For more than a decade all the energy and eyeballing has gone to employee engagement. We either praise or blame or warn managers of their essential role in creating the environment (I call it culture) for employee engagement.
Seems to me no one has considered that managers are probably just as engaged (or not) as the employees, figure-atively speaking. I mean, if the oft-cited Gallup figures are accurate, 29% of employees are engaged and 71% are either unengaged (neutral) or disengaged (opposed). Have we any reason to assume the manager persona has a higher Engagement Quotient than others? Any reason to assume it’s more than 29% (14% if you use Towers Perrin’s global figure) engagement among managers? Not that I can see.
I can already hear the answer: "Engagement is one of the traits that gets noticed and gets you promoted to management." Some might even assert that promoting the engaged is what leaves only 29% on the work floor.
Can you hear me chuckling? Here’s why I think managers–no matter how many demonstrated their high EQ in earlier assignments–can still fall prey to the down-engagement syndrome:
- A manager’s job is completely different. What stimulated engagement in pre-promotion assignments no longer exists or doesn’t have the same effect. In fact, the work that inspired an individual’s engagement may be completely missing from the work before that same individual wearing manager’s shoes.
- No one has ever–to my knowledge–quantified how many have been boosted to management with engagement as a promotion criterion. I’m not so sure all managers were more engaged than their peers before becoming managers. The truth of the Peter Principle supports that. How often is one promoted for excellent performance alone…and not necessarily for true management potential? In other words, re-read #1.
- Management is too often a misinterpreted responsibility. Manager’s task is often seen as seeing that employees’ work is done as required (efficiency, productivity, error-rate…). That manager likely engages in micro-managing and micro-measurements and continuous validation. That manager engages in attention to results.
Manager’s task can (should?) be seen as developing better performers who provide better performance. This manager engages in attention to process that leads to results. This manager sees engagement by the employees as a meaningful component of the process, whatever the process may be.
Here’s my disclaimer: Management engagement deserves no more criticism than does employee engagement. However, if engaged employees provide better performance and produce more valuable results, then engaged managers provide a better engagement culture and generate more engagement among their employees.
More on this tomorrow.
Tags: Employee Engagement, engagement, Management
Tim,
Poor leadership that contributes to disengagement cascades down the hierarchy doesn’t it. Engaging managers can create “islands of engagement” in the units they lead only if their supervisors give them sufficient autonomy and political cover to do so. My experience is similar to the dynamic that Edgar Schein has described: when an engaging manager tries to create the conditions that engage employees in an organization that is otherwise disengaging, people with power attack them behind their backs charging that they are weak leaders who are implementing management by committee and catering to employees rather than demanding their compliance. That’s why Schein says it’s so difficult to change an organization’s culture. That’s been my experience too. So much comes back to the character and self awareness of organizational members, both leaders and those who are not in leadership positions. Schien has also stated that 80% of group members are passive and can be coerced to go with the values of those in power. The battle then comes down to the engaging leaders and the disengaging Machiavelli types. That’s why it’s so important to develop enlightened leaders who understand what’s at stake and are willing to persevere for what’s right.
Comment by Michael Lee Stallard — January 28, 2008 @ 5:27 pm
Michael -
Thank you for your in-depth and insightful comments. Thank you, too, for mentioning Schein’s most worthy and studious book, Organizational Culture and Leadership.
I’d like to toss out some counter thoughts to some of what you offer.
First, I agree that when poor leadership is active in the organization, it can cascade down through the organization. However, poor leadership is often somewhere between passive and dormant. In instances when whoever sits in the corner office is present only in title, leadership tends to arise from informal, non-authority sources in the organization. Their leadership may well supercede that of the title-holder, if only for a short period of time.
For sure, if those who drum up employee engagement apply lots of bells and whistles (forgive the mixed musical metaphor!), they will draw negative attention of those in power, who may well attack from behind and challenge the Engagers’ leadership. However, engagement can happen without all the hooplah. I’m not saying it should happen by subterfuge, but whatever benefits the organization, benefits the organization.
Perfect situations, you’re right, start with full initiation from the top. A well-built, successful organizational culture is formally constructed and comes down from the top. The culture that grows informally from the ground up is too likely to have a short lifespan.
On your last point–to develop enlightened leaders who understand what’s at stake–I agree with you completely.
Michael, thank you for sharing your wisdom.
Comment by Tim Wright — January 28, 2008 @ 6:04 pm