People join companies and leave leaders.. the old adage that puts the responsibility seemingly on the leaders alone. Employee engagement can be compared to the platform of a tripod. Should any one pillar fall short It will impact the engagement levels.
Pillar 2: The Leadership Team.
The leadership does play an integral part in employee engagement. Ones leadership abilities can make or break not only a company but a much higher stake is it can make or break people. I have seen very average people join companies and make superstars out of them, on the other hand I have also seen good, capable people join organizations and leave there completely broken and nervous wrecks.
Dr. Hersey in his program called situational leadership compares leadership mal practice to that in the medical profession. A mal practice in the medical profession is devastating for the patient and doctors are liable. Unfortunately in leadership malpractice the results are possibly just as crippling but the leaders are not really liable legally.
On the bright side we as leaders wield so much power which can work wonders with employee engagement if Only we knew how to use the powers.
6 things we leaders can do
- Understand that your leadership is only as good as how you team is fairing
- Mind share: leaders need to gain mind share of the staff in what the results of a task or job should look like. By that I mean its not only telling them about the goals or setting standards but also discussing what success looks like to them. I was fortunate to attend a speech by Benjamin sanders and he talks of a technique called ‘giving an a’. he said he would walk into first day of class with a new batch and tell them he was giving them all an A but he wanted them to go away and think of , what is it that they would do and achieve to get this ‘A’. sounds really simple right !! but IT IS that simple. We are our biggest critics, this method gets you all that you are looking for buy in, mind share and accountability,
- Diagnose: It is the leaders responsibility to diagnose the skill level and motivational levels on a daily basis. This diagnosis is done against the job and the mind share identified. Not just at year end. It’s the ability to do a temperature check in every conversation you have. Situational leadership does have very simple formulas for this.
- Adapt your leadership style . every individual is predisposed to leading in a certain way. Unfortunately your style is only as good or bad as you team sees it to be. In other words one style isn’t going to cut it .. and since people are so diverse in the levels of skills and motivation that to ensure engagement of a work force you need to adapt and vary your style based on the person in front of you . this means you would be responsible for developin, coaching, delegating and or motivating your staff.
- Believability: as you expected your mentor to be flawless that’s what people expect from you too. I know we are all humans and we all succumb to situations, how ever if through all those situations if one can still remain genuine, honest and emotionally intelligent it contributes to your believeability factor.
- Leadrship isnt about pleasing every one all the time: Don brown a colleague of mine said this to me last year and he used his example of being the head of a family with 4 women, his wife and his three girls… one of them is mad at him at any given point of time.. but he is still the well respected and loved head of the family. Every time I have to take s step or use a leadership style which is going to cause some discomfort I remember what he said. It has also succeeded in establishing my b believability and commitment to the vision especially in a change process.
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