How to Consistently Cultivate Talent as a Leader — Brian Berner, Spotify’s Head of N.A. Advertising Sales

It goes without saying that a leader or manager is only as strong as their team. But how do you bring out the best in your employees? The answer is not always easy, but being able to consistently cultivate talent can provide a wealth of benefit to all parties involved — including yourself, the growing employee, and your organization as a whole.

Remember that culture is important

Company culture and workplace culture can go in many different directions. Perhaps it’s something of a no-nonsense environment or a casual one — so long as it benefits the work that you’re doing and the people you’re with, there is no one correct way to build a culture. But there are some core commonalities that all good cultures share, such as nurturing positivity and supportiveness.

For example, a simple way to inject those traits into any culture is to celebrate the achievements of your workers. Whether your workers are independent or collaborative, private or social, everyone wants to feel appreciated. So drawing attention to accomplishments (and even rewarding high performance) further incentivizes your workers to continually try their best and to actively improve themselves.

There are other similar cultural traits that should be fundamental to every workplace, like encouraging and being receptive to new ideas, or allowing employees to be open and honest about when they get stuck on a task. These kinds of factors are independent of the “personality” of a workplace. As such, every leader should strive to encourage that kind of positive behavior in order to allow employees to truly feel comfortable and confident in their abilities.

Read the full article here, originally published on November 28, 2019.