From Supporting Development to Strategically Growing Your Team

You already believe in developing your people. That’s a strong foundation.

Now the question becomes: How do you turn that belief into a repeatable, strategic advantage—for your team and the broader organization?

From good intentions to intentional systems

Many leaders support development in ad hoc ways:

  • Approving training
  • Encouraging growth conversations
  • Offering stretch assignments when time allows

That’s a great start—but strategy requires consistency and alignment.

Consistency matters. Data shows that strategic efforts to improve employee retention made positive progress to retain more employees hired in recent years. Ongoing strategic development plays a key role in strengthening retention and supporting a stable, committed workforce over time.

Strategic development helps leaders strengthen these numbers while also reducing day‑to‑day strain — because a consistently developed team becomes more self‑directed, reliable and collaborative.

What strategic development looks like

Development efforts move from reactive to designed:

  • Development tied to team goals and future needs
  • Clear visibility into employee aspirations
  • Intentional use of tools like mentoring, training, and stretch assignments

A helpful framework is the 70:20:10 learning model:

  • 70% learning through experience (projects, stretch assignments)
  • 20% through relationships (mentors, coaching, peer learning)
  • 10% through formal training

The shift? You’re not just approving growth—you’re architecting it.

This becomes even more important when you consider that State employees typically stay for about 10 years. With such long tenure, development needs to be steady and intentional.

Advanced strategies to amplify impact

  • Stay interviews: Go beyond “Are you happy?” and ask specific questions about long-term goals, preferred growth paths and what might cause them to leave. While employees often leave due to retirement or personal reasons, they may also leave because of management practices, limited advancement opportunities, work culture, pay and supervision quality.
  • Skip level conversations: conversations with leaders two levels up can help gain insight into barriers and opportunities that leaders might not see directly.
  • Succession thinking: Understand who is ready for what’s next—even if “next” isn’t on your team
  • Culture shaping: Build norms where learning is shared, experimentation is safe and growth is expected

This is where leaders shift from “supporting growth when it comes up” to “architecting a system where growth is expected” — giving you more predictability in performance and less scrambling to cover gaps.

Culture truly has an impact — exit survey data shows that culture and strong supervision play a major role in whether people stay or leave.

These strategies not only support employee retention — they also protect leaders from unexpected turnover, clarify ‘bench’ strength, and reduce the personal stress of being the sole holder of key knowledge.

A broader lens: developing the whole person

Not all growth will map directly to someone’s current role—and that’s okay.

When you support:

  • Communication skills
  • Creativity and autonomy
  • Leadership presence
  • Confidence or boundary-setting

You’re building transferable capabilities that benefit:

  • The individual
  • The team
  • The State as a whole

These capabilities also match what employees say keep them here: strong benefits, meaningful work, supportive coworkers, flexible schedules, connection to mission and pay. This is human-centered leadership—and it works!

The strategic payoff

Leaders who take this approach often see:

  • Higher engagement and retention
  • Stronger internal pipelines
  • More resilient, adaptable teams
  • Greater influence across programs and agencies

And importantly, they contribute directly to enterprise-wide retention goals and workforce sustainability. Given current workforce trends, strategic development is one of the strongest tools leaders have to build long-term stability.

Resources from the Enterprise

From Enterprise Talent Development (ETD)

Leadership Learning Hub Resources

Relevant Resources