Tag: Business Improvement

Are You Committing Leadership Malpractice?

Over at the Harvard Business Review, Susan Cramm has written a very interesting piece about leadership malpractice. The article starts:

“There’s only one kind of leadership malpractice: wasting the lives of those we lead.”

I imagine there must have been a huge temptation to just leave it at that and submit the shortest HBR blog ever. Susan Cramm goes on to highlight a few leadership howlers that can soak up and waste huge amounts of precious time. These include:

• Sponsoring a project that isn’t ready for prime time.
• Overloading star performers.
• Managing jobs rather than careers.
• Refusing to address performance issues.

The article is worth a read to learn more about these, however one point in particular stood out for me. Cramm calls it: Negatively Labelling Others.

She uses a particularly angry example that makes me think of a spoiled child stamping their feet to try and get what they want. The outcome she suggests is a self fulfilling prophecy where staff just act out, rather than act right. I prefer to think of it as doing what we say we will, or maybe just actions speak louder than words.

Authentic leadership is powerful stuff. It can make, and break an organisation. You probably think I’m talking about the guys and (regrettably few) gals who sit round the top table, right? Well it’s not just them. In the West, we seem to be obsessed with looking upwards for leadership. In doing so we miss out on lots of creative, energetic, engaging work being led at all layers in the organisation.

Too often the leader is called upon to make a great speech. Rallying the troops I think they call it? My experience shows me that too often their subsequent behaviour completely contradicts their bold words. For example I know of a CEO in a global business who implores his staff to complete the quarterly attitude survey, and yet has never done so himself. So how can he even contemplate what it feels like to participate, let alone understand the huge frustration that comes from the subsequent lack of action? He talks about the importance of open communication yet he won’t blog, he says it’s a waste of time. Is he fearful of what his staff may ask of him and say to him? I don’t know but I do know he says one thing and does another. I don’t know about you but I couldn’t trust or follow someone like that.

Today I would like to start a campaign for authentic leadership. Leadership demonstrated by action, not by title, position or words. I hope you’ll join me.

Letter to the Boss, from John Everyman

My search for interesting and useful stories about employee engagement take me to many places. I search all over, and sometimes the very best stuff is a lot closer than you think. Thanks to the wonder of the internet I’ve made lots of friends I’ve yet to meet, though I know a good deal of them better than I know some of my relatives!

One of those highly enjoyable meet ups that has come my way is with a guy named Craig. We share at least two common interest, guitars and engagement. Here is a link to a great story written by Craig as a letter, from the worker to the boss. In itself it’s a lovely tale about connectedness. Behind it is some really powerful stuff, like talent wars, career shifters, and people who need people. It’s also about retaining good people, and the payoff.

Craig concludes by saying, “If you manage to land good talent, you’d better work hard to hold on to it. What factors impact overall job satisfaction, and therefore retention? Forget the bottom level basic survival needs of the Maslow model. The work force is craving much more than just pay and benefits. I’m not a researcher, and I don’t care to list yet again the mountains of studies and data to validate this, but the studies are out there. Fact:

Companies with higher levels of engagement also experience greater profit, productivity and retention rates.

The bad news: you cannot buy engagement. The good news: engagement costs nothing.”

What is your top tip for improving employee engagement in 2010?

I’ve been asking this question a lot lately. Why?

Well I’m seeing lots of research indicating that people are drifting from the fixed grin of relief at being glad to keep their jobs, to a position of wanting to feel more engaged with their work.

Organisations therefore face challenges in engaging and trusting a workforce which is motivated and willing to deliver the service needed to help create and sustain a profitable and purposeful business model.

This feels like a time of great opportunity for people and organisations who can create a sense of trust and autonomy in the workplace. I’m interested to know how you would help to achieve that?

Been receiving some very interesting and useful replies fro across the globe. Here are a few, many thanks to all the contributors and there will be more to follow soon:

Neeraj Sharma wrote:

I suggest employees be given a week or two to work on whatever they wish to work on – and document what they did, what was achieved and how much they enjoyed doing it as compared to their regular responsibilities. The salesperson may design a logo, the accountant may decide to deal with customers etc. It will shake things up, they will feel refreshed as well as challenged, and develop a new perspective and an appreciation for what others do. Some may find their calling.

Ulco Landheer wrote:

I’d have as many employees as possible rotate through an organization (or department or business unit) a few (1-2) hours per month to somewhat random positions. For example, during a meeting of one team, you’d have their work done by random selected people from other teams. That way you’d make sure that the right hand actually knows what the left hand is doing. It’s something I found out to increase the respect between different bloodgroups and the understanding between employees.

Phil Johnson wrote:

Gallup has identified a link between the amount of authentic leadership (leading without a title) within a company and it’s level of employee
engagement. Employees have been shown to increase their level of “discretionary energy” and engagement if they are inspired by the actions of others around them.

Kevin Hardern wrote:

In my experience with large and smaller organisations, the steps are very similar:

– define an end vision and organisational structure to support it which clearly demonstrate value to the workforce and its clients;

– engage some people in the workforce to help define the steps on the way to achieve that end goal, ‘transition states’ which themselves deliver vale along the way

– resource the implementation plan sufficiently but not excessively

External help may be needed to deliver, but the focus should remain equally balance between the tasks and the people, communicating with them regularly and honestly, even when problems occur. People are not stupid and if they are trusted, see value in what is being attempted they will help achieve the change rather than push against it.
The difference between having the people on side and helping achieve a goal is the single most significant factor in achieving successful change in my experience. Most organisations fail because they focus on the tasks in hand and do not tap into this massive resource which is available and if asked, willing.