s seat.
3 Questions To Shift Development Dynamics
Use these questions in your upcoming conversations and notice what changes about your conversations.
1. What are 1-2 areas you want to feel more confident & competent in 3 months from now?
Why this works:
Specificity - you’re asking for 1-2 areas, you’re not boiling the ocean.
Differentiation - confidence and competence are not the same thing. Consciously asking people to separate and consider each strengthens self-awareness and increases clarity for the development opportunity.
Time bound - you’re making it more tangible and immediate. (Note: adjust the timeframe based on their tenure - if newer in the role, growth will be faster and a shorter time frame makes more sense. If they’re more tenured, growth will be more nuanced and potentially a 6 month timeframe makes sense.)
2. What skills and behaviors would you want to invest in to help you maximize your full potential?
Why this works:
Doing vs Being - you’re talking about skills and behaviors, so you’re moving away from just a checklist of things someone needs to DO, and you’re introducing considerations for how they need to BE.
Expanding what’s possible - helping them pause and consider what their full potential even is stretches their thinking beyond the confines of their roles and responsibilities, increasing focus on growth, not simply promotion.
Investment - development is an investment in their future, call it what it is and help them invest thoughtfully.
3. If you raised your own bar of excellence by 5%, what would you focus on?
Why this works:
Agency - it’s their career, give them a say in informing what they prioritize focusing on.
Challenge - even if they’re super awesome, empowering them to consider how they’d raise their own bar even further, also illustrates they’re not done developing (no one is).
Your Role
You’ve asked these questions in the context of your 1:1s and/or career development conversations.
Now what?
Get curious and co-create ideas for action. Reminder: you’re the co-pilot helping to navigate, let them drive.
These can be helpful:
What about xyz is particularly interesting to you?
When you’ve strengthened ___, what impact do you hope to have?
What initial ideas do you have to help you take action on growing your abilities with ___?
What support do you imagine wanting from me as you sharpen your focus on developing xyz?
What feels right for a cadence for checking in on your progress here?
If they want to write it all down and create a development plan doc, great, let them drive.
If they don’t want to formalize a plan, great, let them drive. It’s their development and you can’t want it more than they do.
Common Questions
What if they keep asking me what they need to do to get to the next level?
Two part answer here:
Turn it around on them
Reflect on your feedback cadence
First, turn it around on them.
They’re asking what they need to do. Pause and ask:
“Before I chime in with thoughts, I’d love to hear from you. What are you seeing as skills and behaviors to strengthen further to ensure you’re ready for the next level?”
If they say, “I don’t know,” don’t take the bait.
Respond with, “pretend for a moment that you did have an inkling of an idea, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?”
Let them sit with it. You don’t need to fill the silence and you don’t need to be the first with a solution. This is a critical step in increasing their ownership and empowerment to get them into the driver’s seat.
Secondly, it’s worth reflecting on how often you’re sharing ideas for improvement and real time coaching and feedback.
If they solidly feel they are ready for the next level, and you view otherwise, it’s feasible they could be operating in a “no news is good news” mentality, assuming they’re more advanced than they are, and more real time feedback would likely be to their benefit.
ICYMI: here’s a post directly answering how to handle situations where they think they’re ready and you don’t.
What if I’ve told them to take more ownership over these conversations and they still won’t?
I’d be curious the extent to which you're stepping in and filling the void when they miss.
For example, you notice they stop filling out their 1:1 agenda, so you add agenda items. Of course they’re not going to do it because now they see that you do it for them.
Instead, kindly and directly share your observation:
“I can’t help but notice you’ve been hanging back and waiting for me to take the lead on our 1:1 agenda/development conversations. I’d love to get curious about what’s behind you stepping back from owning it.”
Summary
Too many managers are sitting squarely in the driver’s seat of their people’s development—charting the path, making the plan, and carrying the pressure. But real growth happens when your people are in the driver’s seat, and you’re right there in the co-pilot role.
This week’s newsletter offers three simple, powerful questions to help shift that dynamic.
These questions build clarity, agency, and momentum—without you doing all the heavy lifting. Because when your people drive their own development, they build the confidence and competence that actually sticks.
Your job? Ask better questions, get curious, and stay out of the driver’s seat.
As always, be human and have high standards.
- Katie
I’m Katie!
I help leaders drive stronger business results through group training & coaching
I'm also a mom, triathlete, & cowgirl who loves country music and good martinis.
Work with Me
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