You’ve Got Great Leaders On Your Team. How Do You Keep Them?
by Beth Porter, Senior Marketing Consultant at Four Corners Broadcasting & LLP Class of 15-16
September 2, 2026
Finding a great leader is tough, but keeping them is the real trick. Employee retention in Southwest Colorado is especially challenging when our local housing market makes outside recruitment difficult, which means protecting and investing in your current team is more important than ever. But true loyalty doesn’t come from a standard handbook. It comes from understanding how your leaders tick, using the four core communication styles: Drivers, Expressives, Analyticals, and Amiables.
If you don't speak their language, you can accidentally push them out the door. Let's look at three big blunders to avoid, and three smart moves to keep your best people happy and rooted right here.
Three Big Pitfalls to Avoid
- Clipping the Driver’s wings: If you micromanage a fierce, goal-oriented Driver or drown them in endless committee meetings, they will check out. They need to run their own ship; boxing them in just makes them look for the exit.
- Leaving the Expressive stranded: Sticking a high-energy, creative Expressive in a back office with a mountain of paperwork is a recipe for burnout. They feed on team energy and public wins—isolate them, and their spark fades.
- Forcing the Analytical to shoot from the hip: Asking a detail-driven Analytical to make a massive strategic decision without data or time to process it stresses them out. Ambiguity makes them feel unsafe, driving them toward companies with more structure.
Three Smart Strategies for Success
- Give Drivers the wheel: Keep your Drivers by handing them true autonomy. Focus entirely on their final results, give them clear targets, and step back. When they own their outcomes, they stay.
- Build an Analytical playground: Lock in your Analyticals by investing in great data tools and protecting their quiet focus time. Showing them that you value precision over pure speed builds immense loyalty.
- Anchor your Amiables locally: Relationship-driven Amiables stay where they feel connected. Build a warm, collaborative work culture, and help them plug into local community groups so Southwest Colorado truly feels like home.
At the end of the day, a good salary might get a leader to sign the contract, but treating them the way they need to be treated is what keeps them on your team for the long haul.
Being part of Leadership La Plata means joining a lifelong community of leaders dedicated to growing, giving back, and supporting one another. Alumni engagement keeps the LLP experience alive — through connection, service, and continued learning. Find out more about continuing leadership education opportunities here.