Coaching for Success – Enhancing Performance as a Manager

“Seventy percent of a team’s engagement is attributable to the manager. This makes the manager the linchpin of employee engagement.” ~ Gallup State of the Global Workplace Survey 2023

How does your team develop and grow? Who facilitates the engagement of your employees? If the answer isn’t their direct manager, then likely it isn’t happening. 

Fostering team engagement has emerged as a critical factor for organizational success. Recognizing that engaged teams are more productive, innovative, and resilient, companies across industries are prioritizing strategies to increase team engagement in the workplace. 

Optimal engagement happens when employees:

• Feel a strong sense of purpose in their work
• Know they are growing and being assigned increased responsibilities. 
• See the team is winning. Everyone wants to be a part of the winning team.

You are the most engaged when you know your work has purpose. On the flip side, you are the most disengaged when you feel like your work is a waste of time and not adding value. When a team feels like their work has real purpose, they are motivated to contribute more, deliver the best results, and stay the most engaged. 

I know a young engineering professional who worked for one of the top defense contractors in the world on classified projects. What he thought was his dream. He spent four years mastering his craft in college, graduating at the top of his class. Yet, when he went to work for this company, he quickly became burned out and uninspired. He recently quit that job. 

When I asked him why he resigned, he told me he felt like his work was not valuable. He felt he was being given trivial work and when he had ideas they were not seriously considered. When he was given high praise during performance reviews, he would ask to be challenged with more demanding projects. Unfortunately, the more demanding projects never materialized, he grew bored with his work, and his employer lost a smart, goal driven employee.

Unfortunately, this story is far too common with many businesses today. In order to engage with your work and strive to achieve each and every day, employees must know their work is important and see how it is helping the team win. 

Similarly, team members increase engagement when they are growing. Growth makes it easier for you to empower the employee, it makes it possible for you to provide them with more autonomy and eventually with promotion opportunities. High performing companies, recognizing the power of growth. As a result, they use promotion as part of their engagement strategy. You will see increased engagement as your employees share their new responsibilities and roles with family and friends.

When your employees see their work as purposeful while being challenged with new opportunities, they will be motivated to bring their best selves to work and actively contribute to the growth and success of the organization. This heightened engagement translates into improved job satisfaction, as individuals feel a stronger sense of fulfillment and accomplishment in their careers.

Creating a feeling of winning is the force multiplier to increased engagement. Take a look around the next time you’re at a sporting event. When is the crowd most engaged? There is a buzz that fills the entire stadium when the team is winning. Everyone wants to be a part of a winning team. 

Bringing together purposeful work, the opportunity to grow with a feeling of winning will help you get the most out of your employees and most importantly win as a team. 

In his presentation, The Power of Employee Engagement, Gallup Chairman Jim Clifton lists what research has shown as the three Q12 questions that most correlates with engagement.

1. “Does someone care about my development?” Unfortunately, most employees answer no. People want to grow, be promoted, and create success. If that is missing, then they will tend to disengage.
   
2.  “At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?” A construction client had a project manager who felt she could be a good estimator. Sixty days after being promoted into this new role, she has more energy, more passion, and for the first time in years she catches herself peeking at her work on weekends and in the evening. Placing your team in roles that utilize their strengths accelerates the opportunity for the employee to grow.
3. “At work, does my opinion seem to count?” This speaks to the desire for every team member to be valued and feel the purpose in their work. Soliciting feedback from employees is an important cog in an efficient process. The simple act of listening to the opinions of your team members will engage them in their work, help you identify constraints and it just might have saved the defense contractor referenced above a great employee.

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There’s nothing more important than moving your managers from the mindset of “I am a manager” to “I am a developer of people”. The rut that management often falls into is routinely looking for error and weakness in employees, rather than seeing their strengths and developing them to success.

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“People are developed the same way gold is mined. Several tons of dirt must be moved before an ounce of gold is found. But you don’t go into the mine looking for the dirt. You go in looking for the gold.” ~ Dale Carnegie

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Are you and your managers mining for the gold or looking for the dirt?

Take-Aways

• Develop your managers so they can develop your employees
• Become expert at linking the job to company goals and a greater purpose
• Focus on growing your company so you can create growth opportunities for your team.