I’m sure I used to drive my mom and dad a little crazy as a child because I used to ask “Why?” so often. It turns out that kids aren’t the only ones who want to know why. Employees are more likely to be engaged when they are informed and understand the reason you ask […]
Category: Employee Engagement
Goldilocks leadership – not too tough, not too easy – just right
Just like in the children’s story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the best managers know how to strike a balance between being too tough or too easy on employees. The ‘too tough’ manager is mistakenly seen as an effective leader. Being ruthless might appear strong at first but when overplayed employees will become disengaged […]
Turnover at the top
One supervisor was counting up the number of plant managers he had seen come and go during the past five years. There were seven different people at the top, each with their own agenda. So it shouldn’t come as any surprise that employees might roll their eyes at yet another imperative change coming from a […]
Leaders need to clarify what employees are trying to say
Even when the leader is trained to be a more effective communicator, it is quite possible that the leader’s frustration with employees might derail any improvement in communication skills. Without training everyone on how to be a better communicator, the leader can take some steps to help ensure that employees get their point across. We’ll […]
What about the followers?
Over a coffee with a colleague, she shared with me an interesting trend emerging in followership. For decades, most training and development has been focused on executives, managers and front line supervisors with the justification that improvements made at those higher levels will be reflected in the behavior and results of the staff at the […]