Successful organisations have more engaged managers than disengaged ones leading their teams

During the years I worked for organisations (both large and small), I was fortunate to have several memorable managers who supported me, tapped into my potential and trusted me to do a good job. Managers like Peter, Kate, Mike, and Carl not only created opportunities for me, they did this with my peers. In each case we were incredibly effective teams.

There were ineffective managers as well, who didn’t engage their team, and I was never completely satisfied with the work I was doing and as a team we weren't successful.

As a manager, feeling engaged and engaging your team will determine how effectively you lead. The measure for your level of engagement is what you are getting from your team. It means having the right leadership skills to support each team member with what they need to perform at their best. This increases buy-in from the team.

When you are engaged, your team are more engaged: with you, with their peers, and the work they do. You stand out for your leadership abilities.

Increasing levels of engagement and creating more team buy-in comes from: tapping into your profound talent so that self-doubt disappears and your conviction shines through; building powerful connections so that the typical siloed approach that occurs in ineffective teams is replaced with alignment and the team moving in the same direction.

The question for organisations to answer is ‘how do you know you have the right managers in place with the right skills to support and get the best out of your teams?'

Looking at this in terms of effectiveness, the least effective are a small number of companies I see who have a large proportion of managers who are inept at tapping into the potential of their team. These managers are more concerned about doing the work and spend very little time supporting their team. They are not sure about the basic elements of managing a team.

Many companies I work with are at the transactional level - they are doing a reasonable job with their teams and working to improve. However, the managers are often in overwhelm and so busy that they hope the team is focusing on what needs to be done, while they are busy dealing with issues that keep arising.

A few companies are at the effective level. At this level teams are performing well. Managers have a good understanding of how to manage and support them. Performance is good.

And a very few are at the transformational level of leadership and actively engaging their teams and tapping into everyone’s potential. This is the space where memorable managers live, like Peter, Kate, Mike and Carl I mentioned above. 

These are the managers who positively impact someone's life in a way that person remembers years down the track. Memorable managers deserve truly exceptional success.

Think about the memorable managers in your career and the impact they had on your success. 

For your organisation - on a scale between 1 – 10, with one being inept, and 10 being transformational - where would you put most of your managers, or where would you put yourself right now?

Get in touch if you would like to learn how to become a more memorable manager.