Why Low Employee Engagement and Inconsistent Productivity Persist – And How to Turn It Around

Struggling with low employee engagement and inconsistent productivity in your organisation?

You’re noticing missed deadlines, miscommunication, or lack of accountability and ownership in your team’s work. These are the signs that your team isn’t being led to reach their full potential.?

No matter how skilled they are, without proper guidance and self-leadership, their performance will plateau, and the organisation will struggle to maintain momentum.

But you know what? You’re not alone.

Many leaders want their teams to perform at their best but often miss the crucial factor that drives real results - effective guidance through mentoring and coaching.

Guidance through mentoring drives real results

The truth is, we leaders should invest and focus on guiding our people.

When you shift your focus from simply managing tasks to empowering your team with self-leadership and showing them how to set and achieve success through your mentoring, you unlock higher engagement, collaboration, and productivity.?

Top-performing organisations know this. In fact, 71% of Fortune 500 companies offer mentoring and coaching programs to their employees because they understand the power of guidance in driving long-term success.

But how does? guidance drive success?

Coaching and mentoring are not magic wands that automatically create success. To be effective, coaching and mentoring require effort, commitment, specific skills, attitudes, and structure from both the mentor and the mentee.?

Success happens when both parties take responsibility for making it work.

Ingredient #1: What Makes A Good Mentor?

You, as their mentor, must have the disposition and desire to develop other people.?

It requires your willingness to reflect and share your own experiences, including your failures.?

You’ve been where they are, experienced what they’re going through, and understand how they feel. You’ve walked in their shoes, faced the challenges, and come out the other side.

Your values, beliefs and standards resonate with them.

Ingredient #2: The Mentee

Your mentee needs to be:

• 100% committed to expanding their capabilities and focused on achieving professional results. Even if they are uncertain or uncomfortable, being 100% committed is what it takes.
• Clear on the outcomes they want to achieve so you can guide them there.
• Willing to ask for help, show vulnerability and explore different paths and perspectives. They must be open and receptive to learning and trying new ideas.
• Able to seek and accept feedback - even the ‘constructive kind - and act upon it.?
• Personally responsible and accountable. They want to see movement and growth, even when it’s uncomfortable.?
• Ready, willing and able to meet on a regular basis. Relationships take time to develop so they must commit and uphold their promise.

Ingredient #3: The Relationship

It’s a joint venture that requires you and your mentee’s active participation.?

To create and sustain a successful guiding relationship, here are a few simple best practices you can adopt:

1. Guidance

• Take time to discuss and agree to things like:
• Contact and response times
• Meetings
• Confidentiality
• Focus
• Feedback
• Goals and accountability

2. Get To Know Each Other

A mentoring relationship is like any other relationship—it takes time to develop. And like other relationships, it will grow faster and stronger if both parties take time to get to know each other as?people.

Don’t dive head first into career problem solving and advising. Build trust by learning about each other!

3. Set The Expectations and Agenda

Be clear about the purpose and focus of the mentoring. Both parties should articulate what they hope to get out of the experience.

Mentoring is one of the most important thing you can do to increase team engagement and productivity, It takes time and commitment, but it is well worth the effort.

If you found this helpful and want to learn more about how we can incorporate the right strategies to develop your team's performance and organisation’s culture to reach greater heights, here are 4 ways I can help:

• Take the FREE Organisational Culture Assessment.?This assessment tool?is designed?to evaluate?various aspects of your organisational culture?including?employee engagement, performance, and mental wellbeing. There are no right or wrong answers, just your opinion and assessment based on your experience and observation. It is for you to gain awareness of where your teams & organisation are?at,?and explore the best strategies to create the high performing culture you desire.?Click here to start the assessment.
• Book your FREE 30-Minute Leadership Strategy Session.?Every month, I open?up?my calendar for a handful of leaders to have a 1:1 session with me. On our call, we dive into actionable strategies?on how?to overcome the challenges that get in the way of your?team’s?self-leadership so you can cultivate, inspire and influence high performance within your teams.?There’s?only a limited number of spots, so?go?check if there are available spaces left —?Click?here
• Join our Self-Leadership Mastery Program and help your team learn?at their own pace.?The key to success, no matter what stage you are at in the leadership life cycle, is your own self-leadership. This program is designed for all – whether you are a long-term team leader or an emerging leader. If you have newly onboarded team leaders in your organisation who are new to self-leadership, this is the right course?to have.?Click here to find out more.
• Work with me privately.?If?you’d?like to work directly with?me and my team?to craft an individualised strategy for you so you can accelerate your?team’s?effectiveness...?just?send me a message with the word ‘ACCELERATE’... introduce yourself, your career or business and your #1 roadblock when it comes to leading your team or organisation, and?I’ll?get you all the details.

Cheers,

Linda