Engage Your Employees
Posted on January 26, 2014 by George Casey, One of Thousands of Executive Coaches on Noomii.
Much of the literature on engagement is missing an understanding that people engage with each other. Leadership is an engaging relationship.
There’s a growing assumption in business that says a happy employee is an engaged employee. So, when reading the literature on this subject, it is striking to notice the tone of the authors. Typically, they discuss a number of activities that managers and leaders conduct in the hopes of producing more “happy and engaged employees.”
What caught my eye was that throughout the articles the word engaged was used as an adjective, describing the employee’s response to the managers’ actions. No where did I read about leaders engaging with employees. Many of the management activities are identified by employee and management surveys asking respondents to rate how engaged and happy they are and how frequently their boss does xyz or the organization offers abc benefits. Items that correlate highly with high engagement and satisfaction ratings are assumed to be the cause of the engagement.
Unfortunately, this process takes a very analytical approach and it is frustratingly incomplete. Don’t misunderstand me. The important practices that management can implement – employee involvement in decision making, training, co-worker morale, honest communications, meaningful recognition, equitable rewards, rational procedures and policies, etc. – contribute to an atmosphere that is conducive to motivating employees. But it’s important to note outstanding leaders know these practices are not magic beans to be planted and watered to harvest engaged employees.
So where’s the rub?
What’s missing from much of the literature on engagement is a critical understanding that people engage with each other. Leadership is a relationship between the leader and those who chose to follow. Each leader defines engagement in a particular context, as does each employee, which contributes meaning to the relationship. Meaning is the strategic driver of motivation. Often the experiences and contexts are very different. I can’t overstate how important this observation is.
As human beings, we are driven to create meaning and make meaningful choices. We do so from our own wit and experiences and in community by creating shared meanings. Much of the engagement literature is written to describe the employee as the engaged object, and misses the point about relationships. Leadership is in fact all about relationship. The leaders we need engage with employees and lead the process of creating productive, enduring, shared meaning and purpose for the enterprise and the context. These meaning and purposes serve the common good.
So let us begin with an end in mind. Let us begin with a clear understanding of what engaged means. Leaders who want employees to commit their whole self – head, heart, and hands – to the mission, must do the same with their employees. Unfortunately, the philosophy that too often drives today’s organizations and marketplace is that of getting the most for the least, i.e., let the buyer beware. That same marketing philosophy is evident in some leadership philosophies as well. The leadership we truly need is one of equity; one that encourages self-expression, self-development, accountability, and treats others with the same dignity they want for themselves. The leaders engaging with this philosophy are finding employees doing more of the same. This is true leadership and productive engagement. What is your leadership philosophy?
