Employee engagement through leadership development

Our global leadership crisis has me thinking about the need to develop the leader inside each and every one of us. Leadership development is often reserved for our "best and brightest", the people that have been identified as "high-potential" performers. This practice and philosophy has surely contributed to the widespread state of inept governance and corporate corruption we see in headlines across the globe. If we can no longer count on our best and brightest to lead, perhaps it's time to to consider a new approach.

The unprecedented, exponential pace of global change demands a new vision of everyone as leader. A Japanese proverb advises: "None of us is as smart as all of us." and there is not a single person I can think of who I would not benefit from leadership development- particularly in the crucial skills of "leading self". This approach also has the added benefit of increasing employee engagement. Investing in the development of people has a multiplier effect on desired performance.

It is important to note that the cost of providing development opportunities has dropped dramatically. Thanks to technology, the cost of high-quality self-development programs are now within the reach of any organization. Take for example the leadership learning system recently created by Richard Barrett. The New Leadership Paradigm training program is a state-of-the-art leadership development learning system based on evolutionary principles.  The system is flexible, customizable, and comprehensive. It provides for both emergent and structured learning in a self-managed or facilitated learning environment. The training program is comprised of four learning modules: 1. Leading self 2. Leading a team 3. Leading an organisation 4. Leading in society

The New Leadership Paradigm web site and learning materials are updated on a regular basis based on feedback and suggestions from users and facilitators of the learning system. It is a collective, collaborative, and evolutionary learning venture that can deliver cost-effective leadership training to everyone in your organization. 

While it makes sense to limit participation in module 3 and 4 to your high-potentials and high-performers, it makes equal sense to offer modules 1 and 2 to everyone in your organization. Everyone can benefit from more focus and development in the areas of personal mastery and teamwork. 

This time of great change calls for each of us to step up to greater personal mastery and a greater appreciation of  what we can accomplish as leaders and members of teams. After all, none of us is as smart as all of us.

What Will be Your Legacy?

I just wrote my Mom's eulogy so I have spent the last several days contemplating her legacy. It made me realize the true value of keeping legacy in mind every day- for each decision, each action, each time we interact with one another. It can be easy to lose sight of these truly important things in our fast-changing and complex world.

What will be your legacy? Mom was a teacher and grade-school librarian so her legacy was much more far-reaching than her immediate family and friends. One thing was clear to anyone whose life she touched, she always gave her best and expected the same of those she loved, cared about and watched over. Her grade-school students not only learned proper grammar and how to write a paper, they also learned discipline and respectful behavior. They learned to always do your best, try your hardest and make someone you love and respect proud. Those lessons are her enduring legacy, and for that I will always be grateful. I imagine the same is true for her students.

As a leader, what will your legacy be?

Employee Engagement Crisis Worsens in US

Right Management, a ManPower Company. surveyed more than 900 workers in North America and asked: Do you plan to pursue new job opportunities as the economy improves in 2010? The results were shocking:
--60% - Yes, I intend to leave
--21% - Maybe, so I'm networking
--6% - Not likely, but I've updated my resume
--13% - No, I intend to stay

It is obvious that too many employers neglected employee needs in dealing with the economic downturn. However, there are 5 areas employers can address to mitigate this negative impact on employee engagement:

#1: While the future might look grim in the eyes of some employers, employees
at other companies are working hand-in-hand with their supervisors to create a
positive future for the company.

#2: While some employers are hiding bad news from their employees, other
companies are keeping their employees informed and updated, even if the
news isn’t always good.

#3: While some employers are cutting jobs or scaling back on promotions, other
employers are helping their associates see opportunity in the midst of the crisis
for their own growth and development.

#4: While some employers may be instituting hiring freezes and cutting back on
perks, others will continue to find ways to reward those who are taking care of
customers and keep them coming back.

#5: While some employers are scaling back employee benefits, others are
committed to helping maintain the health and vitality of those who work for
them.

For details on how some employers are actually beating the odds and holding the line or increasing employee engagement see: http://www.leadershipbeyondlimits.com/2009/01/how-to-gain-ground-in-economic-downturn.html

Are You A Dream Manager?

I recently read a book called The Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly. The book is based on a fictional tale of the leadership of a janitorial services company reviving the organization. The secret to their success was engaging their employees by investing in the employee's personal dreams.

The Dream Manager concept suggests that employees should be encouraged to identify their dreams, which might fall in any of 12 categories: physical, emotional, material, intellectual, spiritual, psychological, professional, finanical, creative, adventure, character and legacy. A Dream Manger will coach an employee through the attainment of his/her dreams.

One organization that I am affiliated with has adopted the Dream Manager concept. They have formed small groups where employees can identify and share their dreams and support each other in bringing them to life. One group member has not only achieved his dream of jumping from an airplane, which his leader did with him; but he has also published two books. He credits the support and inspiration of his employer for his achievements and he is truly engaged.

The three components of employee engagement are 1)stay - employees wouldn't think of leaving the organization 2)say - employees will communicate positive things about your company and 3) strive - employees will go the extra mile for the organization. Whether you go to the extent of becoming a Dream Manager or choose other ways of investing in your employees, one thing is clear; making a personal investment in your employees ensures they will make a personal investment in your organization.

Re-humanizing business with social media

Social networking tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook etc. are re-humanizing business. That was my biggest take-away from from the Ohio Growth Summit 2009 which had an entire track devoted to social media for business.

I must admit I was surprised. Although I have been pretty active on LinkedIn for some time: http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomrausch I am only just getting active on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tcrausch and I just recently updated a long-neglected Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1522495234&ref=name However, I hadn't really put together the idea that all this technology was re-humanizing business.

A recurring theme of the sessions was how most businesses don't "get" the potential power of these tools. I certainly only had a glimpse of their full power prior to hearing from some people who have really leveraged these communication platforms. People are making important connections using these tools. They are also doing "hard business". They are finding new clients and distribution channels. They are recruiting the best and brightest of the next generation of employees. They are building cultural capital and high employee engagement cultures by encouraging the use of social networking by their employees. The social media-savvy business still seems to be the exception though.

Many organizations remain too rigid and hierarchical to embrace these tools. There is the great and pervasive fear of losing control- an illusion to which many still cling. There is also the popular and hard to refute personal reason for not playing the new social media game: I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR YET ANOTHER THING ON MY TO-DO LIST!

Well, this world just keeps spinning faster and it turns out that it only takes a little bit of strategic focus to get these powerful tools working to re-humanize your business. Here are some simple ideas to consider:

1. Encourage your new business development/sales & marketing folks to learn what the experts on LinkedIn are doing.
2. Get your tech folks and HR team together to explore how you can best use the tools your employees are already using to build a stronger culture.
3. Get your customer service folks to start "listening" with the tools and then figure out how to actively engage the conversations already happening about you.
4. Have your leaders start blogging- for the team or for the public or both.

Chances are, with a little strategic effort, you will find these tools will begin to re-humanize your business too!

How to Gain Ground in the Economic Downturn

Our employee engagement partner, Quantum Workplace, recently came out with some very useful research about how the top "Best Places to Work" companies are bucking the negative trends of the current economic recession. You can watch a free 30 minute webcast of the research findings here.

They identified the top five areas where the best of the best are out-performing the rest. Each of the five areas is supported by five to seven best practices, many of them low or no cost action steps that business leaders can implement to keep a positive culture alive, even in these challenging times.

We also feature a .pdf summary of the webcast in our online resource library which can be accessed here: http://leadershipbeyondlimits.com/resources.htm There is no cost for registration and you can access many other employee engagement resources in addition to this research summary which is entitled beating_bear_market.pdf

We encourage you to take advantage of these great new resources.

An Integrative Definition of Leadership

Leadership has many definitions. At Leadership Beyond Limits, we subscribe to the efficacy of transformational leadership as presented by Bass and Avolio (1994). This leadership definition implies that leaders lead followers to levels of higher morals. In addition, transformational leadership implies that the followers are better off with the four I's of:

1. Idealized influence - does the right thing for the right reason
2. Individualized consideration - treats each person as an individual and with care and compassion
3. Intellectual stimulation - offers employees stretch goals and encourages creativity and innovation
4. Inspirational motivation - lives from his/her values and inspires employees to build on the vision

I recently came across an excellent scholarly article that painstakingly researched the various definitions of leadership. The authors identified 92 discrete dimensions of leadership, along with a 93rd miscellaneous list of 20 more leadership characteristics. The authors believe that researchers, scholars, consultants, and leaders have helped create confusion around the definition of leadership in that we have examined the parts of leadership but not the whole. They draw on the story of the blind men describing the elephant and the different accurate descriptions that each blind man gave, yet each was insufficient to understand the whole.

The article is definitely worthwhile if you haven't yet read it, you can find it here:
http://www.regentuniversity.org/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol1iss2/winston_patterson.doc/winston_patterson.pdf

If you find that interesting, you will likely also appreciate their longer working paper, which includes the above analysis, along with a more in-depth discussion of servant leadership:
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/working/integrativedefinition.pdf

I admire the authors effort at creating an integrative definition of leadership, and appreciate their metaphor that reminds us that leadership is a large, complex animal.

The Enterprise of the Future

Have you seen the third edition of the biennial Global CEO study conducted by IBM? It is worth a read. The executive summary can be downloaded by clicking here. The findings make a strong argument for creating a high employee engagement culture.

8 out of 10 CEO's see significant change ahead, yet feel there is a huge perceived gap in their ability to manage that change.

Customers continue to be more demanding, well informed and socially aware.

40% are changing their enterprise models to increase collaboration.

Finally, the enterprise of the future goes beyond philanthropy and compliance and reflects genuine concern for society in all actions and decisions.

These conditions make a high employee engagement culture a necessity, not a luxury. If you want to know how to build and maintain a high employee engagement culture, you can download our white paper here.

The full IBM study is available at ibm.com/enterpriseofthefuture

What Engaging Leaders Do

Employee engagement is dependent on leadership style. There are leaders who inspire their teams and bring them to life and there are those who perpetuate presenteeism and disengagement.

Recent workplace surveys tell us that one of the most important drivers of employee retention and engagement is a competent and visible senior leadership team that is invested in the well-being of the company's employees. Today's employees want to work for transformational leaders. The four characteristics of transformational leaders are:

1) Idealized influence: they do the right thing versus what is the most expedient, simple or cost-effective.

2) Inspirational motivation: they work from their values and can articulate a vision for the organization that holds meaning. Followers become greater through stretch goals and growth.

3) Intellectual stimulation: they ask the right questions that challenge the intellect, beliefs and creativity of followers.

4) Individualized influence: they believe in their followers and offer them care, compassion and support. They see their followers as human beings with full lives, not just as resources.


These leaders lead with a coaching style and give their employees space to perform. Their team relationships are steeped in trust and that trust inspires employees to be their best for the team.

Typical leadership skill building will not develop transformational leaders. Transformation comes from the inside out; it's a way of being. Companies on the cutting edge of leadership development are investing in the personal development of their leaders including exploration of personal values, life purpose and character strengths.

Organizations transform when people transform.

The Most Important Thing Your Leadership Team May Be Overlooking

Is employee happiness at the top of your leadership team's agenda? It will be. As the plethora of evidence mounts regarding the benefits of happiness in the workplace, astute companies are taking notice. What do they know that you don't? Read on.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychologist at the University of California has concluded that there are multiple personal benefits to happiness - too many to list in this blog, and there are a larger number of benefits related to the workplace. As compared to their not-so-happy counterparts, happy people are better corporate citizens. They take fewer sick days, receive better supervisor and customer evaluations, stay loyal to their employer longer, show more helpful behaviors and are more creative.

These benefits are simply too significant to ignore. When we spend eight plus hours a day in an environment, that environment has a significant impact on our overall well-being - another word for happiness. There are very specific things that organizations can do to create a culture that supports employee happiness, but the most important thing is developing engaging leaders, starting at the top. Our next blog will review the characterictics of transformational leaders - the most enaging leaders.

Creating workplaces where employees feel happy and fulfilled is the right thing to do and it is good for your business.

The Richest Man in Town

This story has mainly been told in the Midwest, where a motivational speaker V.J. Smith was so touched by a Wal-Mart cashier that it ended up changing his life, and the lives of thousands of others. Smith was so impressed by the warmth and genuine personality of Aaron "Marty" Martinson that he began to talk about him in his speeches to businesses, schools and other organizations. Eventually, he was so inspired that he wrote a book about Marty, which is sure to reach a much wider audience now that he has teamed up with Mac Anderson at SimpleTruths.com

I encourage you to take the time to visit some of these links and listen to the story of how a humble old man, now deceased, is still making live better.

Here is the link to the inspirational movie:
http://www.richestmanmovie.com

Here is a link to a news clip showing how children respond to this story:
http://www.lifesgreatmoments.com/kdlt.htm

Here is the link to a speech about Marty by V.J.
http://www.lifesgreatmoments.com/video.htm

Anyone can be a leader. Marty sure was.