As someone who has spent most of their adult life and professional career studying, teaching, and coaching around what constitutes effective leadership, you have a tendency to read a few things about it. Often you are exposed to a great deal of academic and practitioner angst around how does one measure effective leadership? I think we have greatly over-thought this concept. In reality there is really one key metric as to whether or not you are an effective leader!
Before
I offer such a cloud-parting revelation, however, I need to share some numbers
of why we desperately need to keep struggling with the concept and practice of
effective leadership. According to Gallup in their outstanding State of the
American and Global Workplace reports (available as free downloads, by the
way!), 80% of the global workforce is engaged in what pundits have called “quiet
quitting”. Now sometimes there is nothing quiet about it but essentially this
is a work posture where employees are putting in minimal effort, going through
the motions, and are certainly not engaged in their work. Further, according to
Gallup, this lack of employee engagement or quiet quitting costs the global
economy over $9 Trillion annually – that is 9% of the total Global GDP!
Certainly, this is a cause for alarm, but the kind of good news is that
Gallup has found that the #1 factor that can reverse such lack of engagement is
the quality of leadership an employee receives in the workplace. In fact, the
Gallup researchers are so sure of their results, they published a book called, It’s
The Manager. Now I say this is kind of good news because such
results are predicated on the leader being effective in their role in the first
place!
A
few months ago, I had an opportunity to speak to the Southern Seven chapter of
the Young President’s Organization. This is a group of business owners that
must have at least 50 full-time employees as part of their headcount. It was a
great group but at one point in my talk I offered them the following, “There is
no such thing as a neutral life. As a leader you are either making things
better or you are not”. . . . and the room got very quiet (as a side
commentary, there is something very freeing to be speaking from a posture of
conviction versus trying to develop business!). John Maxwell shares in one of
his latest books The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication, that “a
different world cannot be built by indifferent people”. Clearly, we have much
work to do in our leadership journey in that one additional data point of
concern is that according to LinkedIn, 80% of working professionals report
feelings of the “Sunday Scaries” or feelings of dread of having to go back to
work on Monday to face an ineffective, or worse, leader. Here’s the thing, work
does not make people unhappy, the workplace does. Again, either you are making
things better or you are not!
I
think part of the problem is that the leadership development industry has
generated so many models, 2X2 matrices, assessments, performance indicators,
etc. that we have truly lost sight of what is most important. This leads me to my
blog title in that measuring our effectiveness as leaders is really quite simple.
The one indicator of success that you really need to attend to is inspired by
the work of Robert Greenleaf. Greenleaf shared that if you want to know and
measure the effectiveness of a leader, just observe their followers! Specifically,
if your people are happier, wiser, more capable, or more prosperous then you are
an effective leader! At that point, it does not matter how you got there or
what theory you subscribed to, it is the simple fact that you made things better!
I believe that if we practice what Steven Covey called “working with the end in
mind” and use the flourishing of our people as the yardstick by which we
measure our leadership effectiveness, then I can guarantee we can create workplaces
people will not dread but genuinely look forward to coming to on Monday! You
see it is not the “how” of our leadership that matters most, it is the “what”,
or better yet, the “who”!
To
be clear, results and accomplishment do matter. After all, that is why we lead
in the first place. The point I want to stress is that when we take care of our
people, the business will take care of itself. Again, it's not the work, it's
the workplace. In fact, Daniel Pink's research shows that we as humans are hard
wired to be productive. People want to engage in meaningful and productive
work, they just need to have the autonomy, connections, and equipping to do so.
Recently
I lost my college roommate who remained one of my best friends. Whereas his
death was sudden and tragic, I was proud to have claimed the friendship of one
of those too rare individuals that improved EVERY individual who came into the
orbit of his life. As per the metric presented, I was one of those individuals
who became wiser, happier, and more capable due to his leadership.
Do
me a favor, ask yourself this question this week and observe where it leads
you. What is one thing you can do this week to help your team members
flourish? I would greatly enjoy hearing your results!
As always if I can help you and
the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I invite
you to contact me.
Yours in leadership,
Bill Faulkner
Independent Coach, Speaker,
and Trainer with Maxwell LeadershipTM
Certified DISC Profile System
Consultant and Gallup Strengths Coach
Certified Designing Your Life
Coach
Email
= bill@outloudinc.com
Visit our website at: www.outloudinc.com
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John Maxwell Team, please visit
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