Why the Best Leaders Don’t Focus on Their Title
May 15, 2024
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Engaged employees often remind you of a superhero. They accomplish tasks you didn’t think were possible, their time managementis impeccable, and they enhance the energy in the room. In some ways, they are miracle workers because they raise the standard of what’s possible and achievable.
Unfortunately, most employees aren’t engaged. Gallup, a leading research company around employee engagement, breaks employee engagement into three groups:
Engaged – Employees are loyal and productive
Not Engaged – Employees are just putting in the time
Actively Disengaged – Employees are unhappy and spread their discontent
According to their latest study, the average engagement for most organizations is:
This means that 69% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work.
While this statistic is staggering, the productivity and performance accompanying it will have you jump out of your chair. Engaged employees are 21% more productive than their disengaged counterparts, and companies with high employee engagement outperform those with low employee engagement by 202%.
Employee Engagement is the commitment and enthusiasm a team member has toward their work and the achievement of organizational goals. The late Jack Welch said, “There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow.”
Interestingly, one of the most ruthless and cutthroat CEOs in modern times listed employee engagement as the #1 measure of an organization’s overall performance. Clearly, employee engagement matters.
So, what’s the secret to having engaged employees and avoiding non-engaged or actively disengaged team members? The answer lies in one word: culture.
You could probably recite Peter Drucker’s famous phrase, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” by heart, but you would have a more challenging time defining what culture means. In Building the Best, I defined culture as “The shared values and beliefs that guide thinking and behavior. ” Simplified culture is what your organization or team believes and how you act collectively.
Culture is what your team believes and how you collectively act.
Since culture is about collective actions, every team member affects culture, from the brand-new hire to the most senior-level leader. However, culture starts at the top because what leaders tolerate, they encourage.
What leaders tolerate, they encourage.
A great way to quickly determine the culture of a team or organization isn’t to look at the most engaged and highest-performing team members; it’s to evaluate the lowest-performing actions its leaders tolerate.
Whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 100 business or the manager of a department, creating a culture and environment that creates engaged employees is a worthwhile endeavor.
To get better at anything requires the correct mindset. A great golf coach -wouldn’t expect an 18-handicap golfer to become a scratch player with one lesson. The same is true when it comes to employee engagement. You aren’t going to take an actively disengaged team member and make them engaged overnight. The goal is to make engaged employees more engaged. To turn not-engaged employees into engaged employees and to turn actively disengaged employees into not-engaged ones or to help them join someone else’s organization as fast as possible.
1. Establish Meaningful Goals
The verb form of the word team means coming together as a group to achieve a common goal. Setting a clear goal for your team or organization is instrumental in having engaged employees. The team will be far more likely to succeed if the goal is specific and each member gets behind it.
One of the most popular questions I get in the Accelerate Leadership Programis, “Is it ok if my team goal is a revenue goal?” If you lead a team in the business world and revenue is how you are measured as a leader, it is entirely acceptable for the goal to be a revenue or earnings number. However, if the team doesn’t earn additional compensation when they hit that number, then it shouldn’t be the only goal.
The key to a team goal that cultivates an engaged team is it has to be something the team will get excited about achieving.
2. Connect to a Shared Purpose
There are three cornerstones necessary to clarify a shared purpose, what I call the purpose trifecta. It comes from horse racing, where a bettor can make a wager on the outcome of a race through a trifecta bet. The bettor must have all three horses picked – who will finish first, second, and third in the correct order. If the horses do this, the bet yields a higher payout than any other form of wager in the sport.
The same is true for clarifying a shared purpose. The purpose trifecta is made up of values, vision, and mission. These tend to be evergreen and rarely falter. Clarifying these three parts will increase your odds of cultivating engaged employees and high-performing teams.
3. Provide a Sense of Control and Autonomy
One of the simplest ways to boost engagement is to empower team members to have control and autonomy in their work and decision-making. The Covid pandemic changed people in many ways, but one of the main ways is the desire for flexibility and autonomy over when and how they complete their work. The best way to use your power as a leader is to empower.
The best way to use your power as a leader is to empower others.
What that means is to help others make decisions where the information is. To transfer ownership over the process and results instead of micromanaging their every move.
4. Focus on Progress
When employees have a sense of forward motion, it creates a natural engagement to continue that progress. Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer introduced the Progress Principle, which found that of all the factors that can boost motivation and engagement during a workday is making significant progress on meaningful work.
When team members are making progress, and they are aware of their advancement, they are more likely to be creative, engaged, and satisfied in their job. It’s your responsibility as a leader to recognize and show them the progress they are making.
5. Challenge them with Personalized Coaching
Video games have levels to keep kids (and adults) engaged and challenged to keep playing. Those levels come with different obstacles and opportunities. The same is true of keeping employees engaged.
Specific roles and tasks can get mundane and boring. As my friend Whitney Johnson so wonderfully said, “Bored people get disrupted.” Leaders must challenge team members by personalizing coaching. One of the leadership principles that I am obsessed with is “Someone’s best performance tomorrow requires personalized coaching today.”
Engaged employees can remind you of a superhero. However, more often than not, what you will find behind them is a leader who makes employee engagement a priority. They do this by establishing meaningful goals, connecting to a shared purpose, providing a sense of control and autonomy, focusing on progress, and challenging team members with personalized coaching.
Now isn’t the time to be a leader where 69% of your employees are not engaged or actively disengaged, and it’s your job to do something about it.
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About the Author John Eades is the CEO of LearnLoft, and creator of the Accelerate Leadership Program. He was named one of LinkedIn’s Top Voices. John is also the author of Building the Best: 8 Proven Leadership Principles to Elevate Others to Success. You can follow him on Instagram @johngeades.
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