2 Steps to Healthier Employee Engagement

When it comes to fostering engagement, the role of a leader is central, and for leaders themselves, it can seem quite overwhelming.  We know that the level of engagement is the result of a number of factors, two of which are leader-critical.  They are the ability of your leaders to understand and articulate your:
 

• Organisation direction (the ‘where & what’)
• Organisational culture (the ‘how’) 

Let’s explore these ideas in brief.
 
Organisation Direction
Whether you are a first time supervisor or a seasoned leader, your ability to make sense of where the company is headed and wrap your head around the strategy and objectives as they relate to your level of leadership is a pivotal activity when it comes to building engagement in your teams.  The reason for this is simple.  People like to know where they are going and what they are investing their energy in.  Sure, there are some people who are just happy to turn up each day, do what they have to do and then go home.  But for a majority of your people, they like to know why they are turning up each day and just how their role is contributing to the achievement of the bigger picture.  Part of this is psychological, as we all have deep hungers for being informed and acknowledged.  At its very core, sharing what you know of how your team’s objectives contribute to the function or company strategy will feed those hungers and prevent your people from making their own sense of where the ship is headed.  So, if you know where the ship is headed, share it.
 
 
Organisational Culture
This one can seem a bit harder than sharing on direction as culture can seem like such a big and impermeable beast.  But the reality is that as leaders we are custodians and champions of our organisations culture.  If you’ve not gone down the path of capturing and optimising your organisational culture, you can still nail this one.  What are the company values?  These are usually derived from processes that distil what we believe are the important ways to think and act around here.  If you don’t have clearly stated values, what is the vision?  This is another way of getting in touch with the culture of an organisation.  It’s certainly not the whole picture, especially if you find yourself in a situation where the stated vision or values are not demonstrated by the leadership of the business.  Between your vision and values, you have some important guide posts for ‘how’ you should be leading.  Whether they be values such as ‘passion’, ‘entrepreneurial’ or ‘customer-focused’, find a way to bring these to life in the way you lead.  Talk with your team about what they mean for how your team does what it does on a daily basis.  From first time manager to experienced leader…this one can be easy to do as well.  From a psychological standpoint, by having this conversation your people feel involved in the business.  And when you walk the talk, and carry out your role in the spirit of the vision or values you let your people see what good looks like.  Some people need to see it to make sense of it whilst others will just get it.
 
 
These are a couple of small actions that any leader can deploy that will start to have a positive impact on engagement.  Seriously, they are not time-consuming nor do they need to suck energy…rather they will most likely generate energy…and we know that when we feel energised we also start to feel engaged.