Episode 87: Leadership and Involvement

Published: September 14, 2022

Details

That feeling of not being an insider, but more of an observer, has a profound impact on your engagement, effort, and commitment. Perhaps you’re relishing the freedoms given through your work-from-home schedule or limited office time, but you recognize there may be a disconnect happening. On the other hand, you could be sitting in the office daily surrounded by all the inner workings and still feel out of the loop. In this episode, we explore seven research leadership behaviors that can improve the involvement of team members.

Key Points

In a group of 3,458 managers for those direct reports in the bottom 10% on involvement, engagement was at the 26^thpercentile. With high levels of involvement (e., Top 10%), engagement was at the 82^nd percentile.
Direct reports of top managers rated their involvement at the 57^th percentile, while middle managers’ direct reports rating was significantly lower at the 48^th percentile. The involvement level of supervisors was higher at the 54^thpercentile.
By analyzing Zenger Folkman’s data on teams with high involvement, we found sevenleadership behaviors where the high involvement leaders were rated significantly better than teams with low involvement.
Few things make direct reports feel more unimportant or uninvolved than having a leader put results in front of temporary personal problems.
There is always a better way to get work done and accomplish difficult goals. In our research on innovation, we have found that often the people with the most innovative ideas are those closest to the work that is being done.”
If you have a team where some of the team members feel like they are passive observers or worse, they feel like outsiders, increasing the involvement of team members can have a dramatic positive impact on your team and your results.

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