What a gift it is to work with overachievers! These are employees who are eager to take on responsibilities, do their best, and impress you over and over. However, managing overachievers can be challenging as they quickly master tasks and may be looking for a bigger and better role within a few months. Below are a few tips on how to manage and nurture them, so that they feel fulfilled, and so that your team doesn’t experience high turnover of qualified people.
1. Find out what they want to do next. When you are met with a supervisor who takes an active role in your career development, you feel supported in your career, not just in your job. By knowing where they see themselves in 5-10 years, you can then use it to frame your supervision, and how you support them in their growth. If they can recognize how your supervision is actually helping them move toward their next step, they will likely be receptive to your feedback and guidance.
2. Identify a few areas for them to grow, and frame them as relevant to what they want to do next. While they may be outstanding in most parts of their work, use this time to coach them on any of the small issues that may one day hold them back. Once those are addressed, if they are interested in moving up or into another field, you could provide further guidance and tasks to have them practice new skills. For instance, if someone has a mastery of her job, but she has told you that she wants to become a manager, you could provide some specific training or assign particular tasks to have her start preparing herself and her mind for what a management job would look like.
3. Help them find patience in their roles by reminding them how much there is to learn. Perhaps you supervise a graphic designer whose work is breathtaking. She’s always on time with her deadlines, and is very professional. However, she’s told you that she’d eventually like to branch out and start her own design firm. In order for her to succeed on her own, you know that she’ll need practice fostering strong relationships with her future clients, a skill set she doesn't get to practice in her current role. Therefore, you expand her learning about this particular aspect of the work by inviting her to observe you build relationships with clients, and even have her practice communicating with them under your observation. Although this may not be part of her current job, there is value in all to which she is exposed at your company. Help her recognize that and take advantage of it for her career development.
Of course, there comes a time when someone outgrows her role. When this happens on your team, don’t stand in the way. While in the short term, as a manager, you may be frustrated that you’re losing strong talent, remind yourself of the bigger picture. You don’t want to have your company stifle employees’ growth. And you certainly don't want to be the manager who resists the natural development of employees’ skills. Rather, you have a role in creating a supportive work environment that sees employees’ advancement as a good thing. They’re onto bigger and better things, standing on the strong foundation that they’ve developed under your leadership. Be proud and be supportive, just as you would want your manager to be with you.