Approachable Leadership Blog
Power Creates Distance Leaders Bridge the Gap
Do you shrink the gap?
Why Engagement Efforts Backfire
Some engagement efforts don’t go as planned.
You mean well. You conduct your employee survey or focus group sessions. You collect all the data, review all the spreadsheets. You invest a lot of time, energy (and money) on your engagement efforts. And then they fall flat on their face. Ouch.
You do the right things, check the right boxes. But employee morale remains in the tank. Often the explanation is simple. Even if your heart is in the right place, you might be forgetting to walk the talk. If there is a gap between what you say and do for employees, you’re toast.
We are currently neck deep in one of the best examples of saying-doing gaps you can find – the US presidential primaries. As crazy as this year’s election season has been, are the promises that different from 2012? Are they that different from 2008? Or 2004?
Can bad leadership kill you?
Everybody knows bad leadership can be costly.
It leads to turnover, workplace stress, and decreased cooperation which costs US businesses billions each year. But can bad leadership kill you?
This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that United Airlines is calling in all 12,000 of its pilots for extra safety training over the next 3 months. This is due to a series of serious safety incidents. None of the incidents led to an accident, but there were several close calls.
The Infinite ROI of Talent Development
“Training pays.”
Seth Godin says this in his recent article on “the infinite return on investment” of talent development and training. He provides this example:
“Imagine a customer service rep. Fully costed out, it might cost $5 for this person to service a single customer by phone. An untrained rep doesn’t understand the product, or how to engage, or hasn’t been brought up to speed on your systems. As a result, the value delivered in the call is precisely zero (in fact it’s negative, because you’ve disappointed your customer).
On the other hand, the trained rep easily delivers $30 of brand value to the customer, at a cost, as stated, of $5. So, instead of zero value, there’s a profit to the brand of $25. A comparative ROI of infinity.
And of course, the untrained person doesn’t fall into this trap once. Instead, it happens over and over, many times a day.”
Do you suffer from any of the 7 most unapproachable behaviors?
One of my favorite things is giving a room full of people permission to practice treating each other like jerks. I guess that makes me the Jerry Springer of leadership training.
During the Approachable Leadership Workshop that’s exactly what we ask leaders to do (don’t worry, we ask them to practice approachable behavior too). They get to pick the most unapproachable things they can dream up and then do them to their coworkers.
You see some truly amazing behavior during that exercise. And the sad part is most people don’t have to dream up their behavior. They simply pull it from their own real-life experiences of unapproachable leaders.
At this point I’ve seen more than a thousand people channel their best “bad boss” impersonation. Here are the 7 most unapproachable behaviors of them all…
Treat Employees Like Winners, Then Watch Them Win
The way you treat employees directly impacts their quality of work. People work harder for approachable leaders. It's a proven way to get better business results. Want to know a related way you treat employees that is just as important? What people believe they can do...
![[Just Released] Improve Your Leaders in 2016!](https://approachableleadership.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/white_paper_promo_2B-323x100.png)
[Just Released] Improve Your Leaders in 2016!
Today we released our new eBook The ROI of Approachable Leaders: 4 Simple Tools to Solve the Toughest Management Challenges of 2016. Download your copy now!
Strengths of a Leader
Most important strengths of a leader - charisma or individual consideration? A recent study looked at two of the most admired strengths of a leader - charisma and individual consideration. You may be surprised which one came out on top. Have you ever gotten a call...
CUE Organization on Approachable Leadership
After Phil gave CUE's Fall 2015 Conference attendees a taste of approachability with the Approachable Leadership Workshop, the employee relations organization is officially a believer! Click here to read CUE, Inc.'s shoutout to Phil or here if you are interested in...
How to Make the Most Out of Small Talk
Congratulations, you did it! You survived another holiday season! Isn't it exhausting? Don't get me wrong. I love down time with my family. I got to play some Lego and X-Box with my kid (now that she's getting older her toys are getting a LOT more fun). We got in some...
Star Wars Leadership
There's been an awakening. Have you felt it? The Dark side, and the Light. Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters this weekend in one of the most anticipated movie events of all time. I personally cannot wait. I don't know about you, but I think this whole Star...
When you should treat your employees like children….
Leaders should treat their employees like children. Or like hostage-takers. Wait! Before you start that complaint email bear with me for a minute and see if you don't agree. Eric Barker - one of my favorite bloggers - recently published a great article with advice...
When Empathy Can Backfire
Most empathy advice boils down to a version of "walk a mile in the shoes" of another person. Recent Harvard Business Review research suggest this advice is exactly wrong. It finds "it's harder to empathize with people if you've been in their shoes." For most of us,...
4-Minute Video: How Disengagement is Sinking Your Boat
Watch this brief 4-minute video on how leadership effects employee enthusiasm and engagement at work and how disengaged employees kill business results. Employee engagement is defined here as "unlocking employee potential" and releasing discretionary effort at work....
3 Ways Employers Get Engagement Wrong (Plus 1 Way to Get it Right)
Employee engagement is the foundation of a successful business. Like any building, a weak foundation can be a big problem. It’s expensive to fix and if it gets too bad you have to scrap the whole house. Worse yet, if you aren’t paying close attention your foundation can be dissolving beneath your feet and you not even know it.
Phil Wilson Quoted on Approachability and Retention
The Daily Independent of Ridgecrest, CA, reached out to Phil this week to discuss the problem of employee retention. The problem was summarized by a quote from Andre Lavoie, CEO of talent management firm ClearCompany: “With so many employees looking to leave their...
Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Communicators
Even the best communicators can sometimes stumble. Lifehacker recently posted an article that does a great job of breaking down destructive communication habits. The highlight of the article is the comparison list of "caring communication habits" versus "destructive...
Minding The Gap: When Even Good Leaders Just Don’t Get It
From minimum wage workers to highly skilled professionals, in home visits and focus groups, hundreds of workers have expressed the same core frustration to me – management just doesn’t “get it”.
