What does it take to be an engaging leader?

From highly engaged staff, to healthy cultures, to improved performance, leadership styles influence it all. When employees feel disconnected from their leaders or uncertain about the future, we see engagement levels, productivity, and employee retention rates suffer.

During times of change or instability, such as the cost-of-living crisis, leaders who show empathy and connect with employees can help engage, reassure, and motivate their workforces. Below, we look at what it means to be an engaging leader and what leaders can do to influence employee engagement.

How do leaders influence employee engagement?

We know that line managers have a huge influence on employee engagement. They have the most contact with employees, are responsible for setting the culture within a team, and affect how employees feel day to day.

However, senior leaders have a part to play too. Employees may not have regular contact with these leaders, but their decisions and behaviours play a part in how engaged and satisfied employees at all levels feel.

So, leaders must set an example for how they expect their people to behave and act as a role model in their everyday interactions with the team.

For instance, if an organisation sets a hybrid working policy and expect people to be in the office once a fortnight, then senior leaders must stick to this too. Otherwise, we see a gap between the expectations set for employees and what people see from their leaders which is likely to breed resentment.

Measuring leadership and engagement using PEARL

When organisations measure employee engagement using the PEARL model, ‘Leadership’ is one of five key themes that help show how engaged, or not, people are feeling.

But looking at responses for employee survey questions around leadership, we can see there is still work to be done to ensure that all employees feel confident in and engaged by their leaders. The chart below shows results from our database of over 1 million data points.

1. 66% of staff agree that senior leaders provide a clear vision for the future of [organisation]
2. 60% of staff agree that senior leaders make the effort to listen to staff
3. 51% of staff believe action will be taken as a result of this survey

What does our data tell us?

Our data shows that only half of employees believe their feedback will lead to action. This survey question is a helpful indicator of whether employees trust your leaders to take on board their feedback and turn it into real change. A high score around belief in action suggests a healthy culture of listening, where employees feel confident to approach leaders and managers with ideas or concerns.

On the other hand, a lower score might mean people feel disheartened by a lack of visible change and are unlikely to continue to give their feedback. You might see this reflected in your other survey results around Leadership and your overall engagement score.

Which style of leadership is best for engaging staff?

While there are several frameworks about leadership styles, Lewin’s Leadership Theory remains one of the most popular. It suggests that there are three major styles of leadership which inform how people make decisions.

Lewins Leadership Styles

1. Autocratic Leadership means that one person holds the decision-making power with little input from others.
2. Democratic Leadership means that group members are involved in decision-making.
3. Laissez-Faire Leadership means that people have the autonomy to make their own decision.

Recent years have revealed additional leadership styles, which help engage and motivate employees by bringing through more human aspects of leadership. We saw many of these in practice during the Covid-19 pandemic.

1. Inclusive Leadership means that leaders are aware of their own biases so actively seek out different perspectives to inform decision-making.
2. Transformational Leadership means that leaders influence others to create change through motivation, attention, and an ethical decision-making framework.
3. Situational Leadership means that leaders adapt their leadership style to meet the needs of their team or the task at hand.
4. Compassionate Leadership means that leaders focus on listening to, understanding, and supporting other people to reach their full potential and do their best work.
5. Collective Leadership means that leaders from across Departments work together as a leadership ‘team’ to share knowledge and solve challenges together. Cardiff Metropolitan University recently took us through examples of collective leadership in practice.

What can leaders learn from the Covid-19 pandemic?

During the pandemic, our analysis of employee survey responses showed that employees perceived the following leadership behaviours most positively:

• Caring
• Involving
• Mobilising

Employees felt cared for and safe. They needed a human response in a stressful time so were grateful for the integrity shown by leaders and managers. And when leaders dialled into calls and conferences from home, employees saw that they were all in the same boat and leaders’ personalities shone through.

By involving employees in decisions about how and where they would work, leaders were able to identify the most effective ways of working and mobilise employees towards what they could still achieve even in tough circumstances.

How can leaders drive engagement?

Leaders can support employee engagement and promote a positive employee experience by:

1. Transparent communication

Keep employees in the loop with a steady stream of communications about upcoming changes, internal news, and updates. Use Town Halls, emails, company events, online Q&A boards, and video briefings to communicate with employees. As we learned during the pandemic, employees crave transparency from leaders. So don’t be afraid to say you don’t have all the answers or talk honestly about the challenges your organisation faces.

2. Take feedback on board

This applies to acting on feedback and suggestions from employee surveys, as well as more direct feedback from colleagues. Leaders who are self-aware and open to feedback are better able to recognise their own behaviours and responses, which can help them lead and engage people more effectively. 360 feedback programmes help leaders understand their impact on engagement, uncover blind spots, and develop desired behaviours.

3. Create a culture of psychological safety

Psychological safety is about creating a working environment where people feel comfortable to admit mistakes, ask for help, or challenge ideas without fearing the consequences. These environments encourage employees to be more agile and more innovative. Leaders can build psychological safety by role modelling and reinforcing the behaviours they expect to see across teams, for example by praising great work or asking for input into decisions.

Improve leader effectiveness with 360 feedback

Our easy-to-use 360 feedback platform and friendly coaching expertise can help leaders and managers understand their impact and develop desired behaviours.

Speak to us about getting started.