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Leadership, I’ve observed, is often seen as a title —for someone to be seen as a leader, their role usually has to formally encompass it.
But I urge business owners to consider the concept of accidental leadership. In their book, The Accidental Leader: What to Do When You’re Suddenly in Charge, Harvey Robbins and Michael Finley explain accidental leadership like this: “It happens. Existing bosses die, move away, get fired, or are abducted by aliens. Some subordinate is asked to step up and take a stab at being a boss.”
Accidental leadership isn’t structured; it involves individuals emerging as leaders through circumstances rather than intention. I believe that accidental leaders are vital for businesses because, given the situations they find themselves in, they can come up with innovative ideas that leaders from traditional pathways may not. Business leaders, in my view, should cultivate environments where accidental leaders can flourish.
People Shouldn’t Be Boxed Into What They Were Hired to Do
Many times, I’ve hired someone to work for me in a designated role, only to discover later that they have so many other skills and talents. One example? The employee I hired to be my brand manager. Over time, I realized that she had so many different competencies, competencies that weren’t included in the job description when I was hiring, namely, sewing and photo editing. Eventually, I pulled her aside and asked her to tell me everything she’s interested in doing and what she wants to cultivate going forward. Now she’s helping me with other projects.
Too often, I think we as business owners are too quick to hire someone for a role and leave them in that role to do just those designated tasks. But people are not one-dimensional. Their interests and skills can change with time, and business owners should be aware of those shifts.
You never know what someone is good at or wants to be good at besides their core job functions. A software developer you hire might also want to become a writer, an accountant you bring on board could be great at coaching other employees and so forth. When those interests and skills come to light, that’s when employees can truly have opportunities to step up and become leaders in their own right.
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Accidental Leaders Can Help Businesses Grow in New Ways
Business owners can give employees an opportunity to express and pursue their talents, which can help their employees thrive and, in turn, benefit their businesses. For instance, the employee I mentioned earlier who is now helping with other projects has enabled me to streamline my work as a business owner.
New interests and skills on your team can power creativity and innovation and lead to business opportunities. Consider this: Say you run an SEO marketing agency, and you discover that one of your employees is really interested in influencer marketing. By giving that employee space to pursue that interest, with time, you could very well end up offering influencer marketing services at your company—with that employee at the helm of launching the initiative.
How to Facilitate Accidental Leadership in Your Business
To facilitate accidental leadership at your business, you might need to make a mindset shift. I’ve found that some business owners might be reluctant to let their employees stray too much from their core roles because they fear that employees will eventually leave the company. But business owners should learn to be okay with the possibility of employees leaving. Employees can leave for any reason, and in my view, it’s better for them to leave because they discovered a new passion rather than leave because they felt stuck at an organization. Instead of viewing employees pursuing their interests and other skills as a risk, business owners should view it as an opportunity for everyone involved.
Additionally, business owners should have regular conversations with each employee to give them a chance to voice their interests, skills and knowledge that aren’t necessarily part of their primary role. Weekly one-on-ones can be a great time to have these conversations, but it’s ultimately up to business owners to decide what the right cadence is for their teams. When employees share, business owners should listen and take notes. That way, business owners can help employees identify ways to pursue their interests and skills.
Identifying ways to help employees pursue their interests and skills is crucial because by doing so, business owners can enable employees to take steps to progress their careers rather than merely talk about it. For example, say you learn that an employee in your company’s finance department is interested in marketing. You could arrange for them to shadow someone on the marketing team, join a marketing association and attend marketing conferences. From there, you could give them opportunities to use the skills they’ve learned. For instance, if they learn about email marketing, you could have them write some internal company newsletter emails and send them out to the rest of the team.
Ultimately, I believe that by helping employees flourish, business owners will also help themselves and their companies flourish.
