7 Marks of Engaged Leadership
Disengaged leaders lead by decree.
The ability to calculate percentages isn’t leadership. It doesn’t take a college education to raise last quarter’s results by 5% and call it next quarter’s goal.
When all that matters are the numbers, people become numbers.
More with less:
Disengaged leaders mouth cliches.
- Cut costs.
- Raise productivity.
- Do more with less.
“More with less” punishes success. The more you do, the more you’re expected to do. The more hours you put in, the more hours you’re expected to put in.
“More with less” is a short-term plan not long-term strategy. Prioritizing short-term returns destroys people and organizations over the long-term.
There comes a point when more with less is an evil myth.
Engagement:
I hear about the need for an engaged workforce all the time. What about engaged leadership?
Disengaged leaders create policies and set goals in isolation.
Organizations need engaged leaders who take responsibility for strategy rather than mouthing platitudes. Leaders who announce arbitrary goals and say, “You figure out how to get it done,” are disengaged despots who treat people like machines.
Reject disengaged leaders.
Reality:
- Disengaged leaders create defeated workers.
- Expect leaders to connect with the front-line to develop strategies for doing “more with less.”
- Engaged leaders call on teams to give their best. But, burning up people isn’t a leadership skill.
- Long hours over the long-term lowers productivity. Rest works.
Engaged leaders:
- Reject perks and special treatment.
- Are as transparent as possible with financials. Secrets breed inequity and distrust.
- Demonstrate concern for the issues of teams and employees. Corporate teams who don’t care for people are monsters who sacrifice people for bonuses.
- Maintain high standards for themselves and others.
- Hire leaders and boards who work on short-term and long-term viability.
- Connect with the front-line.
- Build trust.
How can leaders navigate tensions between productivity and people?
I’m reminded of Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann… “and that’s the truth!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocBO0fr1Ui4
Thanks Teagan. Lily Tomlin is a hoot.
80% of employees self report that they are not engaged.
80% of managers are not suited to managing employees.
The two eighty percents are closely related.
Employers keep hiring the wrong people to be their managers and then they wonder why they have so few successful and engaged employees.
Thanks Bob. Its sad that most of the books I read on engagement focus on employees!
Lord, I love that graphic. Spot on
Thanks Roy!
Sure thing!
You can’t hug a number
Thanks Joe. But, I can hug you for that comment. 🙂
Dan,
The last two weeks I have been working with teachers and principals teaching them about motivation engagement and relationships. The piece that was missing was engagement of leadership. The information in your post today is right on, thank you very much.
Respectfully,
Kenny Roe
Thanks Kenny. It’s so much fun to offer something that someone can grab and run with. Best wishes for the journey.
Right on the mark. Short-term solutions increase long-term costs and it is no picnic when staff or educators are over-burdened with student to teacher ratios or patient to nurse ratios that cause failure. You can’t do more with less; you just feel guilty that you can’t.
Thanks Peggy. The world is full of good people who want to succeed. When the “more with less” strategy reaches it’s inevitable conclusion, good people beat themselves up. They feel frustrated that they couldn’t succeed. The truth is, it’s leaderships responsibility for creating a dynamic that ends in failure.
I think too much focus in corporate America is about hiring the right talent instead of trying to build talent. Where are all these great leaders and managers to come from if no company is creating them?
Thanks Patrick. Research supports the notion that it’s less expensive to build talent than it is to hire it. Good call.
Numbership ain’t Leadership. There have been efforts over the past 25 years (as long as I can remember, at least) to change GAAP to actually include some valuation for people into the financial evaluation of a company and its performance.
These days, for sure, that ain’t happening. Yet people ARE such an important part of continuous continuous improvement and themes of innovation and service quality and similar. You cannot run those things by the numbers.
Balance. That is NOT obtained by sitting at a desk, methinks.
.
Thanks Dr. Simmerman. Me thinks you’re hitting the nail on the head. Desk-sitters ain’t leaders.
Managers count people. Good leaders count on people. People count on great leaders.
Thanks Cybuhr. That adds up.
Those will be hard words to swallow for a lot of so called ‘managers’ out there. Not to mention their bosses. Well pointed out Dan. 🙂
Thanks Stuart. I must confess that I wish leadership by decree was real leadership. Things would be so much easier. But, real leaders don’t stand aloof. Holding people accountable begins by holding ourselves accountable.
Oh yes. Taking responsibility, that’s where it all starts. 🙂
Basically treat people the way you want to be treated. Leaders MUST live by what they say and not have a different set a rules for themselves.
Thanks Michael. You might include “treat people the way THEY want to be treated.”
Dear Dan,
“Where number is everything, people become numbers” is powerful statement. It is equally true in many organizations. Leaders that focuses more on numbers try to justify everything by numbers. In such a situation, rules, polices and guidelines become secondary and people try to deviate it. They get what is expected but by different other ways. Means become secondary and ends become primary. By doing this practices, people achieve power, position and capacity but ultimately who suffer at last is none but organization.
People tend to justify such practices since they have limited tenure and develop tendency to assume that who care what happens at last. In such organizations, practices are more powerful than policies. People also engage into various unethical practices including blame game. In such situation, honest and deserving people suffer and street smart outshine in short run.
Such practices can be overcome by management. They should explicitly define what do they mean by success parameter and rate people on those parameter. Many times performance parameter and actually perceived parameter are different. Leaders should own the organization. They should believe that even they leave the organization, organization does not lose its identity and reputation.
Thanks Dr. Gupta. The statement about limited tenure is really powerful. It explains why some leaders focus exclusively on short-term results.
People who focus exclusively on short-term results probably don’t plan to stay with an organizations very long.
Some learders – if not the majority – still put cutting cost as a goal to be achieved at all costs (no pum intended)
Thanks Sergio. I love a good pun. And you are right to point out that being successful takes more than cutting costs.
“Cutting cost” is too often confused with “Eliminating waste”, which is an effort worth pursuing. Accurately identifying waste then becomes the challenge. In either case, processes are only as effective as the people charged with carrying them out. Scarce attention is placed on truly investing in the development of employees, but can offer the greatest return if it is a continual investment.
Thanks Darin. I appreciate your distinction between cutting cost and eliminating waste.
You nailed one of the most important ingredient to success, people. Best wishes.
It has a lot to do with leaders being self-absorbed and having a personal agenda that is not aligned with the vision of the organization. “Do more with less” this drives away high performers and eventually leave only a mediocre workforce. Thanks for a great and timely article
I could not agree with you more. But you know, Dan, if you were to do a survey, you would find a very high number of leader mouth cliches like “Do more with less”. Not a good sign, I would say.
Dan, that is spot on! In many cases it starts with the blurring of management and leadership. Far too often the two principles are misconstrued as do the activities that go with each. Orchestrating plans, budgets and processes is a function of management whereas motivating, coaching and people-building are functions of leadership. In order to have engagement, the environment needs to support it. Additionally, you need the appropriate input and influence to foster engagement.
It is just like trying to make a cake without all the correct ingredients or attempting to bake it at the wrong temperature. Engagement works the same way. As you have pointed out, there are in-fact times that “leaders” become disengaged. This often happens when the culture of the organization is not conducive to the elements of leadership and that in-turn smothers a leader’s burning desire to make a difference. Just like the ingredients in the cake, certain elements are required to support engagement. Once you start eliminating the needed elements for success, you end-up with a flat cake!
Very true and unfortunately many of the ones making decisions place burdens that they wouldn’t be able to carry. Like the oxymoron of “Do more with less” Staff is forced to choose between productivity and quality. The only place both can be delivered is in a factory. “Checked by no. 7”
The problem is sometimes those folks who are “fast tracking” their way only care about the number because it justifies them getting promoted. Perhaps one of the best ways to mitigate this is for an employer to ask a peer or subordinate of one of those people to get a real world opinion of their character and ethic. Most of these “fast track” people couldn’t care less about subordinates, as they are often simply stepping stones up the ladder. How you treat the lowest ranking people is a pretty good reflection of a persons overall outlook toward an organization.
Paul S.