4 Areas Where Frontline Leaders Can Increase Engagement

July 9, 2019

It’s not uncommon to occasionally feel disengaged at work – we know from Gallup that a majority of U.S. workers are not engaged at work. For millennials in particular, the numbers are troubling; 70% of millennials are either not engaged or are actively disengaged.

What’s a major reason why employee engagement is so low? Because new leaders on the front lines are not equipped to lead. New leaders on the front lines lead the biggest population of workers in organizations, yet many workers feel unhappy, uninspired, and lack empowerment. Data supports this:

• Approximately 60% of employees report a loss of engagement, productivity, and turnover with poor frontline leadership, and
• 25% of organizations experience profit loss due to ineffective frontline leaders.¹

So, what can leaders do to help employees become more engaged at work?

4 Areas of Employee Engagement

We recommend a simple and intuitive framework. We believe these are the 4 factors that drive employee engagement:

• Manager engagement,
• Job engagement,
• Team engagement, and
• Organizational engagement.

By focusing on these 4 key areas, leaders have the power to increase the engagement of the people they lead and serve in a more targeted way.

How Frontline Leaders Can Improve Employee Engagement

Here are steps that frontline leaders (and really, leaders at all levels of an organization) can take to increase employee engagement in these 4 areas:

• Manager Engagement: Engaged employees feel energized and connected to their boss. To increase manager engagement, frontline leaders can provide routine coaching, development, and feedback. Improving manager engagement builds trust and loyalty to one’s boss. Build trust on your team by delegating.
• Job Engagement: Employees are more engaged when they are actively involved and dedicated to their job. Frontline leaders can increase job engagement by bringing in internal or external stakeholders who have directly benefited from the work their employees have done, and by not micromanaging. Increased job engagement is associated with better work performance. Work on increasing accountability.
• Team Engagement: Employees are more engaged when they are motivated and excited by their coworkers. Frontline leaders can increase team engagement by providing direction, alignment, and commitment (DAC). Increasing team engagement enhances team effectiveness. Here’s how to make good leadership happen with DAC.
• Organizational Engagement: Engaged employees are devoted to their organization and feel passionately about its mission. Frontline leaders can increase organizational engagement by advocating for training and development opportunities for their direct reports. Increased organizational engagement is associated with lower employee turnover and better customer satisfaction. This checklist gives managers 4 ways to develop their people.

Our Process for Building Engagement

Organizations are more likely to invest in improvement efforts that have a measurable business impact. By better understanding employee engagement across these 4 key areas, leaders can more quickly and efficiently target interventions to increase low-scoring engagement areas.

For example, if employee engagement data shows workers have high engagement with their jobs, organization, and teams, but less so with their managers, interventions should be directed specifically toward increasing manager engagement. Such an intervention would have a greater return on investment and could include teaching leaders how to coach, develop, and provide feedback to others.

At CCL, with this data-driven framework as a foundation, we’ve developed a process that enables companies to identify what changes their leaders can make to improve employee engagement — and reap the benefits that come with it.

We’re not suggesting that improving employee engagement is simple or even easy, but it is possible. And it can transform your organization’s ability to get results. Our process provides a systematic, data-driven, measurable process to give your employee engagement a sustainable shot in the arm.

Managers can become one of the organization’s greatest assets if they are taught to understand and manage employee engagement. It’s time to take a new, directed approach to measuring and managing employee engagement, especially with new and frontline leaders who struggle the most to solve the engagement conundrum.

sumber: https://www.ccl.org/blog/4-areas-new-frontline-leaders-can-engaging

Strategi manajemen ketika ekonomi memburuk

Lessons in Leadership

A leadership guide featuring step-by-step how-tos, Wall Street Journal stories and video interviews with CEOs.

• Tips

  • Focus on what the company does best and spend to gain share.
  • Make bargain acquisitions to build up the company's core, even when it means taking calculated financial risks.
  • Approach the economic downturn like a driver heading into a sharp curve -- slow in, fast out.

• Related How-Tos

  • How to Innovate in a Downturn
  • How to Lead in a Crisis
  • How to Change your Organization’s Culture
  • How to Motivate Workers in Tough Times

• Feedback

  • Send Feedback on this How-To Guide »

The following was adapted from a WSJ column by Darrell Rigby and Steve Ellis of Bain & Co.

Like dangerous curves on a racetrack, economic downturns create more opportunities for companies to move from the middle of the pack into leadership positions than any other time in business.

Unlike straight-aways where leaders can thrive on raw power alone, steep curves require strategic finesse. That often results in dramatic differences in performance as leaders steer out of the curve.

Consider how Southwest Airlines Co. surged ahead during the 2001 recession. With a clean balance sheet, a clear cost advantage and adroitly hedged fuel costs, the discount carrier grew at the expense of rivals. As others eliminated capacity and jobs, Southwest lowered fares to gain market share. It boosted advertising to trumpet its price advantage and built solid relations with labor by avoiding layoffs.

Southwest is not unique. About 24 percent more firms moved from the back of the pack to the front in the 2001 downturn compared with the subsequent period of economic calm, according to an eight-year study by consulting firm Bain & Co. that analyzed the net profit margins and sales growth of more than 2,500 companies. Meanwhile, about one-fifth of all leadership companies—those in the top quartile of financial performance in their industry—fell to the bottom quartile. By comparison only three-quarters as many companies made such dramatic gains or losses after the recession.

Recessions hit some industries harder than others, so staying alert matters. The variations get amplified in a globalizing, interdependent economy. That adds both opportunity and complexity. The opportunity is to shift focus to economically healthier regions. The complexity arises from having to make long-term investments in global operations with less certainty than ever about where you will be exposed when the next downturn hits.

Many industry leaders fall from the top during recessions because they assume that a strong market position is an insurance policy against trouble. That approach breeds overconfidence. Executives postpone taking precautions or reach for the same levers they pulled in the past — like hedging their bets by diversifying. When the downturn hits hard they usually over-react. They slash costs and staff indiscriminately, cut capital expenditures, squeeze suppliers, and avoid strategic acquisitions. Then when conditions improve, they must spend heavily to regain momentum.

The better approach: slow in, fast out—like a good driver heading into a sharp curve. Winners in recessions tend to brake quickly heading into a downturn by managing costs carefully and consistently. It’s like downshifting to a lower gear to slow momentum and increase responsiveness. They focus on what the company does best, reinforcing the core business and spending to gain share. They aggressively monitor the competition to ensure they have the best possible line through the curve. That sets them up to accelerate at the apex of the curve, when the economy starts to improve. The farther you can see and the quicker you can turn, the faster you can safely corner.

Another characteristic of companies adept in a downturn: they make bargain acquisitions to build up their core, even when it means taking calculated financial risks. As markets improve, they are well-positioned to accelerate.

6 gaya kepemimpinan

Lessons in Leadership

A leadership guide featuring step-by-step how-tos, Wall Street Journal stories and video interviews with CEOs.

• Tips

  • All leadership styles can become part of the leader's repertoire.
  • Leadership styles should be adapted to the demands of the situation, the requirements of the people involved and the challenges facing the organization.

• Related How-Tos

  • What is the Difference Between Management and Leadership?
  • What Management Strategy Should I Use in an Economic Downturn?
  • What are the Common Mistakes of New Managers?

• Feedback

  • Send Feedback on this How-To Guide »

Adapted from “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Management” by Alan Murray, published by Harper Business.

Leadership is less about your needs, and more about the needs of the people and the organization you are leading. Leadership styles are not something to be tried on like so many suits, to see which fits. Rather, they should be adapted to the particular demands of the situation, the particular requirements of the people involved and the particular challenges facing the organization.

In the book “Primal Leadership,” Daniel Goleman, who popularized the notion of “Emotional Intelligence,” describes six different styles of leadership. The most effective leaders can move among these styles, adopting the one that meets the needs of the moment. They can all become part of the leader’s repertoire.

Visionary. This style is most appropriate when an organization needs a new direction. Its goal is to move people towards a new set of shared dreams. “Visionary leaders articulate where a group is going, but not how it will get there – setting people free to innovate, experiment, take calculated risks,” write Mr. Goleman and his coauthors.

Coaching. This one-on-one style focuses on developing individuals, showing them how to improve their performance, and helping to connect their goals to the goals of the organization. Coaching works best, Mr. Goleman writes, “with employees who show initiative and want more professional development.” But it can backfire if it’s perceived as “micromanaging” an employee, and undermines his or her self-confidence.

Affiliative. This style emphasizes the importance of team work, and creates harmony in a group by connecting people to each other. Mr. Goleman argues this approach is particularly valuable “when trying to heighten team harmony, increase morale, improve communication or repair broken trust in an organization.” But he warns against using it alone, since its emphasis on group praise can allow poor performance to go uncorrected. “Employees may perceive,” he writes, “that mediocrity is tolerated.”

Democratic. This style draws on people’s knowledge and skills, and creates a group commitment to the resulting goals. It works best when the direction the organization should take is unclear, and the leader needs to tap the collective wisdom of the group. Mr. Goleman warns that this consensus-building approach can be disastrous in times of crisis, when urgent events demand quick decisions.

Pacesetting. In this style, the leader sets high standards for performance. He or she is “obsessive about doing things better and faster, and asks the same of everyone.” But Mr. Goleman warns this style should be used sparingly, because it can undercut morale and make people feel as if they are failing. “Our data shows that, more often than not, pacesetting poisons the climate,” he writes.

Commanding. This is classic model of “military” style leadership – probably the most often used, but the least often effective. Because it rarely involves praise and frequently employs criticism, it undercuts morale and job satisfaction. Mr. Goleman argues it is only effective in a crisis, when an urgent turnaround is needed. Even the modern military has come to recognize its limited usefulness.

Kepemimpinan dan manajemen harus saling melengkapi

Lessons in Leadership

A leadership guide featuring step-by-step how-tos, Wall Street Journal stories and video interviews with CEOs.

• Tips

  • Leadership and management must go hand in hand.
  • Workers need their managers not just to assign tasks but to define purpose.
  • Managers must organize workers, not just to maximize efficiency, but to nurture skills, develop talent and inspire results.

• Related How-Tos

  • What do Managers do?
  • What are the Common Mistakes of New Managers?
  • How to Develop a Leadership Style

• Feedback

  • Send Feedback on this How-To Guide »

Adapted from “The Wall Street Journal Guide to Management” by Alan Murray, published by Harper Business.

Leadership and management must go hand in hand. They are not the same thing. But they are necessarily linked, and complementary. Any effort to separate the two is likely to cause more problems than it solves.

Still, much ink has been spent delineating the differences. The manager’s job is to plan, organize and coordinate. The leader’s job is to inspire and motivate. In his 1989 book “On Becoming a Leader,” Warren Bennis composed a list of the differences:

– The manager administers; the leader innovates.

– The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.

– The manager maintains; the leader develops.

– The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.

– The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.

– The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

– The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.

– The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader’s eye is on the horizon.

– The manager imitates; the leader originates.

– The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.

– The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.

– The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Perhaps there was a time when the calling of the manager and that of the leader could be separated. A foreman in an industrial-era factory probably didn’t have to give much thought to what he was producing or to the people who were producing it. His or her job was to follow orders, organize the work, assign the right people to the necessary tasks, coordinate the results, and ensure the job got done as ordered. The focus was on efficiency.

But in the new economy, where value comes increasingly from the knowledge of people, and where workers are no longer undifferentiated cogs in an industrial machine, management and leadership are not easily separated. People look to their managers, not just to assign them a task, but to define for them a purpose. And managers must organize workers, not just to maximize efficiency, but to nurture skills, develop talent and inspire results.

The late management guru Peter Drucker was one of the first to recognize this truth, as he was to recognize so many other management truths. He identified the emergence of the “knowledge worker,” and the profound differences that would cause in the way business was organized.

With the rise of the knowledge worker, “one does not ‘manage’ people,” Mr. Drucker wrote. “The task is to lead people. And the goal is to make productive the specific strengths and knowledge of every individual.”