Leading in a shallow talent pool requires a different approach to developing people and culture.

“I know that this is the first job for a lot of them. I don’t waste time feeling frustrated that they don’t know how to work. My goal is to ensure that by the time they leave here, they are ready for any other job they pursue.”
—Kaladi Brothers Coffee Company Store Manager

My office is over the flagship retail store of the top coffee company in our state.

A barista is an entry-level position. Employment is often short-term. While Kaladi keeps some for years, many are just passing through. That means store managers are constantly hiring and training.

Instead of complaining about the quality of applicants, this manager took a different approach. She assumed she was starting with raw, unfinished material, and turned them into the employees she needed.

In therapy circles (my wife is a therapist, so I get free lessons), there’s a concept called reparenting. The idea is that many people grow up and, for one reason or another, didn’t learn all the lessons they needed to effectively engage in the adult world.

Reparenting is the process of going back and filling in those developmental gaps.

This isn’t just for entry level or young employees.

It’s not your job to reparent.

But, if you lead well, you’re already doing it.

Whether it’s helping them manage their time or emotions, recover from a failure, believe in themselves, or persevere through challenges, you’re filling gaps someone else left behind—gaps that show up more often when your hiring options come from a shallow talent pool.

This isn’t just about fixing people. It’s about building them. Most employees show up unfinished. You have the opportunity to make them better, for the needs you’re your workplace and whatever they’ll do in the future. That’s the real work of leadership: turning incomplete raw material into capable contributors.

You didn’t ask for this.

But in many fields, like construction, healthcare, hospitality, and so on, there aren’t enough people to fill all the positions or meet all the demand. Most employers don’t have the luxury to pick and choose ideal, “fully formed,” employees, which is exactly what this feels like in practice.

The winning strategy is to build a workplace that attracts great potential, knows how to turn them into great employees, and then retains them for as long as possible. That’s how you turn a shallow talent pool into a long-term advantage.

Because you can’t be competitive without people.

Here’s the sweetener: Building others will force you to grow as a leader too. There’s no way to build clarity, resolve conflict, enforce values, drive accountability, and boost the confidence of others, without getting sharper yourself.

You’ll see your own blind spots. Improve your systems. Lead with more precision.

I used a therapeutic term. But, in the workplace, it’s a forge. And the heat shapes everyone in it—leaders and employees.

Why is this needed?

Many people enter the workforce without:

• Work experience (even at-home chore work)
• Social skills—especially for teamwork and conflict
• Boundaries—understanding what’s appropriate, when, and how
• Accountability
• Confidence and self-efficacy

These create obvious challenges at work and on teams. But you can grow the people you need. And if you are good at it, you have access to a much larger labor pool. Doing this well effectively widens a shallow talent pool without changing your local market.

What to Focus On (and How)

Develop Effective Structure and Clear Expectations

Clarity reduces conflict and increases confidence by helping people focus on doing the job instead of figuring out the job. This improves results. Many small and mid-sized businesses overlook this, especially as they grow, and it hurts them most when they already feel limited by a shallow talent pool.

What to do:

• Clarify roles and responsibilities. What’s expected of each role? Who reports to whom? What are the lines of decision-making authority?
• Be explicit with expectations. Don’t assume people will just understand. Spell it out: what’s expected, who’s responsible, what the deadlines are, how success will be measured.
• Check for understanding. If there are repeated problems, that’s a good indication something isn’t as clear as you thought.

The clearer your structure and expectations, the faster people from a shallow talent pool can get to meaningful performance.

Cultivate an Intentional Values-Based Culture

The US Marine Corps doesn’t just name their values (Honor, Courage, Commitment), they define them. My father was (is) a Marine. Once a Marine, always a Marine. They built that.

From their website:

Honor guides Marines to exemplify the ultimate in ethical and moral behavior. Never lie, never cheat or steal; abide by an uncompromising code of integrity…

That the kind of clarity that takes squishy “values language” and makes it operational. You build a culture by taking your values, defining them and teaching others how they guide acceptable decision making and behavior – across functions.

My best clients, the ones who achieve the greatest results, do this well.

All cultures are values-based. But most are built by accident, shaped by the preferences of whoever is most influential. As organizations grow, that influence often shifts to department or unit-level managers. That’s how silos and interdepartmental rivalry form.

If you build things accidentally, you get accidental results. If you want to be on purpose:

• Embed company values in daily operations. Define what “Honor” (or whatever the value is) looks like in sales, customer service, production, and management.
• Ensure management leads the way. Every leader should model the values.

New workers seek this. They’ll grow, and stay, where this is real. An intentional values-based culture is self-correcting and can be self-managing. It makes a leader’s job easier and outperforms the competition, which is critical when you’re trying to stand out in a shallow talent pool.

Healthy Accountability

One of the biggest drivers of workplace issues is leadership discomfort with accountability. It often feels like conflict. But it doesn’t have to be.

• Build accountability into structure. Make check-ins normal and scheduled. Then it doesn’t feel like getting called to the principal’s office.
• Just ask: “Did you accomplish X?” If yes, acknowledge it. If not, explore it. Maybe they need help. Maybe they were distracted. Maybe the plan needs adjusting. This leads into a coaching conversation.

Most people prefer fair, objective, consistent accountability. Employees expect it even if many leaders feel nervous about it. In a shallow talent pool, healthy accountability helps you maintain standards without constantly replacing people you can’t easily replace.

Conflict Resolution

Poorly addressed or unaddressed conflict is one of the biggest sources of lost time and profit.

Most conflicts can be avoided or reduced with clarity, culture, and expectations. But more importantly, conflict can be an opportunity to drive growth. When related to well:

• Conflict can grow us as individuals.
• It can build trust.
• It can identify where systems can be improved.
• It can strengthen culture.

Fortunately, I wrote a book on this, Conflict and Leadership. It is a very practical deep dive on this topic. If you aren’t sure how to turn conflict into an opportunity, get the book. It will help you lead better in a shallow talent pool where you don’t have people to waste.

Confidence Building

Many new employees lack confidence. Sometimes it’s about navigating your environment. Sometimes it’s in themselves.

If you’re not seeing the kind of initiative, problem-solving, or follow-through you want, the issue often is confidence—especially among people who are new to work or who have had limited development behind them.

• Everything above creates a confidence-boosting environment: clarity, cultural alignment, accountability, and healthy conflict resolution. These create environments where people know what is expected and how to grow.
• Add validation. Identify and affirm the good or the potential you see. Many people loop on past mistakes or future uncertainty. Help them remember what they’ve done and what they’re capable of.

You don’t have to babysit. When expectations are explicit, culture is clear, accountability is built into structure, and healthy conflict resolution is modeled by management, you don’t need a bunch of extra one-on-ones. Your structure becomes the teacher. And your culture becomes the coach. That’s how you grow people others overlook.

Building this will build you too. It’s how you grow as a leader in a shallow talent pool.

Take good care,

Christian