A recent news highlighted communication from Google’s CEO to the employees – which brought to the forefront, important lessons in leadership and its impact on employees.
When “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber,” went viral, what was commendable was Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s response. He revealed how to respond to an internal crisis. No easy task, but he demonstrated what makes him such an effective leader. Careful to point out that the points raised were important topics, he emphasised “people must feel free to express dissent” within the company. Incidentally, he was on a family vacation when the outrage began, but he was quick to respond with a message of his own – in an email sent to employees.
Engaged employees can make a difference
Engaged employees shine in the workplace, as far as their job roles go; it does not merely connect with the bottomline – it drives results. It also affects the mindset of people, for engaged employees believe that they can make a difference. Organisations with high levels of employee engagement are more efficient and effective. Highly engaged employees are more customer-centric and more creative at work; they care about the organisation’s future and contribute towards meeting corporate goals; they feel proud of the organisation they work for and are inspired to put their best foot forward.
The secret to get employees excited about the business vision
Most business owners or founders dream of putting a team in place, who will go all out to make the corporate vision a success. Examining the term “employee engagement”, it makes sense if you can sell the company’s future vision to your employees and pinpoint their role. Then, employees are more likely to contribute eagerly, when problems come: plus, the sense of belonging keeps the flag flying high.
If founders or leaders can develop these skills, it will definitely have an impact – increased engagement:
- Pays to build trust
While increasing engagement, trust is an essential ingredient. The importance of building trust requires a basic belief in people, a belief that people are essentially trustworthy.
- Mentoring helps
The relationship between employee and his or her senior is a critical factor in how engaged the employee will be. Employees need feedback, they need to know how they are performing. Giving and receiving feedback and counselling employees increase engagement and commitment.
- Be inclusive
Whether employees feel like an insider or an outsider – it impacts their levels of engagement. Effective leaders understand that teams can work together effectively when they are committed to the same values and standards of work performance.
- Align employees with organisation’s vision
For employees, their work is meaningful because their leader helps them see the connection between what they do and the success of the organisation. Engaged employees feel aligned with their organisation’s vision, purpose and values. Gaining the team’s commitment to the organisation’s values increases the team’s performance standards as well as their engagement.
- Develop a crack team
Effective leaders understand the potential for high increase in performance through high-performing teams. The leader’s focus should be on developing the leadership potential of each team member, and ultimately implementing a shared leadership approach to continuously improve performance that is owned by the team.
All of these skills are needed to fully engage employees. Everything is inter-linked. You have to build trust before you can be effective at mentoring; it goes without saying that you will need your mentoring skills to be effective at inclusion and alignment. Unless they feel like insiders, you can’t strike success in getting all employees aligned.
Once all these skills are in place, it will lead to increase in employee engagement. And, in turn, we can see significant increase in organisational performance.
She can be reached at: @shree_la on twitter
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