There is the rising realisation that the most crucial variable for keeping top talent at organisations is the quality of the leadership. Surveys like the one conducted by Jackhammer Executive Headhunters, are finding that the most common reasons given for top executives jumping ship were leadership related. Fundamentally all leadership success hinges on the intent of the leader. The mandate of the leader is to care for and facilitate the growth the employee. But what are some of the habits that are symptomatic of an organisation that is getting the leadership challenge wrong? Here is a list of 5 talent management habits to avoid.
1. Being unaware of one’s actual company culture.
There is very often a very big difference between what the leadership of an organisation thinks about the culture of the organisation and what employees think of the culture of the company. It is important to be aware of what employees think about the organization and to include them within a positive and progressive company culture. At Schuitema we refer to this as making the employees aware of and allowing them to commit to the benevolent intent of the organisation.
2. Confusing employee engagement with happiness.
Engaged employees need not be happy and happy employees need not be engaged. Engagement is a matter of productivity. Engaged employees are more energized and see work as more meaningful and hence are more productive. Happy employees may or may not be engaged and hence may or may not be productive. Management must not try and make their employees happy, they must challenge them in meaningful ways. Managers should concern themselves with being nice to employees but be concerned about giving them the opportunity to grow in a productive way.
3. Ignoring the toxic effect of office politics.
Office politics are the informal, illegitimate and largely unacknowledged forces of influence intended to maximize the interests of certain individuals at the expense of the organization. Office politics has been discovered to lead to stress, higher levels of employee turnover, burnout, lower levels of job satisfaction, general lack of trust in employees, incapacity to cooperate, etc. Leaders must recognize politics and stamp it out by fostering a ethic of cooperation and commitment to the benevolent intent of the organization.
4. Misunderstanding leadership.
Most organizations fail to recognize what makes a good leader. Leaders are selected for technical expertise or charisma where charismatic leaders are often narcissistic and self-interested.
What is needed is a leader who can build and engage good teams. Organizations need to select and develop proper leaders with actual leadership potential, which is the potential to help and grow others. Organizations must stop picking leaders who are good at navigating the corporate landscape, or just fit the stereotype of the charismatic leader.
5. Relying on intuition instead of data.
Perhaps one of the worst habits in organizations is the tendency to trust the intuition of management when making hiring and promotion decisions. The problem with this strategy is the lack of competence in the managers. The general lack of practical wisdom present in many managers makes their intuition unreliable. Organizations should do independent investigations into the competency and performance of it employees to enable more reasonable and productive promotion and hiring decisions.
The above ideas are taken primarily from this article written by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic