Why Is It Critical to Have an Engaged Leadership Team?

Having strong leadership is an essential building block for a successful company. However, the last couple of years has taken a toll on leaders, and new leadership priorities are emerging.  

According to Gallup, leaders must lean on actions that help to stabilize companies, helping them to succeed. For example, leaders should turn their efforts to communicating often, growing and developing their managers, and supporting and encouraging the well-being of their employees. 

But, let’s look beyond these foundational needs. Why is it critical to have an engaged leadership team?  Keep reading to learn about five ways engaged leadership can benefit the overall organization.

1. Implements Vision and Values

Engaged leadership is critical to implementing the organization’s vision and future path. However, these high-level goals can often get lost in the day-to-day.

It’s up to leadership to ensure that these visions, values, and goals are prioritized, guiding the business and the employees in everything they do. For example, leaders should define these goals, making them clear and distinct while connecting them to organizational strategies. 

By doing this, your team can execute these strategies, helping to bring the company’s visions and values to life.

2. Builds Stronger Relationships

An engaged leadership team helps the organization to build stronger employee, customer, and vendor relationships. Some ways engaged leaders do this is by:

• Practicing active listening and emotional intelligence
• Showing respect for different opinions, viewpoints, and backgrounds
• Developing shared values
• Communicating
• Being approachable
• Establishing trust

An engaged (and diverse) leadership team can better meet the needs of varying relationships – employees, customers, and vendors – establishing itself as a top-tier organization.

3. Increases Retention

Strong leadership and employee retention go hand in hand. With leadership setting the tone for the company’s culture, engaged leaders can create a culture that positively impacts employees – making your organization a place they want to work.

For example, to create a positive culture, leaders should be transparent and accountable. Additionally, leaders should show compassion when listening to employees while investing in growth opportunities.

With both employee retention and engagement starting at the leadership level, this is an area not to be overlooked.

4. Encourages Innovation

According to a recent study, 84 percent of corporate leaders named innovation as critical to growth. However, according to CIO, “[c]apturing a culture of innovation” is a challenge for organizations as we emerge from the global pandemic. 

Leaders must focus on creating a culture of innovation just as they focus on creating a positive, inclusive culture – carefully and deliberately. Leaders must reinforce new mindsets, encourage “out-of-the-box” thinking (and results), and redefine key performance indicators, taking into account remote workers and performance. 

Engaged leaders will recognize the opportunities for innovation that we’re now seeing, guiding their teams through “small and deliberate” changes, creating a more innovative culture.

5. Promotes L&D Opportunities

The pandemic exposed numerous fissures in the workplace environment, from gaps in skills to out-of-date leadership techniques.  Gone are the days of paternalistic leadership. Instead, the pandemic ushered in a focus on servant leadership that thrives when it comes to adaptability and agility.

Engaged leaders are aware of these shifts, understanding that learning must occur at all levels of the organization. According to LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report, L&D leaders are now “reaching for fresh solutions to tie skill building to career paths, internal mobility, and retention, while also bringing a new sense of care and humanity to employee well-being, diversity, and inclusion.” 

As engaged leadership embraces L&D at all levels of the company, these leaders can shape the workplace culture, creating a culture of learning, innovation, collaboration, and connection. Want to learn more about creating a thriving workplace and building engaged leadership pipelines?  Contact Cangrade today.