The strongest organizations are profitable, have high levels of employee engagement and low levels of turnover, and are prepared for sustainable, future growth. They have leaders at every level – some intentionally developed for expanded capacity in their current roles and some stretching to learn additional parts of the business in preparation for next-level roles. In fact, they strive to unleash the leadership potential of all employees.
The folks at the top of the org chart are senior managers, aka as executives. They may (or may not) be leaders, regardless of their position, authority or title.
It’s become commonplace to call these folks “the leadership team” or “the senior leadership team.” Presumably, that elevated status is intended to differentiate the group from frontline managers, directors, VPs or others.
The main problem with conferring “leadership” status on any group is that it implies that leading is exclusively the domain of a small number of people at the top. It suggests that no one else is eligible to lead or guide others. It even sets up a dependency – all others in the organization must depend on the “leadership team” for vision, direction and guidance.
If it sounds like a surefire recipe for bottlenecks, inhibition of innovation, and stagnation… well, that’s because it is!
There’s another problem with making leadership exclusive. What happens when the group titled as “leaders” isn’t leading? It happens when they’re too mired in the day-to-day, too siloed, or too removed from the rest of the organization. It happens when they don’t fully understand what it really means to lead. Others in the organization see:
Not only do others see these destructive behaviors, but they also emulate them. The trickle-down effect of poor leadership at the top is no leadership anywhere. That’s confusing and uninspiring. It’s one of the primary reasons cited when employees are asked why they left an organization.
The best defense is a good offense. Encouraging leadership at every level delivers tons of benefits (see below) and creates accountability for good examples at the top.
Navy Commander and author L. David Marquet defines leadership at every level as “embedding the capacity for greatness in the people and practices of an organization, and decoupling it from the personality of the person at the top.”
This is what you’re aiming for by building leaders at every level. Throughout this CONNECT 2Lead series, we’re offering all the why’s and how’s so you can achieve this game-changing reset in your organization.
You can bank on these 10 outcomes when you build leadership at every level.
Let’s look more closely at these in in two categories.
The first six are intertwined and come together, part-and-parcel, with increases in employee engagement.
Employee engagement produces a domino effect of benefits, all backed by reams of research. When we say “employee engagement,” we’re referring to the widely accepted CEB definition:
Employee engagement is the emotional connection that employees feel toward the organization that causes them to apply additional discretionary effort to their work.
Of course, employees who feel emotionally connected are less likely to leave. That’s where you get improved rates of employee retention. When people stick around, you have better opportunities for development that prepare them for next-level roles. You get institutional knowledge and experience. It’s easier to promote from within. Succession management and internal promotions are less expensive than recruiting and onboarding unknowns.
Part two of employee engagement is the additional discretionary effort. It naturally leads to improved productivity – as measured by quantity and quality of output, reduced absenteeism, and less overtime.
Common sense reveals the rest of the equation. With longer-term employees and improved productivity, customers are more satisfied. They come back. They buy more. They recommend your products or services to others. Revenue increases. Expenses are reduced (less turnover means less recruiting and hiring costs + less overtime, etc.). Profit margins improve as revenue climbs and expenses are reduced.
All that goodness flows from increases in employee engagement. And, here’s the kicker: the top driver of employee engagement, without contest, is LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT.
The last four from the list are ways that leaders build engagement and directly yield the first six benefits. They are also stand-alone benefits, at least from the perspective of employees!
Enablement and ennoblement for all employees isn’t quite the same as empowerment. Enabling means that employees have the resources, tools, time and training needed for peak performance. Ennobling means that they have a sense of worth and importance placed on their work and contributions. To learn more about engagement, empowerment, enablement, and ennoblement, check out this recorded webinar about those 4 E’s.
Distributed decision-making is what reduces the amount of time spent in meetings. Instead of managers attending every meeting, the people closest to the work attend and participate in decision-making. Instead of back-and-forth, go-nowhere discussions, quality decisions are made with less friction.
Reduced resistance to change occurs when people feel heard and considered in decisions that affect them. Buy-in skyrockets when they’ve participated in creating the change and don’t feel ambushed by it.
When you put these pieces together, you get a culture of empowerment that:
To learn more about the reasons for building leaders at every level, join this free, fun, highly interactive workshop on People First Leadership Academy.
Mindset is the starting point. Going through the motions performatively won’t convince employees that it’s real and that it’s safe. Getting buy-in from the top is important, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be the starting point. You can make believers by the proof of concept.
What’s the right mindset for leadership at every level? Here are the raw ingredients:
Mindsets become cultures. Cultures create passalong learning and permeate the day-to-day tasks, infusing them with meaning and reinforcing them. The more of these beliefs you have and activate, the more you’ll see in reciprocation. It gets easier and more natural over time.
Once you’ve got the mindset, you’ll need the skills and systems. We’ve got you covered in this series, so keep reading this CONNECT 2Lead series to get the full picture.
Looking for an immediate way to introduce leadership at every level in your organization? Check out Self Empowered™, a course designed specifically for leaders at every level.