What Do You Really Know About The People You Lead?
One of the top issues facing senior leadership today is the lack of employee engagement among those they lead. Research from a number of sources, including Gallup, Towers Watson, and Modern Survey all indicate that only about 30% of the workforce is fully engaged. So how do you get people engaged?
Engagement involves an emotional connection that goes well beyond an employee’s ability to do his/her job. The employee expends discretionary effort because he/she is inspired and believes in the same vision, strategy and culture as the leaders. That connection happens at a personal level, not as a result of organizational structure. And for that to happen, it’s critical that leaders know the people they lead.
Now I’m not just talking about knowing what they do on the job or what technical competencies they possess. I’m talking about knowing what motivates and inspires those you lead, what excites them, what interests them, and what’s important to them. Motivation is a word that gets tossed around a lot, but in reality, no one can motivate anyone else. Motivation is what drives us personally to become engaged and inspired. A leader’s role is to find out what it is that motivates people he/she leads and provide it. This is becoming painfully clear as the constitution of the workforce is shifting to a larger percentage of Millennials who are driven by different things than Boomers.
When leaders take the time to truly know the people they lead, not only do they have the opportunity to truly engage them, but they also gain insight into their behavior, their values, and their intent and avoid the risk of misinterpretation of loyalty and commitment. Let me give you a great example. My sister raised a handicapped son for 21 years in her home. He was severely handicapped and she dedicated her life to doing everything necessary to take care of him until the day he passed. Now if her manager did not know anything about this, it would be very easy to misinterpret her behavior as being not committed to her job. When an emergency happened or when Danny needed her, she was there, at any cost. However, she never let her work suffer and always did what she needed to do, even if it meant working until the wee hours of the morning. This created a common bond of loyalty between her and her manager because he knew what was important to her and remained flexible enough to accommodate her needs and she in turn was committed to doing whatever it took to get her work done.
Getting to know people you lead is not difficult. It just takes a commitment. It’s as simple as:
- Talking to people at a much deeper level than just about the company and the job.
- Taking the time to learn about their families and their interests.
- Practicing effective listening for understanding that goes well beyond just hearing.
- Authentically demonstrating an interest in people other than what they do on the job.
- Continually looking for ways to provide the things that motivate and inspire them. Zig Zigler, one of the greatest salesmen of our time, said “You can have everything in life that you want if you just give enough other people what they want.”
- Create opportunities for social interaction and team building outside of the office. For example, take people out to lunch and set the stage for conversations that go beyond the day job.
- Arrange off-site team-building activities that you know your employees will like, such as go-kart racing or a dinner cruise. Break up office routine with occasional events you know your employees will appreciate and you’ll get to know each other on an entirely different level.
So how do you engage and inspire others? Know more about them than what they do on the job and make a constant effort to find a way to balance their personal needs and desires with those of the organization. In a world in which our personal lives and our professional lives are extremely blurred, we no longer have the luxury of interacting with those we lead with blinders on regarding their interests, passions, and drivers outside of the four walls of the company.