Executives Wash Their Hands of System-Level Accountability for Employee Engagement and Managerial Leadership
By Michelle Malay Carter on November 28, 2007
I saw an article entitled, What does Leadership Development have to Do with Employee Retention?? In it, there is a list of what direct reports want from their leaders.? It is not much different than anything I have said here:
1. A clear and definite objective.
2. Resources needed to get the job done.
3. Basic to comprehensive. [Opportunities for development]
4. Always give time.
I certainly agree with what is being said here, but I am struck by the fact that this article is being published in a self-help blog.? Once again, we are telling individual leaders to “be good leaders” by giving them a list of behaviors they can perform, but systems drive behavior.? Who is looking at systems?
Yes, we can go after individual leaders, i.e. managers, one by one, or we can begin holding executives accountable for creating environments that enable productive leadership through people-systems design.
Back to my disease metaphor.? We can ask managers to be accountable for doing their part toward preventing disease if this is a corporate strategy, and it would be reasonable to ask them to wash their hands frequently toward this end.? However, the organization will be much more?successful if it combined its?hand washing tactic with corporate-wide indoor plumbing and clean water.? It is this piece that organizations are missing.
?I’m OK.? You’re OK.? Let’s fix the system.
Filed Under Accountability, Corporate Values, Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Managerial Leadership, Organization Design, Requisite Organization
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