Bad Boss? Time to Reboot Your Leadership Style to Improve Productivity
Research shows a high positive return on investment from good leadership in organizations. There is, on the other hand, a high negative impact on organizations with poor leadership. That may be common sense, but the effect of poor leadership directly impacts your bottom line and your employees. A recent Gallup poll indicates 51% of employees are not engaged with their work. That’s over one-half of your workforce ‘phoning it in’ which can often be traced to poor leadership.
How do you know if your company has bad leadership or, perhaps you are a bad leader yourself? Here are 8 indicators you may be an ineffective leader. If you don’t:
Let employees know you appreciate their contributions
Invite hearing the negative things about you and the company
Provide opportunities for your people to grow personally and professionally
Recognize that they have a life and responsibilities outside of work
Give them the regularly scheduled feedback they need, both positive and negative, to do a better job
Give them the time and space to think about what they are doing and why they are doing what they do
Let your top performers know you are still supportive of them when they make mistakes
Help them see the link between their role and company goals and objectives
Other Costs of Bad Leadership
Bad leadership costs your organization with respect to innovation, productivity, talent acquisition and retention, and ultimately, bottom line profitability. Organizations and cultures lacking sound leadership have a hard time attracting great talent and are challenged keeping highly productive, bright, innovative people. The capability level of your talent points directly to the productivity and profitability of your organization and all of this is driven by the leadership of your CEO, other leadership, and culture. Bad leadership has a very negative ROI.
Commit to being a Good Leader
Transitioning from a bad boss to a good leader first requires intentionality. Determine that positive ROI happens when good leadership is in place and commit to developing solid leadership for yourself and other leaders in your organization. I always recommend that a company’s leadership work collaboratively on becoming better leaders. Take the free Leadership Assessment on my Website to begin to understand where there may be leadership skills gaps. We can work with you on a 360 Degree Leadership Team Evaluation to make sure you and your executive team are better bosses in the New Year.