If Your Managers Aren’t Engaged, Your Employees Won’t Be Either

Too often, the very managers upon whom organizations depend to create better cultures are themselves unhappy and unmotivated at work. Management really isn’t a great experience for most people; managers report more stress and burnout, worse work-life balance, and worse physical well-being than the individual contributors on the teams they lead. Approximately two-thirds of managers are either not engaged or actively disengaged in their work and workplace.

Shifting how your company trains and supports managers, and repositioning them as coaches, is essential for helping managers to change culture. Moving your managers from boss to coach not only increases employee engagement and improves performance, but it’s also essential to changing your culture to align with the changing workforce – a workforce that no longer wants, nor responds to, the traditional “command and control,” top-down boss.

All managers must thus become better coaches by developing competencies such as building relationships, developing people, leading change, inspiring others, thinking critically, creating accountability, and clearly communicating. And they need to be coached, to progressively become more effective coaches themselves.

To read the full HBR article, please click here.