by Jordan Birnbaum, VP and Chief Behavioral Economist at ADP
(Originally published on ADP’s blog, “Spark”)
Can we all just agree that leadership matters? I’m asking so we don’t have to talk about:
a. The massive impact of employee engagement on organizational metrics like profitability, customer satisfaction, productivity and employee retention
b. How leaders are responsible for 70% of the variance in employee engagement
c. That 2 out of every 3 employees in the US is disengaged
d. How 50% of voluntary turnover is due to poor leaders
Let’s instead go straight to a more interesting question: Why do people usually become leaders in the first place? Is it because they’re good at leadership? Or is it because they’re good at something else, like sales or administration or IT? Or even office politics?
Many people first assume a position of leadership without any experience nor aptitude for it. They can advance throughout their entire careers without ever learning effective leadership, performing just well enough to avoid getting fired.
Given the huge impact that leaders have on team performance, it’s easy to see that organizations have a lot to gain by driving leadership development. Unfortunately, that is a lot easier said than done…