As managers, we are tasked with so many tactical and strategic activities in any given month, week, or day. One of the more important tasks is to manage, lead and inspire your best players.

So what do you do when your best players are tired? It happens. They get worn down, worn out and just plain tired of their role. And, sometimes, there is not a lot of wiggle room to expand their position, give them stretch assignments or move them up the career ladder.

So, how do you help them rekindle their passion for their work?

I am not talking about trying to create a spark where there is no ambition. I don’t mean motivating the employee who was never motivated to begin with. I mean, recharging your superstars and reigniting the flames under your best and brightest.

Here are a few simple techniques to inspire and stimulate your top performers:

1. Give them a research assignment. Get them outside of the office and introduce them to someone outside of the business for some networking and research time. This will give them new surroundings and environment and help bring a fresh perspective to their work.

2. Put them in charge of something that is currently on your plate. And, tell them that. It does two things: it frees up some of your time to be more strategic and gives them a sense of significance and importance.

3. Sign them up for some leadership development work and have them train the rest of your team on whatever they learned. This gives them some new coaching opportunities and will encourage them to think through the experience in such a way that they can share with others. Plus, you’re getting great information out to your other team members as well.

Remember, even the brightest stars experience burn out sometimes. Continue to invest in your best and you’ll keep them shining through the good times and the challenging times as well.

Do you have suggestions for ways to keep your emerging leaders inspired? Please share!

Too often, well-meaning managers guide their employees towards certain mindsets or behaviors that either embody the corporate philosophy, or even that of the individual manager. But high performers are high performers for a reason – they tap into their own personal attributes for success and it’s critical that managers recognize and encourage this.

Patricia Spadaro an internationally known author and expert in practical spirituality, writes about the importance of harnessing what makes us tick as individuals in her article, Honor Your Own Style.

This is a must read for any manager who wants to draw out and nurture the things that set star employees apart from the rest. These are the things that can’t be documented on a performance evaluation or even articulated in a review, but the things that are critical to the success of your organization.

As a leader, you’ve likely had this problem before; your direct reports want to run everything by you. And, maybe you have encouraged this process for a number of reasons; they are a new employee, you enjoy the conversation, you are not sure they are making the right decisions, or you haven’t told them when they can make decisions on their own. At what point do you empower your high performers to make those critical and not so critical decisions on their own?

Smart people don’t need others to solve every problem they have. What they need is engagement. They need a conversation and body language that you are interested, you understand, and you want to be part of the solution. Ask challenging questions: “What are the consequences?” “What good happens under your approach?” “What bad could happen?”

High performers want and need engagement in a meaningful way. You don’t need to be part of every decision. Create the right parameters so they know when to come to you and give them permission to “think out loud,” “brainstorm” and be creative with you. Make sure you let them know they are safe to do this without being judged!

Your best performers do NOT want you to come up with all the answers. But they do want engagement and do want to feel empowered to make decisions. Your role as the leader is to LISTEN, ENGAGE, SPEAK and EMPOWER! How well are you doing?

One of the keys to coaching and developing your emerging leaders is to empower them to make decisions and take ownership over outcomes.

But organizations need to create a culture of empowerment, where employees are left alone to do their jobs, make decisions and be accountable for results. It’s not enough simply to tell them they’re empowered. The organization needs to show it by supporting those who empower themselves.

In his Harvard Business Review blog post, Empowering Your Employees to Empower Themselves, Marshall Goldsmith offers some key ways a company can create this culture of empowerment so your key employees can launch forward in their careers.

Are you getting in the way of your emerging leaders’ success by not supporting a culture where they can thrive?