It happened again, and let’s just say I wasn’t surprised. Once again, I was delivering our signature workshop on being a five-star leader. And while everyone is in small groups, they’re sharing about why they decided to stay or leave a particular job, and it’s the responsibility of those listening to capture some keywords or phrases that they hear as the person is sharing their experience.
We regroup and I start writing these on a flip chart, and we start to see a very obvious pattern. It is a through line like no other – the majority of reasons why people decided to stay, and definitely why they decided to leave. The majority of the reasons had to do with one individual: their manager.
And I’m not surprised to see it, because I see it every single time I deliver this workshop. In fact, Gallup has found across a global study they share that typically there isn’t one lever to pull to increase engagement and retention – but there is, and it’s the manager! Developing the manager, arming them with the skills so they can be effective, is the lever to pull if you want to increase engagement and retention across your employees. Now managers, most of them got promoted because they were amazing individual contributors.
They got promoted for those skill sets, and then we throw them into this role where it’s no longer about their individual contributor skills, now they’re responsible for other human beings; for other people to not only deliver information to them, but to also coach them, to guide them, to mobilize them – and do it in an effective way for both the organization and the individuals. Most managers, most people, when they are first promoted into that official people leader role, they don’t receive any training for nine years, which is why I’m not surprised that within 18 months, nearly 40% of new managers completely fail.
And they’re not just failing themselves. They’re failing the people who are reporting to them.
So during this particular state of our economy and the workforce, where we have the introduction of advanced technology, where we have a whole new generation that’s entered the workforce, multi-generations. We have all of these communication gaps, all of these skills that we really need to harness to be amazing leaders – not just effective leaders, but amazing leaders.
I want to challenge you, what are you doing today to become a better leader? Where are you focusing your energy to enhance your leadership skills? Not just for your own personal growth, but to help support and develop those that are officially reporting to you. Take some time today and evaluate where your current gaps are, and what kind of learning agenda you could put together to increase your skills to benefit you, your organization, and the people that work with you.