In the executive offices of high-tech companies around the world, a new weapon in the executive arsenal is resurfacing with powerful implications for driving business success: retention leadership.
Executives whose daily challenges in the global environment of the 21st century are how to work with China and India, understand the MySpace generation, and get more free advertising while paying for less advertising, are familiar with initiatives to increase innovation, streamline business processes, and motivate individuals to reach higher levels. productivity. However, these executives now look at their organization’s work through another dimension: leadership and employee retention.
According to the Harvard Business Review, not paying attention to employee retention puts a company in a position to lose people with the talents they need, often inadvertently retaining people with outdated or ordinary skills.
In a brain-based economy that needs retention, people are your greatest asset, not empty chess pieces for inexperienced managers to move around. Senior managers improve retention rates by immersing themselves in creating an environment in which the best, brightest, and most creative are attracted, motivated, and freed to produce.
Three critical leadership drivers deliver high retention results:
Driver #1: Connect on a human level
Dealing with data, bytes, and scientific thinking in a high-tech environment can hide the fact that you’re working with human beings with deadly emotions and needs. A good retention program starts with managers who know how to connect on a human level, not just be someone whose position on the organizational chart allows them to enforce rules and policies.
People will personally commit to certain people who on the organization chart have little authority, but instead possess dynamism, drive, experience, and a genuine interest in teammates and products. Think about the power of having a position on the organizational chart, as well as personal charisma to inspire and lead.
These three things will make your formal title jump off the org chart, creating synergistic teamwork and expanding your influence:
Check the Ego. Never let your ego get so close to your position that it defines your position and outshines everyone else in the department or on the team. In well-managed organizations, titles are also meaningless. At best, they advertise a certain authority, an official status that confers the ability to issue orders and induce obedience. But titles mean little in terms of real power, which is the ability to influence and inspire.
Flex your style. Blindly following strict managerial guidelines or the current managerial fad breeds rigidity in thought and action and reduces your credibility. Learn to flex your style: Sometimes speed to market is more important than overall quality. Sometimes an unapologetic directive is more appropriate than a participatory discussion. Some situations require the leader to stay close; others require long, loose leashes. The best leaders respect their core values, but are flexible in how they execute on them. They understand that management techniques are not magic mantras but simply tools that can be reached.
at the right times.
Show optimism. At a recent seminar, I met Bernard “Butch” Deuto, a young man at NASA who worked on the ground team during the Apollo 13 crises. He said that during the crisis, there was no hesitation, no negativity, no whining, no pointing with the finger. There was just an optimistic attitude and a determination to succeed. Failure really wasn’t an option. Failure never crossed his mind. Similarly, when faced with stiff competition, cost overruns, defective products, and a myriad of other problems, a determined and optimistic leader focuses workers on solutions, not problems. Moral
improvement
Driver Two: Offer leadership training that focuses on employee growth
Studies document that an employee’s level of satisfaction with their direct manager’s leadership style is critical to a satisfying work environment and retention. The researchers find that the relationship with the employee’s immediate supervisor had more impact on the employee than general company policies or procedures. This relationship also determines productivity levels. To keep bright employees engaged in their jobs and performing at a high level, managers must provide:
– Information. Information is a source of power. Unqualified managers keep it a secret and stingily dole it out in bits of information on a “need to know” basis, as if the employee is on a top-secret mission. Without a big picture of the project, it’s easy for employees to get sidetracked from the vision or end goal of the product or service.
– Medium. Mental and emotional support takes many forms. Setting clear goals, accepting ideas, affirming suggestions, making recommendations when stuck on a particular point are all forms of support. Perhaps the best support for retaining innovative, entrepreneurial-minded employees is giving them the space to try out innovative ideas and take calculated risks without fear of failure, retaliation, or slip-up.
– Resources. Resources are not just pens, printers, and up-to-date software, but also access to others in the organization. Providing the appropriate resources may mean creating special teams to tackle difficult problems and stimulate creative ideas.
– Chance. Employees need the opportunity to improve their own status within the organization and invest in themselves in the form of personal development. People will jump ship not just for more pay, but for better opportunities to learn and grow. Retention leadership encourages everyone to evolve.
Driver three: Insist on ethical conduct.
The quickest way to alienate the best and brightest in your workforce and send them into the network for other work is to destroy trust through unethical behavior. Since the Enron debacle, Forbes.com maintains a list of corporate accounting scandals with tainted companies ranging from Bristol-Myers Squibb to AOL Time-Warner. Recently, the national news published the step-by-step leaks of confidential information from the industry giant, Hewlett Packard.
Unethical behavior is a precarious precipice with resulting chaos in the employee ranks. Successful organizations have a leadership team that insists on honesty and ethical conduct at all levels of the organization. In essence, the excellent leadership team creates an organizational culture of integrity.
Cultural integrity, however, is about more than insisting on ethical behavior. It is more than requiring ethics training for all employees. At a deeper level, it is:
– Live and validate the organizational mission and vision.
– Lead by example in terms of honesty and reliability.
– Align employees with organizational values.
– Encourage frank conversations.
– Ensure compliance with deadlines.
– Demand high product standards.
– Replace blame with analysis of the problem.
– Adequately reward employees.
Implementing the Nine Principles of Cultural Integrity(TM) in your organization means paying attention to employee responsibility as well as managerial responsibilities. For example, leadership integrity involves providing clear instructions for project parameters while allowing the employee to retain responsibility for clarifying instructions and meeting deadlines.
Good employees hold to the standards of Culture Integrity(TM) and to leaders who convey unwavering grit and consistency in their actions while exhibiting clarity of purpose.
Conclusion
These three leadership retention drivers will retain your best and brightest employees and help advance your company in the chaotic global workplace of the 21st century.