If We Ever Needed Better Leaders, It’s Now.
You see some signs on your team, in your organization. Jose is unusually quiet in meetings. Susan doesn’t respond to emails as quickly. Mike started coming late to Zoom calls. Rosita is missing deadlines.
We’re talking about the disengagement of working people. “Quiet resignations.”
It’s not new. But with hybrid and remote work your previous ways of connecting with people and leading performance may just not be viable anymore.
Gallup's "State of the Global Workplace" 2022 report found that globally, employee engagement is at just 21%. The report divided employees into three types based on their engagement.
Imagine out of 100 people in your business:
21 people are powerfully working toward your company goals.
19 people are actively working against them.
60 people are coasting along, creating drag for those who are trying to move forward.
Think about our medical workers. Our legal community. Restaurant staff. The financial sector. Our police force. Our children’s teachers. Manufacturing employees. Auto mechanics. I could go on. When people are disengaged, they stop caring about their work product. When they stop caring, we are all at risk. If anyone thinks they are unaffected, I beg to differ.
While executive meetings may still center around the question of whether remote or hybrid work models are working, leaders are having the wrong conversation. The real issue is we need better leadership now…leaders who know how to engage and empower their teams whether they are in the same office or miles apart.
Three capabilities have moved to the forefront of leadership excellence:
Compassion: The ability and desire to take action to relieve others’ suffering - it comes naturally to some, and for others it takes cultivating – but don’t wait to recognize its value and determine where you are on the compassion scale. How much compassion goes into your decision-making?
Strategic clarity: Starts with strategic direction but is much more – Learn how to foster belief in the strategy, utilize a strategic framework to run the business, and focus on inclusion and strategic behaviors team by team. Why are we here? What are our shared priorities? How are we working together to accomplish it?
Coaching: Invest in learning the skills to evolve the thinking and capabilities of your people in the ways they learn best. Not as a manager, or a mentor, rather as a skilled leader-coach.
Close your eyes for a moment and envision your people working - regardless of location, type of job, time of day, working together or independently, customer-facing, or in the trenches. Envision them smiling. Collaborating. Motivated. Excited. Energized. Engaged. Picture them caring about their work.
This is the future you can create…starting right now.
Sherri McArdle is a wife and mother to adult children and has been a business leader/owner for over 25 years. She is also a Master Certified Coach and Certified Neuro-Transformational™ Coach to leaders and executives across the country, and a trained mediator. Sherri McArdle LLC is a New York State certified woman-owned business enterprise.
