Winning with Engagement: Proven Techniques for Inspiring Your Staff

I love working with managers and directors through a process to identify and develop their skills. Engagement is a valuable ingredient for successful leadership. The author Simon Sinek said "when people are emotionally invested, they want to contribute". Strong leadership means engaging employees so they feel empowered and motivated to contribute to the growth of the organization. It also means building a culture of collaboration so teams effectively work together to achieve goals. 

In this article I share three key steps for creating engagement with your staff. Studies show that higher engagement translates to increased productivity, work satisfaction, problem-solving capacity, more innovation and creativity and higher retention rates.

Here are the three key steps for creating these conditions with your team.

First Step – Meaningfulness

For staff to feel engaged and attached to their position, they must feel their role has meaning. When their personal value system is aligned with the purpose of their position and the mission of the organization, it provides meaningfulness to their job. This supports them feeling personally and psychologically committed with their work.

Second Step – Safety

Forming emotional, psychological, and cognitive attachment requires people to experience a solid feeling of safety. It is important that staff identify with the terminology and descriptors used in the workplace in a manner which is aligned with their own personal identity and views of their position.

Third Step – Adaptability

The last key step in creating attachment is for an individual to feel that they have enough knowledge, skills and emotional adaptability. For a person to feel their personal identity overlaps with their identity at work, they must be able to adapt what is required of their role and have the aptitude to perform it. Also, they must feel the job tasks are within their physical ability. Lastly, that they have the emotional capacity to effectively manage the requirements of the position.

Together, these three steps create the foundation for employees to feel attached to. Studies show that higher engagement translates to increased productivity, work satisfaction, problem-solving capacity, more innovation and creativity, and higher retention rates.

Culture is created by managers who have the power to build job engagement in their teams, improve task performance and contribute to a positive and effective organization.

As an engaged leader I hope you now have a better understanding of the emotional, physical and cognitive conditions required to fully undertake your job and contribute to your organization.