Could Engaged Leadership Inspire Employees Under 40?

I shared the research, in my white paper, published as a newsletter 4 months ago, about the lack of employee engagement and lack of trusting leaders over the past 20 years.

The traditional way managers have known to manage isn’t garnering discretionary effort or employee loyalty, particularly from Gen Z’s and Millennials.? And, a recent new study by Korn Ferry states that many managers lack the motivation to bring themselves fully to their leadership responsibilities.?

Looking at what managers need and should want to become actively engaged as a leader begins by acknowledging the shifting sands managers face today! ?It’s no wonder managers are exhausted and confused. One observation from Korn Ferry: “The pychological contract between employers and workers is fundamentally being renegotiated.”? Korn Ferry’s primary research included 10,000 employees at all stages of their career, from entry-level to CEO, in six markets: USA, UK, Brazil, Middle East,Australia, and India.

Where are you today in this new reality?

Leadership Impact: 4 Key Points from the Workforce 2024, Korn Ferry study[1]

1.????? According to the research, seasoned managers are feeling the gap between how they lead and how they need to lead.? They report being too tired from trying, or lacking the development support from their leadership, and they don’t know how to pivot.

2.???? This seismic impact on managers is occurring as employees under the age of 40 enter the workforce, demanding very different leadership.? They want to be compensated for skills and capabilities that reach beyond their current job, for example. They want a career path that optimizes the contributions they provide beyond their current job description.

3.??????? This impact is occurring simultaneous with 47% of the workforce feeling certain that their job has a good chance of being replaced by AI, creating movement away from workforce stability as they seek alternatives or re-tooling. Sixty-seven percent would stay in a job they hated if it offered them opportunities to progress and upskill quickly.

4.??? The deep leadership fatigue creates such a palpable gap in effectiveness that 71% of CEOs report experiencing “imposter syndrome,” meaning they don’t believe they are capable of being the leader their title suggests they are.

Are you ready to become the ideal engaged leader in this new reality?

Leadership Mindfulness is the Inner Game Journey to Being an ideal “Engaged Manager”

Let’s focus on #5, a great manager — one of six reasons for staying in one’s current job.

A great manager is mindful. The importance of mindfulness isn’t new news. ?A mindful leader brings a healthy perspective to any dialog.?For example, a great manager seeks clarity of understanding before jumping to conclusions.

Let’s look at the filter through which managers listen (or not) when someone is speaking to them. If your manager listens for your greatness, they will hear and see your greatness.? If they listen for dissonance, they will hear and see that.?If you are that manager, consider their vulnerability. You are, after all, their manager! You hire and fire, you have power whether you wield it responsibly or not.

As an example, I have observed that how one listens is at the heart of the political divide in the United States today. This devisive way of listening has crept in over years, which now is damaging the fabric of America. You and I each contribute by how we listen.

RIGHT NOW in history, with more than 25 years of top level executive coaching experience, I observe that the general listening of Americans in business, is broadly one of insufficient truth seeking, exacerbated through biased/dishonest media that presents what they want you to hear, so you will do what they want you to do. Mainstream media has an agenda.

How do I know there's an agenda? Because I have taught journalism and I seek varying viewpoints on hard subjects. I have been asking hard questions and gotten squishy answers.

Today’s media reporting is not the journalism that I taught in the day.?I taught my students to set their opinions aside and to “dig until you have verified the facts as facts so you can responsibly report both sides, giving the reader/viewer/listener information from which to decide for themselves what works for them, and so that you have pride in your professional integrity.”

Today’s political dissonance is a drain on managers who must manage employees who may be at odds with one another because they believe different “truths” without benefit of common background news to sort themselves out.?

This is particularly painful right now as we inch our way to a November “either/or election” in the U.S. fraught with misinformation. Some managers and employees struggle with political dissonance in their own homes, compounding their distress and burdening their leadership mindfulness.? How did we end up with a bipolar political scenario?? That is a hard question for another day.

Back to mindfulness in the workplace. Said another way, leadership mindfulness is the Inner Game — the conversation in your head — that informs the Outer Game.

For managers, that outer game is their team’s performance and productivity, determined by engagement or lack thereof; gaining discretionary effort and employee loyalty are stand-out examples of engagement.

Because “labor” — the cost of payroll employees — is accounted for as overhead, any lack of engagement that disrupts productivity and/or performance creates a profit leak that’s not typically measured and therefore not very well addressed. Measuring turnover is too little, too late and very expensive.

Click here for a further read on my Executive Guide, “Seven Costly Mistakes Executives Make that Cause Productivity, Performance and Profits to Suffer .

Two Engaged Leadership Examples in the Context of Sales

Sales is a context where results are measurable.? Let’s hear from a sales executive with two real life scenarios.

Scenario 1. ? A Fortune 500 managing director, known for being difficult but effective, held a full-day meeting with ten senior sales managers to align performance reviews. Managers shared team rankings based on performance metrics and development plans, fostering trust, respect, and open feedback.

However, when a top-performing manager began their review, the director's tone became aggressive, questioning every comment and eventually disparaging one of their team members calling them “a Pitbull with fangs”. This shifted the atmosphere to fear and discomfort, eroding trust.

Outcomes:

·?????? The top-performing manager resigned within 45 days.

·?????? Another manager escalated the issue to the SVP of Sales.

·?????? Team performance declined, and two more managers left within six months.

·?????? The director was removed within a year.

Conclusion:

The situation illustrates that a leader's behavior directly impacts team dynamics and trust.? In this case, the director's aggressive and disrespectful conduct eroded a previously productive environment, leading to fear, loss of trust, disengagement, the departure of key employees, and a decline in team performance.? Engaged leaders create a culture of trust and respect, essential for maintaining team cohesion and long-term success, while toxic leadership can quickly undermine a high-performing team.

Scenario 2.

A sales leader must master the steps required for success in sales. When promoting individuals into leadership roles, it is important not to overemphasize personal results, charisma, or appearance.

?

As a coach— the primary role of a sales leader— it is essential to observe behaviors and recognize where each salesperson is in their development. After analysis, the leader must provide appropriate feedback. Without this, salespeople may fail to improve, jeopardizing both their careers and the company's financial results.

For example, at an international printing and shipping company, a salesperson was responsible for a Fortune 500 company with 2,000 employees in their city (Topeka, KS). During 1-on-1 meetings, the sales leader asked how many people they knew in the organization, they would typically respond, "Three or four, mostly in Purchasing."

Outcomes:

The coaching provided was to leverage their outgoing personality and build more relationships within the account. By prioritizing relationship-building, the account grew by 112% in the first year and over 600% by the third year.

This salesperson became a top performer and continues to enjoy a successful career in sales.

Conclusion:

Leadership engagement is demonstrated through a commitment to team excellence, garnered through active coaching and open communication. These leaders foster trust, accountability, and continuous improvement, motivating their teams. By encouraging relationship-building, they model engagement and strengthen connections, driving long-term success.

Ideal Engaged Leadership is Wanted & Needed by Today’s Employees. What I Learned from Leading five Emerging Leader Accelerator Cohorts

Between June of 2021 and August of 2024 – across three years’ time - I delivered an Emerging Leader Accelerator to five different cohorts, six months each, with three surprising outcomes.

a.???? Senior executives participated!? Each Cohort included at least one senior executive who wanted development as a leader.

b.???? Several participants made significant strides in their leadership blind spots, others barely got off the launch pad in six months; willing but confronted, stuck.

c.???? To bring sustained behavior change requires 52 weeks of weekly coaching.? It takes a full year, to make sustaining behavioral change.

Recently Daniel Shapero, COO at LinkedIn shared that leaders’ workers have largely hunkered down because of the economy, but that following this current time of low attrition, we need to plan for inevitable attrition spikes coming. And the number one way to do this, especially when uncertainty is high, is to feed the craving employees have for professional growth. Employee growth, through learning and development, Shapero says, drives engagement and increases?retention.

Returning to the aforementioned Korn Ferry research, the conclusion to draw here is that it’s time to put company resources into developing your emerging leaders, your high performers, your budding managers and even your senior managers who are struggling to find meaning and make a differece with their team members.?

Yes, Authentic and Engaged Leaders DO Inspire Team Performance!

Here are five take-aways from my research and 25 years of experience.

1.????? Authentic relationships always win appreciation and improve engagement.

2.???? Leader Engagement improves productivity and performance.

3.???? Behavioral change takes time and attention to develop, hindered by blind spots.?

4.???? Leadership blind spots can get in the way of being Engaged and Authentic.

5.???? Once discerned, blind spots can be successfully addressed and enthusiasm returns, bringing forth engaged leadership from an authentic inner place.

Some training programs might bring attention to the issue, but they can’t solve systemic and ongoing challenges to team productivity and performance without practice, a lot of it!? We humans naturally revert back to behaviors we know, so if you haven’t identified your own leadership blind spots, try as you might, your human nature will revert to how you know how to be!?

This explains the gap between effective leaders and ineffective leaders.? It also explains why 71% of CEOs experience imposter syndrome; they don’t know how to authentically engage from a new way of being.

Learn More

ONLY when you know and take on your leadership blind spots do you have a chance at being that authentically engaged leader who inspires your team’s performance, as evidenced by your team’s willingness to follow you to the moon and back!

Being engaged as a leader means losing the ego, not settling for quick fixes, and staying curious/seeking out information and knowledge to be accountable, awake and aware for your team.

You don’t know what you don’t know! ?Click here to learn more about longer-term, systemic Leadership Success Accelerators .

Want to experience my wisdom in a Webinar and learn about blind spots and pivots?

Register here for “Adaptive Capacity, Leaders Interrupting the Drift,” Tuesday, Oct. 29th, Noon – 1:00 Pacific.? ?

About Pamela

Pamela Stambaugh is President/CEO and Founder of Accountability Pays Inc. Her company provides deep dive training and consulting for organization leaders who want to increase their effectiveness in supporting productivity and performance of their teams - linked to improved overall profitability.

Pamela is a behavior change master and has been successfully coaching executives and their teams for 30 years.? She is currently writing her third book bringing case studies to life for managers’ inspiration and motivation.

You can learn more about Pamela at accountabilitypays.com

[1] Korn Ferry study, Workforce 2024: What People Really Want from Work, Sept. 2024