Employees engaged in their work are more motivated and committed. They feel real ownership for results. They feel more valued when they their contributions are valued and are having an impact.
So far, so good, but what about the HOW? Too many leaders see it as their job to instill engagement in team members by making inspiring speeches. This is too top-down. We need a more bottom-up approach.
However, having authority over people means that the boss is expected to have all the answers. Also, when you get promoted, you feel that it is your role (right and pleasure) to call the shots. This is reminiscent of the old metaphor of “head and hands” where the “heads” of functions do the thinking and the “hired hands” do the doing: a very disengaging attitude.
Leadership has always meant, in part, getting things done through people. Traditionally, this has meant delegation and empowerment. Today, however, people want to be more engaged, to stop being merely “hired hands” and to feel a greater sense of ownership over plans and decisions, hence feeling more like “associate heads” or partners rather than merely “followers.”
Fostering Deeper Ownership at all Levels
If you’re in a technical or professional role and you want to feel ownership over any plan or decision, it has to be your plan or decision. Or at least you have to feel that your input helped to shape the plan or decision. Leaders who see themselves as engaging are open to suggestions; they have an “open door” policy. This is a positive step but it’s far too passive and reactive.
To engage people in decisions proactively, try asking the most engaging question there is: “What do you think?” You aren’t going far enough if you present your solution to a problem in a team meeting and only then ask what your team thinks of your idea. This is too late. Very few are going to question the boss’s thinking, especially in public. To be fully engaging you need to present the problem that needs to be solved and then ask “What do you think?” questions such as:
- What do you think would be a viable solution to this problem?
- What do you think is the best solution?
- What are the pros and cons of your suggestion?
- What obstacles or risks do you foresee and how might we get around them?
- What other options can you think of?
- What are possible negative outcomes of your idea? How can we avoid them?
- What are the implications of your preferred solution for other things we’re doing?
- What is the most creative solution you can think of?
Notice that these questions are not analytical, they don’t ask for facts, data or evidence. Asking analytical questions has a place but if that’s all you do, you’re treating people as a database feeding you information so you can make the decision.
Benefits of Engaging Leadership
Being an engaging leader does not mean never offering your own solutions. It’s a matter of being strategic about yourself – knowing when to use which leadership style.
Here are some of the benefits of being an engaging leader:
- Greater shared ownership
- Deeper commitment of all contributors
- Wider motivation to deliver on decisions
- Better decisions
- More creative thinking
- Greater team spirit
- Empowerment, less dependence on the boss
- Development of team member thinking and confidence
Being a Solution Generator
As you rise in your career from a technical or professional role, you’re paid to solve problems, develop and present solutions. It’s fun to come up with great solutions. It’s like scoring goals in sports. Many leaders love this role so much that they can’t give it up even when you tell them it’s not very engaging.
Being the sole source of solutions fosters dependency. Your team becomes like animals in a zoo, just waiting for you to feed them. You aren’t able to get the best out of them because you’re failing to engage their brains. It’s like the old saying about feeding people fish instead of teaching them to fish.
Selecting Know-it-all Leaders
The broader cultural problem preventing a more engaging leadership style is that organizations are hierarchies of authority where the top brass are expected to have all the answers and where they love the authority to call the shots. This is a recipe for a top-heavy, top-down chain of command that fails to motivate people at lower levels. To be selected as a leader, in such a culture, you need to show strong confidence that you have the answers to fix the organization’s problems. Leadership candidates who act like authority figures instill confidence in selection panels that they know what they’re talking about. A good facilitator might come across as less of a know-it-all but might be more effective in drawing great solutions out of others.
The Confidence of the Solution Generator
If you base your confidence on knowing what to do, you’re in a very difficult situation thanks to increasing complexity and rapid change. However, if you can switch back and forth between offering your solutions and acting as a facilitator, you can be much more confident. This is because being facilitative means asking the same engaging questions over and over again regardless of the content.
Example
Suppose you were asked suddenly to lead an important meeting with some angry clients and you have not had any time to prepare. Would you panic because you were unprepared? Most people would because they’re wearing a solution generator’s hat. Here’s how wearing a facilitator’s hat can reduce your panic.
In addition to the engaging question “What do you think?” you can ask the other major engaging question: “What do you want?” When you walk into the meeting, start with “What do you want?” questions. Here are a few examples:
- What would you like to get out of this meeting?
- What are your top three issues or priorities?
- What would you like to see happen with each of your priorities?
- What would you like us to do differently?
- How can we best help you?
- What changes can we make that would best address your concerns?
It is human nature when being criticized by angry people to become defensive and argue back. This can make the situation worse. When you ask “What do you want?” questions, you show that you are willing to listen to better understand their needs. When they calm down you can suggest some changes in the form of “What do you want?” questions such as:
- How about if we did Y instead of X, how would that work for you? (notice that this is asking them what they want; it is not a sales pitch)
A major value of this approach, other than showing your readiness to listen, is that such questions increase your odds of getting your audience to own whatever is decided. Again, human nature, we like our own decisions better than something invented elsewhere and sold to us. Further, asking such questions helps you to narrow your focus on what is most important to your clients. If you go in cold and make a speech, you’re throwing darts in the dark, not knowing what’s most important.
Culture Change
In a team meeting or with your peers, ask engaging questions such as:
- What do you think I could do differently to better engage you in making decisions?
- What do you see as the benefits of working this way for you, the team and the organization?
- How can we counter our natural tendency to want to be right by pushing our own solutions?
- What can we all do differently to work better as a team, cooperate and communicate more openly?
- How can I reduce your fear of challenging my thinking openly?
Talk them through the benefits of an engaging culture and cite examples of engaging questions. It will take practice because everyone naturally gravitates to being a solution generator, wanting to win arguments by offering the best solution. Everyone is also caught up in an organizational culture where the boss is paid to have all the answers. It will take some effort to change such a self-defeating culture.