Leaders as Connectors
How to Build Social Capital for Your Employees’ Success
Leaders and Social Capital
As a wrote about in a previous post, one critical relationship I’ve been exploring is the connection between social capital and employee development. Part of why this topic is so interesting to me is because in many of my leadership programs that I run, a topic that often comes up is around how to help employees develop and grow.
Since so much of our work is done working on teams, relationships are critical to success. Helping employees’ develop their social capital is critical to that.
Social capital is vital because much of our development and growth depends on the support, guidance, and opportunities others share with us. While all of us are responsible for ourselves, your success correlates to the number of people who want you to succeed.
The extent to which you have—and can leverage—social capital directly impacts your ability to gain the experiences, exposure, and expertise necessary for being productive and effective as an employee and for career development and growth.
While doing this on our own is important, leaders in particular are in a good position and role to help their employees build their social capital.
Building rapid rapport as a leader is critical to your success, but what’s also true is that when you help your employees develop their social capital, they can also be successful. And since your success ties to their success, this is a good investment of time.
As a leader, how can you help your employees build social capital to excel in their roles and advance their careers?
Here are a few actionable areas to focus on:
Relationships: Ensure your employees build connections with key stakeholders or influential leaders essential to their success.
Example: Identify 1-2 people in your organization who you can connect your employee to that will enhance their network or help them connect with trusted peers
Opportunities: Advocate for them to gain access to meaningful projects or roles where they can showcase their skills and grow.
Example: Go seek out additional development opportunities inside of your organization and nominate your employees/get them access to those opportunities.
Exposure: Act as their "megaphone," amplifying their great work so it gets the recognition it deserves.
Example: Encourage your employees to create a quarterly summary of their accomplishments (word doc or deck is fine) and share that with your manager and stakeholders. Talk about their work to your leader
Resources: Provide the tools, budget, or approvals they need to perform at their best.
Example: Bake in budget line items for professional development so they can actually attend the conference, take the course, etc
Credibility: Support new or less-experienced employees by vouching for them, and helping them earn trust and support from others.
Example: Make warm introductions to other credible and influential people in your organization
Focusing on these areas to help your employees’ build their social capital can help unlock opportunities and unleash your employees' full potential. It also helps them build their own network and sustaining capabilities to further develop and grow.
I posted about the importance of social capital on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, and my friend Matthew Daniel chimed in with a post about some of the specific actions he takes to help his direct reports and teammates build their social capital.
I’m sharing them here because I think these are valuable things that all of us can try for ourselves or our people.
1. Sit down and make a list of internal cross-functional partners that help you get work done or serve as your customers. Target about 12 names. Put them on rotation for 30-minute check ins once a month, three each week, totaling 1.5 hours of your "work week." Make sure you don't concentrate in just your business unit or division. Evaluate this list quarterly.
2. Sit down and make a list of 10-12 external SMEs or contacts you want to have, want to maintain, or want to grow. Ask for permission to connect with them once a quarter for 30-45 minutes. Use an intentional mixture of folks in your city, regardless of industry; folks in your industry, regardless of geography; and folks in adjacent industries and service/platform providers. Evaluate this list yearly.
3. No matter how junior your are, there's always someone earlier than you. Find a mentee that you invest in every other week for about 30-45 mins. Ask them to be accountable for putting together the agenda of topics for each conversation. Only commit to a quarter at a time and give you both permission to opt out based on life and work changes.
4. No matter how senior you are, there's always someone smarter than you. Find a mentor that invests in you every other week for 30-45 mins. Spend 15 minutes preparing to come to the conversation with questions and topics. Only ask for a quarter at a time and give yourselves an "opt out" based on life and work changes.
5. When someone leaves your company that you really learn from and enjoy, reach out an ask for a quarterly 30-minute check-in. These do eventually drop off the calendar, but they signal to your network that you're interested in a relationship, not just what you need from them.
As Matt rightly calls out in his post, these actions are investments of time, but they are not massive by any stretch of the imagination. They are also investments of time that do pay off over the long run.
Most of the time, we have to work with others to be successful in our jobs; that is true for any leader. Taking the time to invest in those around us by investing in their social capital is good for business and it’s good for you.
If you’re looking for some help for your learning and development, leadership development, I’d love to work with you: Here is how I might be able to assist:
Leadership & Learning Programs: Formal training and leadership development in your company, such as new manager or new leader training, or skill-based programs.
Consulting & Advisory Services - Do you have a leadership development or onboarding program that needs a refresh or audit? Let’s chat about how we can improve your program.
1:1 Executive Coaching - Are you looking for an executive coach for 1:1 leadership support? Let’s chat about how we can work together
Feel free to contact me directly for more details!