Senior Leader Engagement

"The Many Contexts of Employee Engagement: a 2012/2013 Kenexa® Worktrends^TM report” published this week had some interesting results regarding senior leader engagement. 33,000 employees in 28 countries were asked 200 questions about employee, manager and leadership behaviours relating to employee engagement. Questions regarding pride, satisfaction, advocacy and commitment were posed in order to measure the extent to which employees “are motivated to contribute to organisational success, and are willing to apply discretionary effort to accomplishing tasks important to the achievement of organisational goals.”

Worldwide, regardless of industry or location, executives and senior leaders are the most engaged (at 76%) compared to any other category of employee (mid-level managers, 58%; supervisors, 53%; and individual contributors, 49%). What is interesting is that whilst this group is the most engaged, that engagement might not automatically trickle down the organisation (as demonstrated in the figures). Engagement does not beget engagement; rather trust appears to be the medium by which senior leaders can transmit engagement downwards in the organisation. The key finding of the survey was that “untrustworthy senior leaders will cause doubt and dampen employee engagement.”

Here’s the impact of senior leaders’ trustworthiness on employee engagement followed by further considerations (“et alors”):

Senior Leader Engagement

Senior leaders’ trustworthiness was measured compared to three core determinants of person-to-person trust and then the specific responses to those items were correlated to the overall employee engagement index (EEI) score. The trustworthiness and results are as follows:

1.       Benevolence

The senior leader shows concern for the well-being and morale of the employees.

Where positive, the EEI score averaged 79%; where negative, the EEI averaged 26%

2.       Competence

The senior leader has the ability to deal with challenges faced by the organisation.

Where positive, the EEI score averaged 69%; where negative, the EEI averaged 23%

3.       Integrity

When the senior leader says something, the employees can believe that it is true.

Where positive, the EEI score averaged 78%; where negative, the EEI averaged 26%

The report concludes that, “the effect of untrustworthy senior leadership is devastating on employees’ engagement. Employees seem particularly troubled by senior leaders who do not exude competence and know-how (EEI 23%). On the other hand, senior leaders who seem to genuinely care about their employees’ welfare cause workers’ EEI scores to soar (79%).

Et alors

Perhaps the issue is the difference in expectations between the senior leaders and the employees. If the senior leaders are principally “baby boomers” then the survey shows that their main “axis” of engagement is commitment; whereas generations “X” and “Y” both express their engagement through pride, satisfaction and advocacy (but not commitment). Other demographics might be at play, not least nationality with (for example) Indians being, on average, highly engaged (77%) and French showing overall low engagement (45%) – differences which could present challenges for senior leader engagement in multinational organisations.

Difference in expectations may influence all three trustworthiness factors. For example senior leaders may think they are being benevolent and showing concern for the well-being of staff when they sponsor, protect, coach or otherwise develop particular staff; however whilst this might suffice for a mid-level leader, the whole organisation will look to the senior leader for benevolence. By focusing on only a select few, the senior leader is actually excluding the majority, thereby damaging employee engagement by being seen as untrustworthy.

Senior leaders might take pride in being experts who are able to deal with the technical intricacies of a complex business. Further, they might expect that their staff see them as competent and able to deal with any of the challenges faced. But what if the staff are looking to the senior leaders to be competent in “soft” skills? What if the staff are hoping that the senior leaders can take the organisation through the necessary changes and lead them through uncertain times? Failing that and despite any technical expertise, the senior leader is actually seen as incompetent, thereby damaging employee engagement by being seen as untrustworthy.

When it comes to integrity, the senior leaders may well believe that they are telling the truth; but with all the best intentions, the senior leaders might live in a slightly-removed world where reference is constantly made to how things should happen rather than facing the down-to-earth reality of how things actually happen. Beliefs mix with myths which are not always connected to the constantly changing reality. At a given moment, the disconnect can become so large that the senior leader appears to lack integrity, thereby damaging employee engagement by being seen as untrustworthy. As the report clearly highlights, senior leaders must be able to maintain and grow trust if they wish to increase employee engagement!