Employee Engagement is at an All-Time Low: Addressing the Global Crisis.
According to Gallup’s 2024 survey, employee engagement globally has plummeted to a staggering 23%. This alarming statistic underscores a widespread issue affecting organisations worldwide.
The culprits?
Firstly, direct experienced leadership behaviours and secondly, a lack of meaningful goals for employees, leading to a feeling that they can't contribute strategically.
Introducing "Leading Excellence": A Blueprint for Organisational Transformation
Chris Butterworth, Stephen Dargan, and Brad Jeavons have penned a groundbreaking book, "Leading Excellence," which aims to help organisations tackle this crisis head-on. Drawing from nearly a century of combined experience in organisational transformation, they outline the crucial role leaders play in fostering high-performance, safe cultures. Their research highlights that the key to success lies in developing leaders who serve the growth of others rather than their own emotions.
The Core Belief System: Foundation of Effective Leadership
To create leaders who serve effectively, they need to understand their Core Belief System (CBS). This involves recognising what drives them emotionally and behaviourally, which in turn helps them remain in conscious thought and choose behaviours that aid their team's growth and improvement. Neuroscientist Dr. Mark Williams and Organizational Psychologist Lawry Scandar collaborated with the authors to develop the CBS model. This model enables leaders to discover their core drivers, purpose, and values, helping them stay conscious and adaptable to everyone they serve.
The Five Hats of the Adaptive Leader
A critical insight from "Leading Excellence" is that adaptive leaders must be versatile and able to switch between different behaviours depending on the person and context surrounding them. They need to be skilled at pausing, thinking about the person, the context surrounding them and then choosing the right hat to help them grow. The authors have identified five key behaviours, or "hats," that leaders can adopt to support their teams effectively:
Inspire Hat: This involves understanding a person’s purpose, goals, and core values and aligning them with the team and organisation. Leaders must fill their team's motivation bucket rather than deplete it.
Teach Hat: Imparting new skills and capabilities to team members.
Support Hat: This includes building competence in new skills and providing emotional support when needed.
Coach Hat: The ability to guide others to think independently, discover solutions, and grow.
Direct Hat: The capacity to steer someone away from harm or directly address behaviours that contradict the team or organisational culture.
Implementing Adaptive Leadership
The concept of the Five Hats underscores the necessity for leaders to be adaptive and capable of switching between these roles as the context demands. This adaptability is simple in theory but challenging in practice. "Leading Excellence" delves into numerous case studies to explore these behaviours in action, offering a comprehensive guide on how leaders can cultivate a high-performing, continuously improving, and innovative culture.
Supporting Systems and Processes
The book also examines critical processes and systems that support adaptive leadership. By implementing these systems, organisations can create environments where adaptive leaders thrive, ultimately leading to improved employee engagement, safety and organisational success.
Conclusion
Addressing the global decline in employee engagement requires a shift in leadership paradigms. By developing leaders who serve the growth of others and adopting the Five Hats of adaptive leadership, organisations can create cultures of engagement, continuous improvement, and innovation. "Leading Excellence" provides the roadmap for this transformation, offering practical insights and strategies to help leaders and their teams thrive.
Learn More
For those interested in transforming their leadership approach and fostering a culture of excellence, "Leading Excellence" is an invaluable resource. To learn more or to get a copy of the book, visit www.leadingexcellencebook.com.
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