I Thought I Was Developing This Employee. They disagreed. Here’s Where I Went Wrong.

The areas of opportunity for this employee were clear to me.

At a weekly 1:1, I delivered feedback, explained the behaviors I wanted to see, and followed up with an email recap to ensure clarity. It was a hard conversation in many ways—there were lots of dynamics at play, some within my control, some not.

While I was focused on the current situation, the employee voiced frustrations about past leaders and situations they felt were unfair. I wasn’t expecting the conversation to be easy, and I knew part of my job as a leader was to be clear and kind, even when delivering a tough message. In future conversations, I stayed focused on those areas of opportunity, but there was always an undercurrent of tension.

A few months later, I started seeing slow, steady progress. But the tension never fully lifted. Trust had been fractured, and I wasn’t sure how to repair it.

I told myself:

• This person might never like me again—and that’s okay.

• My job isn’t to be liked. It’s to lead.

Eventually, I made some organizational changes to the team, including having this employee report to another leader. I was optimistic that a fresh start would help, that some distance from me would dissolve the lingering tension.

Then I found out what they told their new leader. They said they had never received any development from me.

I was shocked. 😳

What?? I had been holding the line on development goals for months. How could this person believe I hadn’t invested in them? This was not the outcome I had hoped for. And I found myself asking: How did I let this happen?

The Ah-Ha Moment

I believe every situation holds a leadership lesson. So I took a step back and reflected on where I went wrong.

Here’s what I discovered:

• I was so focused on the development areas that were important to me that I never considered how the employee wanted to grow.

• The plan was mine—not theirs.

Because of that, they never registered my efforts as development at all. And that’s where I failed.

The Learning: Development Needs to Be a Partnership

Leaders, we need to ask ourselves:

Are we developing people in the way that we think they should grow—or are we co-creating a plan that actually resonates with them?

Because if we’re not doing the latter, they won’t see it as development.