Leadership Excellence - December 2022

10 Leadership Trends For 2023

Leading in a changing world

- Brett Farmiloe, CEO and CHRO, Terkel.io

How

Three actions we need to see from our leaders - Amy Leschke-Kahle, Vice President, The Marcus Buckingham Company Five

Transforming

- Chandrashekar LSP, Senior Evangelist, Zoho Corp

Collaboration is much more than people working together - Bob DeKoch, President, Limitless and Phil Clampitt, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Editorial Purpose

Leadership Trends to expect in 2023

Excellence Publications

The year 2022 has witnessed a lot of ups and downs in terms of work, workplace, and the workforce. The constantly changing workplace will require new approaches to leadership. What once worked to attract, motivate and retain great talent has changed, and the leadership landscape must change with it.

What leadership trends should you be ready for in 2023?

From compassionate leadership to embracing physical, spiritual, and mental wellness, there are several predictions that may help you with becoming an efficient leader in 2023. Also, bringing workers back to offices and hiring and retaining employees in the midst of the Great Resignation are some of the toughest challenges facing leaders today. Are you adapting your leadership mindset and style to the issues at hand?

predicted by business leaders for 2023, Check out his article, 10 Leadership Trends For 2023, for valuable insights.

The Marcus Buckingham Company’s Amy Leschke-Kahle in her article, How Work Is Changing And How Leaders Must Change

With It, shares unique perspectives on how work is changing and what it means to be a leader in the next phase of work.

If you are wondering how to build better leaders, especially in your mid-level management, Zoho Corp’s Chandrashekar LSP shares useful tips to develop essential leadership skills.

Submissions & Correspondence

Check out the December edition of Leadership Excellence for informative articles on leadership trends for the new year, tips for building better leaders in your organization, and much more.

Today’s employees are looking for a mentor, coach, and friend to advocate for their needs and develop their talents. In addition to their operational role, leaders will need to address these expectations in order to maximize performance and build effective teams. Anne Grady (Speaker/ Author) in her article, 3 Leadership Imperatives To Build Resilient Leaders, Teams, And Organizations In 2023, shares three trends that will be leadership imperatives in 2023.

Terkel.io’s CEO/CHRO Brett Farmiloe has compiled ten leadership trends as

As we emerge from a pandemic into a disruptive world of work, expectations from leaders are higher than ever before. With the changing dynamics of the modern work environment, leadership competencies are also changing. Humancentered leadership skills are rising to the top of the competency list. As Anne Grady rightly puts it, “Take time to ask your employees what matters most to them. Identify individual motivators and personalize your leadership approach. One size does not fit all.”

We hope you find this edition’s expert articles informative and insightful. As always, we look forward to your valuable suggestions and feedback on our ePublications.

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3 Leadership Imperatives To Build resilient Leaders, Teams, And Organizations In 2023

By Anne Grady, Anne Grady Group

The last few years have challenged leaders to rethink the way they work, live, and lead. What once worked to attract, motivate and retain great talent has changed, and the leadership landscape must change with it.

Employees are looking for more than just a manager. Today’s employees are looking for a mentor, coach, and friend to advocate for their needs and develop their talents. In addition to their operational role, leaders will need to address these expectations in order to maximize performance and build effective teams.

The following three trends will be leadership imperatives in 2023:

1. prioritize Mental Health and Well-Being

The number of disengaged employees across the globe is staggering. According to Gallup, 85% of employees are either disengaged or actively disengaged. Organizations and leaders are scrambling as they try to stretch limited resources, create a culture of diversity and inclusion, and build employee engagement.

In a recent report from the office of the surgeon general, 76% of respondents reported at least one symptom of a mental health condition, up 17% in just two years. Eighty-four percent said that workplace conditions have contributed to at least one mental health challenge, and 81% said they will be looking for workplaces that support mental health.

In 2023, leaders must address the looming mental health crisis and create ways to incorporate well-being and mental health into performance management processes. After all, what gets measured gets managed. While KPIs and strategic objectives are at the core of performance management, there are other factors that may be just as, if not more important, to measure. Include personal goal setting and well-being in performance reviews. Help employees create a self-care plan to incorporate small ways to recharge into their daily routines.

Approximately 50% of the US labor force does not use all of their vacation days, and for those that do, many stay connected to work throughout their vacation. Numerous studies have proven that taking a vacation

Lead others like they want to be led

and completely unplugging has physical and mental health benefits, prevents burnout, lowers stress, improves productivity, performance, and relationships, and even helps you live longer.

Encourage employees to use their vacation days and respect their time away from work by not including them in emails, text exchanges, or meetings. Leaders who model sustainable work have teams that are happier and more productive. Unfortunately, you cannot promote what you do not practice. Leaders at every level of the organization must model this behavior.

2. Create psychological safety

Psychological safety is a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking. A two-year extensive study by Google found that psychological safety is the number one predictor of high-performing teams. While risk-taking used to be limited to sharing an “out of the box” idea or beIing supported when making a mistake, it has taken on a whole new meaning in our new world of work. Now psychological safety comes in the form of being able to talk candidly to your leader about mental health and burnout. Psychological

safety breeds trust and employees in high-trust environments reported 74% less stress than low trust environments. In addition, trust predicts 62% of performance.

The highest-performing teams spend 25% of their time talking about nothing work related. Connect with team members on an individual level, letting them know it is okay to let their guard down. Make time for personal check-ins, as well as status updates.

The fastest, most effective way to create a sense of safety is for leaders to show up vulnerably and to share their own development opportunities. When these discussions begin at the senior level, it creates a cascade throughout the organization. Leaders who facilitate these conversations and model sustainable work have teams that are 75% more effective as a result. Human leadership, a growing trend in corporate America, allows leaders to be candid and honest about their own challenges, making it safe for employees to do the same.

Build trust by allowing team members to spend time in meetings connecting about non-work-related topics, encourage a growth mindset and allow team

members to take risks without fear of reprisal, and reward the behaviors that build safety like vulnerability and connection.

3. Cultivate positive experiences

While it may seem counterintuitive, the fastest way to reduce stress is to cultivate joy. When we are immersed in positive experiences, our brain knows it is safe, offsetting the stress response. Self-care, gratitude, social connection, volunteerism, humor, and mindfulness all signal safety to the brain and serve to increase positive emotions.

Start meetings by sharing gratitude, successes, and personal stories of accomplishment. This simple shift opens the door to more creative problem-solv ing, decision-making, and increased collaboration. Sharing recognition, praise, and appreciation is a great way to create psychological safety, and it reduces the likelihood of team members leaving by seventy-four percent.

People need a sense of belonging, and in the hybrid world we live in, that can be a challenge. The average employee spends 90,000 hours of their life at work. Anything leaders can do to make that time more enjoyable will pay big dividends.

This can take the form of volunteer activities, practicing gratitude, informal networking time, and shared celebrations. There are so many ways to spark joy, and these positive experiences make the time we spend at work more enjoyable and meaningful.

Proactively cultivate social connections and create positive experiences at work. Strong social connection decreases anxiety and depression and increases cognitive ability, engagement, loyalty, and a sense of belonging. It is also the number one determinant of how long you will live, how happy you will be, and how satisfied you are at work, and in a complex global, hybrid environment, those connections can be few and far between.

Leaders have long followed the Golden Rule with the intent of creating kinder, more engaged workplaces. In 2023, leaders will have to move to the Platinum Rule: Lead others like they want to be led.

Take time to ask your employees what matters most to them. Identify individual motivators and personalize your leadership approach. One size does not fit all.

Anne Grady is an internationally recognized speaker and author. Anne shares humor, humility, refreshing honesty, and practical strategies anyone can use to triumph over adversity and master change. Her latest book is Mind Over Moment: Harness the Power of Resilience. She is also the author of “Strong Enough: Choosing Courage, Resilience, and Triumph” and “52 Strategies for Life, Love & Work.”

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10 Leadership Trends For 2023

Leading in a changing world

By Brett Farmiloe, Terkel.io

What is one leadership trend you predict for 2023? How is your company approaching this?

To help you stay ahead of the curve with shifts in leadership, we asked CEOs, founders, and HR leaders this question for their best advice. From compassionate leadership to becoming a thought visionary, there are several predictions that may help you with becoming an efficient leader before the strategies become more mainstream. Here

Aylor, CEO & Lawyer, David Aylor Law Offices

More Compassion in Leadership

Companies will turn to more compassionate forms of leadership compared to traditional forms based on authority and power that are no longer producing the results they need. Shifting social and cultural narratives, organizational complexities, and remote forms of working are causing a reevaluation of the function of being a leader.

Compassionate leadership can transform organizations by using authenticity to drive higher engagement. At our company, we are training our leaders to put themselves in the shoes of our employees and giving them the support they need to be creative and grow. Above all, we want leaders who have the humility to ask our employees what they need and the integrity to provide it to them.

Baldwin, Founder, Assisted Living Center

data-driven people Management Will Boost Collaboration

I like to equate people management to social media marketing because they both hinge on user engagement. Like followers, team members have days when they’re more responsive to collaboration prompts or communication within Slack communities.

For example, Mondays may bring the fewest responses from teams because everyone is busy picking up the slack after a weekend. Data like this has been invaluable for guiding team leaders and HR professionals.

Of course, data-driven people management is still in its early stages of development, but it shows promise for increasing team collaboration and productivity in 2023. Imagine the possibilities!

Lindemoen, Managing Director, nexus IT group

developing emotional Intelligence

As we move into the new year, it’s important for businesses to stay ahead of the curve with leadership trends. For 2023, I predict we will see a continued focus on developing emotional intelligence in leaders.

With the challenges of the past year, there has been a renewed focus on the importance of empathy and connection. Companies realize that leaders who can effectively manage their own emotions and create positive relationships are more likely to be successful.

As a result, our company is investing in training and development programs that help our leaders build emotional intelligence skills. We are already seeing this trend in action, and have implemented a leadership development program that includes emotional intelligence training.

We believe that by investing in our leaders; we are setting them up for success and creating a more sustainable future for our company.

David

Stephan

Travis

Increased usage of AI and data Analytics

In 2023, one leadership trend I predict is an increase in using AI and data analytics. Companies are already using these tools to help leaders make better decisions and identify areas of improvement.

For example, data analytics can track employee engagement and identify when someone is at risk of leaving the company. AI can create predictive models that can help leaders anticipate challenges and plan for the future.

My company is already using AI and data analytics to help leaders make more informed decisions. We are also invested in research and development to continue providing our clients with the best possible products and services.

rise in digital Transformation and Innovation

The rise of digital transformation will continue to redefine how leaders operate and make decisions. This will require organizations to be more agile and responsive to change, as well as more focused on customer needs. In order to remain competitive, businesses must adopt new technologies and ways of working that enable them to survive and thrive in the digital age.

We are constantly evolving our approach to leadership in order to stay ahead of the curve. We believe that the key to success in the future will be our ability to embrace change and adapt quickly to new situations. Because of this, we are investing heavily in training and development programs that will equip our leaders with the skills they need to thrive in a digital world.

pulled Focus to deI

More attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion will be a 2023 leadership trend. Technology and the recent pandemic have created a global workplace, so organizations now have remote workers in other countries. In-person work environments are not exempt from this development, as companies realize the benefits of having a workforce of diverse backgrounds and circumstances.

From recruitment to career growth, we provide an inclusive environment. Employees of diverse backgrounds feel safe, valued, and more engaged and have equal opportunities for growth. Before implementing new policies and programs, we consult with employees to know their input and ensure no cultural issues arise.

Wendy Makinson, HR Manager, Joloda Hydraroll

Linda Shaffer, Chief People Operations Officer, Checkr

Ruth Novales, Marketing Director, Fortis Medical Billing Professionals

Jack Underwood, CEO & Co-Founder, Circuit

emerging Apprenticeship programs to develop New Leadership

As more of our aging Baby Boomer workforce enters retirement, businesses will work to manage the transition from old- to new-generation leadership.

I predict that mentoring, coaching, and job shadowing will be sufficient for some, but businesses most affected by the natural loss of experienced leadership will begin creating apprenticeship-style programs to help industry talent gain experience and grow into leadership roles from within.

We’re considering a structure that can simultaneously give back to our community and develop new talent to prepare for our future leadership needs.

Sam Tabak, Board Member, RMBH Charities

Leaders Quiet Firing employees

Quiet firing is an emerging leadership trend transforming workplaces into toxic environments. This happens when leaders stop associating with employees but can’t directly tell their intention because they’re often guilty of delivering bad news. That’s why they show it by not giving rewards or neglecting employees’ needs for salary increases and career growth.

Our organization mitigates quiet firing through open communication. If our people feel their presence is being disregarded without an obvious reason, we encourage them to bring it up to their direct supervisor. Doing so not only allows employees to get updated about their work status but also helps preserve their relationship with their leaders.

Tzvi Heber, Founder, CEO, & HR Head, Ascendant Detox

Continued rise of value-Based Leadership

As we move into 2023, we predict that value-based leadership will become increasingly important. In a world where there is so much uncertainty and change, leaders who can articulate and live by a set of clear values will be the ones who inspire trust and confidence.

Value-based leaders are those who lead from the heart as well as the head. They are authentic and transparent and align their actions with their values. This type of leader is not afraid to show vulnerability or to have tough conversations. They create a safe environment for open dialogue and encourage everyone to bring their complete selves to work.

Our company is committed to values-based leadership. We believe this is the best way to create a strong, cohesive team that can navigate any challenge. Our values are integrity, respect, excellence, and service, and we strive to live by them in everything we do.

embracing physical, spiritual, and Mental Wellness

The wellness trend has gained traction in the past few years since the Covid pandemic and we only expect it to grow in popularity in 2023.

Leaders must embrace employee wellness strategies to help employees feel more engaged, contented, and less frustrated at work. Employees who are physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy are statistically more productive and more likely to stay with a company, reducing quiet quitting or high staff turnover and saving businesses from having to freeze hiring or let go of employees because of noncommittal attitudes.

We will expand our flexible working hours program and collaborate with an international fitness organization to offer employees discounted memberships in order to encourage employees to live healthy, active lifestyles outside of work.

By doing so, we hope to create a workplace that promotes employee health and happiness so that their lives are improved.

Brett Farmiloe is the Founder, CEO, and currently the CHRO of Terkel.io

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Kyle Kroeger, Founder, Via Travelers

Are Your employees Moonlighting? Let Them

By Alex Goryachev, alexgoryachev.com

Anewsource of outrage has appeared on the horizon: moonlighting. Companies are cracking down, or warning that they will crack down, on employees who earn money on the side doing work for other companies or for themselves. It hasn’t fully taken hold yet, but the rumblings are out there, and moonlighting will likely soon emerge as the latest cause for gnashing teeth in the management suite.

Maybe your employees drive for Uber in the evenings. Or they take on contract work part-time that they can do from home. They start their own business, or

they make money doing something other than what we want them to do, which is to devote themselves above and beyond to the company that employs them “full-time”.

Moonlighting has something in common with the last cause for a similar worry, quiet quitting, in which an employee stops devoting themselves to their work as wholeheartedly as we want them to. Both are taken to be signs that workplace culture is fraying that the bonds between employees and their “work family” are weak. Both phenomena have been met

Moonlighting is not a problem; it is a sign of innovation at work

with consternation and retribution. The solution many turn to, in both cases, is to identify guilty parties and terminate them.

As responsible leaders, we encourage employees to pursue their personal interests, to volunteer their time for good causes, and live the best lives they can, so that they stay happy and productive. But then, for some reason, if what they do involves making some extra money, then they have crossed a line and we cannot bear it.

We must understand that moonlighters are not the natural enemies of innovators. If anything, moonlighters are our unacknowledged, disengaged innovators. By doing extra work elsewhere, they are resisting the status quo, refusing to accept things as they are, and making changes in the name of greater effectiveness and prosperity. They have that much in common with the most forward-think ing entrepreneurs.

Accept the Inevitable

Although it is drawing more attention than ever, moonlighting is not a new phenomenon, and in fact, it is almost an inevitable one. Most people like making money. Some people — many people — are willing to give up some of their leisure time in order to earn more of it. They have the energy, they are willing and able, and companies are hiring part-time workers all the time.

If anything about this is new, it is the sheer proliferation of moonlighting opportunities. Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, Upwork, DoorDash, Instacart, and Fiverr are just a handful of the tools that make it easy to find something to do for extra money, whether it’s driving, editing, shopping for other people’s groceries, developing software or assembling new furniture. People who want to make more will find opportunities.

And let’s face it: many of our employees need the extra cash that comes from extra work. Some of them are saving for a new home. Others need to pay off student loans. That, as it happens, is the reason I spent some of my time moonlighting, early in my

career. I had to pay off loans and wanted to do it as fast as I could, so put in extra hours. And it worked.

There are more than forty working hours in a week. And just like with cooking a meal, the work we do is not perfectly linear. There’s no point sautéing the bell peppers until the chicken is done roasting — and so why not, while you’re waiting on what’s in the oven, wash the dirty dishes that have been sitting in the sink all day? Why not let our people occupy themselves in their inevitable downtime in whatever way they wish?

When should We Be Alarmed?

There are, of course, limits to most things in life. Moonlighting is no exception. We must have boundaries.

If someone is moonlighting for a competitor, then by all means, that must be addressed. If someone is starting a competitive business, then a conflict of interest has arisen – and that is unacceptable, though if we’re being honest, it happens all the time, particularly with talented individuals who are not being fully leveraged and rewarded in their organizations.

And we should not tolerate the sharing of trade secrets in the course of moonlighting. The inadvertent disclosure of intellectual property is a real risk, as someone might overestimate their ability to compart mentalize their work, to keep one job separate from another, and overshare without even realizing it. But that is not an inevitability, and it should not be treated as such.

There are limits to what organizations can allow. But barring circumstances like these, banning moonlighting is a stark overreaction, and there are things we can do to prevent it from becoming a real problem without resorting to tyranny.

1. Look for root Causes

Moonlighting is not an issue in itself. It’s a symptom if anything — an indicator that tells us something is up. It’s the check engine light coming on, a suggestion that we may not be getting something right.

Moonlighting can arise in response to many factors: poor engagement with our employees, inadequate compensation, limited rewards, and career growth opportunities, or just plain lack of personal fulfillment.

We can’t necessarily fix all of those things –  and sometimes it’s not about us at all. Sometimes people just need the extra income. But we can look hard at how we’re running our organization and think about where we’re falling short.  What are we not doing to ensure our employees feel right at home where they are? What else can we reasonably offer them that will keep them happy and devoted to us – if that is something we strive for?

2. Make Our position Clear

Probably the most effective measure we can take is to craft a reasonable, clear, and transparent policy when it comes to moonlighting, and communicate that to our employees. We can set limits. We can ensure that all understand there are lines that cannot be crossed, points at which moonlighting has ventured into sheer dishonesty or conflicts of interest.

I’ll say it again – moonlighters are the ones who take action. They likely possess the characteristics of the most cutting-edge innovators, and by working outside the company they are revealing themselves as such. Let us allow for that, without compromising ourselves, by setting the loosest limits on working elsewhere that we can, but articulating those limits with utter clarity.

3. Harness Moonlighters’ energy

A moonlighting employee is driven, motivated, and energized. They are willing to put in extra hours for extra compensation. Let us ask ourselves: what have we done to make the most of that? Is there a more rewarding way we can redirect their reserve energies not to other companies but to ours?

It’s not at all out of the question, too, that moonlighting only fortifies our people, and makes them better innovators. Who knows? Maybe Cheryl, our Senior Product Manager, does some contract work on the side. She does it to make extra money, but it has the added benefit of keeping her on her toes. She sharpens skills over there that she uses all the

time in her primary role, and it only makes her better at her job.

Moonlighting can be a kind of continuing education in this way. We don’t balk at employees attending professional conferences that have the same potential benefit – and so why be up in arms about this?

The Bottom Line

I believe that banning moonlighting is absurd and counter-productive. It punishes entrepreneurs and innovators who don’t accept the status quo in their life.  It’s bound to make them disengage from their work, or even quit. We cannot treat our employees as antagonists. Nowhere does it say we have to glow with approval when we see how they spend time off the clock.

We must resist the urge to start a witch hunt, and instead either address the underlying problems that give rise to moonlighting — or, better yet, take a deep breath, implement sound policies and simply stop being paranoid about it.

If we want to retain our most innovative employees, then let’s set them free. People who want to moonlight will do so. People who abuse the system will be caught. And you’ll attract the innovators who want to stay in your company.

Alex Goryachev is the author of FEARLESS INNOVATION: Going Beyond The Buzzword To Continuously Drive Growth, Improve The Bottom Line, And Enact Change. He is a Silicon Valley veteran and a global innovation strategy executive.

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How Work Is Changing And How Leaders Must Change With It

Three actions we need to see from our leaders

By Amy Leschke-Kahle, The Marcus Buckingham Company

Haveyou noticed how work is changing? The Covid-19 health crisis and ongoing digital transformation have combined to create a world of work that looks very different from the one in which we operated just a few years ago.

However, it’s important for all organization leaders to understand that we are not experiencing “a new normal,” but rather the evolution and culmination of a million different precursors into one big moment.

In other words, it’s not merely a swap of one world for another, but a progression that builds upon existing foundations. This point should guide how we lead our employees and change our business practices to overcome new sets of challenges.

Here are three actions we need to see from our leaders today as we navigate this acceleration of work and life

1. Reflect on Beliefs

Traditional behaviors have paved the way to success for many senior leaders in the past, but leaders today must understand how work is changing within their industry to succeed. This means taking ownership of mindset shifts and behavior changes that need to come from us as leaders but not necessarily from others within our organizations.

This kind of leadership requires more than re-tweeting the organization’s contribution to Black History Month or the #MeToo movement; it asks us to reflect on our beliefs and values to determine what applies today and what does not. In this way, we can transform our own abilities and potential for leadership while also modeling the best outlook and behavior for the employees and managers looking to us for guidance.

2. Find the Courage to Lean into the Gray

Once we identify the shifts that need to occur in how we lead, we must find the courage to see those changes through, even in amorphous, undefined, gray areas of leadership. This is because the field of HR — which is often concerned with weighty issues like payroll, hiring, and risk mitigation — is evolving too

What used to be a straightforward role that focused on resources has blossomed into a more multifaceted position that concentrates on people, which could take us into some uncharted places as leaders.

Here’s an example: We’re all on board with supporting diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, but how do we actually achieve that? The answer must involve more than token support and nods of agreement. Taking the lead on these matters requires finding the courage to step into discussions and guide the business toward what is right, not just what we’ve always done or what our governing bodies tell us to do.

3. Focus on systems Over solutions

When you come up against an organizational challenge, the answer will not come from outside the organization. The latest vendor, author or report cannot guide what you as an HR leader need to do

next because these resources do not know your organization the way you do.

The answer is to go back to our roots as holistic, critical-systems thinkers. Leaders must look beyond relying on a single solution or platform and determine what their unique organization needs in its totality as an integrated ecosystem, not a to-do list with a series of isolated, one-off problems.

Are You prepared for How Work is Changing?

Growing is rarely easy — for organizations, teams or leaders — but it is necessary, and it requires carefully considering the ways in which your leadership must evolve to match how work is changing.

Are you adapting your leadership mindset and style to the issues at hand? Can you find the courage to face resistance? Are you ready to chart a path for your organization’s future instead of relying on what outside forces tell you? Asking and answering these fundamental questions of leadership is a critical part of keeping yourself and your organization prepared for the challenges ahead.

This story was originally published on SPARK, a blog designed for you and your people by ADP®.

Amy Leschke-Kahle is the Vice President of Performance Acceleration at The Marcus Buckingham Company, an ADP Company, where she collaborates with clients to transform engagement, performance and leadership development based on the unique culture of each organization.

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developing The stories Of Women Leaders

Why is taking back self-authorship so critical for women?

By Rick Lash, and Christine Miners, Verity International Limited

After

years of working with senior executives, we noticed something interesting: even though they’ve spent decades in leadership development training, both formal and on the job, many still struggled when stepping up to broader enterprise roles. Why was that? Something more subtle, just below the surface, was getting in the way.  We realized it wasn’t about a lack of skill or competence, it was what the self-story leaders were telling themselves.

Those stories were often fragmented and fragile, sometimes in conflict with other internal narratives, and they didn’t know what to do about it.

An accumulating body of evidence suggests that confident, authentic leaders possess a strong internal narrative that gives meaning to their world, drives their actions, and defines their core purpose as a leader. Their narratives are highly personal, drawing on lived experiences and imbued with strong emotion and conviction and they drew upon their narrative for inspiration and personal agency.

Your leadership narrative is the inner dialogue that you tell yourself about who you are as a leader.  It shapes what you focus on in your environment, how you make meaning and enables you to more easily draw on the patterns of behavior that lead to success.

It Is a critical but often neglected ingredient for leadership success.

Why Women Often Give up Authorship of Their Leadership Narrative

There are factors that predispose someone to give up the authorship of their narrative. Evidence (both anecdotal and academic) shows that women’s internal narrators can be particularly prone to intrusion from outside forces – especially when it comes to their roles as leaders.

From an early age, girls are often socialized to focus on the feelings of others. Although both men and women develop internal narratives around their leadership roles, women in particular tend to develop memories that contain more emotional and cognitive recollections, making their internal narratives more available and emotionally resonant. Consequently, women may rehearse or ruminate on their narratives more than men.  This may make it easier for women leaders to use their internal leadership narrative as a source of inspiration, but it also can allow an outdated leadership narrative to get in their way.

For many other women leaders, we find that they are aware of their leadership narrative, but it conflicts

with internal narratives around the other social roles. In their new series exploring women’s limiting beliefs and assumptions – called Thinking Patterns that Hold Women Leaders Back – Jill Flynn and Kathryn Heath call this a “focus on others”. This idea results in a variety of damaging stories that women tell themselves: “I must take care of everyone else”, “my needs come last,” “I’m a great number two,” “I don’t belong on center stage.” Of course, it is important that we all consider how we can help those around us; but when this guiding force pulls the pen away from our own hand, we can begin to experience narrative conflict.

In their book How Women Rise, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith write about the 12 Habits that hold women back. Many of the habits that they identify are key reasons that lead to women giving up authorship of their leadership narrative.   1. Reluctance to Claim Your Achievements  2. Expecting Others to Spontaneously Notice and Reward Your Contributions  3. Overvaluing Expertise  4. Building Rather Than Leveraging Relationships  5. Failing to Enlist Allies from Day One  6. Putting Your Job Before Your Career  7. The Perfection Trap  8. The Disease to Please  9. Minimizing  10. Too Much  11. Ruminating   12. Letting Your Radar Distract You

Of course, the pandemic has only exacerbated these habits – particularly for women. In The Impact of the Pandemic on Women: Stories from Work and Home Life, we interviewed fifteen women, working in various industries, in different areas of business, and of varying seniority, to find out how they are living this new reality. As they described the shift in their work and personal life, some common themes emerged. It became clear that the influence of the pandemic on the work environment heightened the impact of

three habits in particular: building rather than leveraging relationships, the disease to please, and ruminating. As we try to re-establish habits that facilitate our return to a new working normal, it is important for women leaders to understand how the events of the past three years have also shifted their internal narrative, and to take intentional steps towards once again being in charge of their narrator.

While these habits can be a consequence of a fragile, more fragmented leadership narrative, they also tend to drive women to give up authorship of that same narrative. This means women often find themselves caught in an unfortunate cycle: a clear leadership narrative is a critical element for leading with authenticity, confidence, and resiliency, but a patchy narrative can lead to feelings of inadequacy, a lack of confidence, and a sense of disconnect between role and purpose.

How Can Women strengthen Self-Authorship

Women leaders need to go to the source of what generates those stories in the first place. It’s a problem that skill-building alone can’t solve. The power lies not in tweaking your narrative to fit the needs of others, or creating a story that is going to resonate with the rest of the group. It’s about understanding what your authentic story is and activating that narrative.

What’s the Next step?

Taking back authorship of your narrative is hard work. It requires significant personal investment and a deep understanding that the value is in the process, rather than a final outcome.

You will need to reflect on your past, challenge your deeply held beliefs about yourself and your leadership, connect new insights to what you know, and experiment with bringing your narrative alive. At times it can feel uncomfortable. It takes time, patience, and a high tolerance for ambiguity as you work through the building blocks of your leadership narrative.

Through our work with those executives, we have focused the methodology into a series of critical phases, each with a number of steps. The outcome is truly transformational.

In Phase 1: Prepare, you collect the materials needed to construct your leadership narrative before you begin to build. Some of those materials will come from mining your autobiographical memories. Some will need to be imported from the outside to provide you with an outside-in perspective, helping you appreciate how others see your strengths and the value you have brought through your leadership. Other elements – your inner motives – are more deeply hidden and must be brought to the surface.

In Phase 2: Build, having prepared all the building materials, it is time to see how they might fit together. It is in this phase that you will be integrating the

complex and sometimes conflicting data sources into a coherent, singular leadership narrative. It is here where your narrator truly gets down to work, sifting through old memories, shining a light on long-forgotten events, and discovering new meanings, identifying hidden strengths, and looking for the strands that connect it all. In this phase, you will seek to answer three fundamental questions that lie at the heart of your narrative: Where do I come from? What do I bring? What impact do I seek to create?

In Phase 3: Activate, you translate your leadership narrative to action. You will need to experiment with using your leadership narrative in different contexts,

sharpening and strengthening it, making it an integral part of your role and life, and using it to engage others and mobilize them to action.

What underpins the success of the methodology is that you have the mindset and skills to see your leadership narrative as a process of ongoing

reflection, restoration, and renewal, rather than a final destination.  And for women leaders, in particular, the journey to reimagine their leadership narrative can be one of the most empowering experiences, providing the self-authoring tools to adapt and evolve their leadership story throughout their life and career.

Christine Miners is the Managing Director at Verity International Limited and oversees all aspects of our executive development, coaching and talent management services. An experienced talent and leadership development expert, Christine is passionate about making an impact by keeping it simple, tangible and practical. With more than 20 years of experience in senior leadership positions across a variety of industries, Christine brings extensive experience working with executive leaders and their teams to broaden their perspectives and translate new thinking to actions and development plans that have an impact.

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Rick Lash, Ph.D. brings over 30 years of experience working with senior leaders and their teams to accelerate learning and improve performance. He is a Senior Associate at Verity International Limited. He believes that by helping individuals realize their core purpose, they can transform themselves, their teams, and their business. Recognized and valued for his deep expertise, thoughtfulness, and engaging approach, Rick has served as an executive coach and trusted advisor for leading organizations across a range of industries in Canada, the United States and internationally.

Five Tips To Build Better Leaders In Your Organization

Transforming your work environment for the better

By Chandrashekar LSP, Zoho Corp

The importance of developing leadership skills among your employees, especially among senior and mid-level employees, cannot be overstated. When it comes to managers, leadership skills play a huge role in how effectively they can support employees, make key decisions, delegate tasks, and leverage their team’s strengths to improve organizational growth. This enhances employee satisfaction and productiv ity, encouraging them to stick with your organization for longer. Similarly, fostering leadership skills in your employees prepares them to take on greater responsi bilities and grow in their careers.

If you are wondering how to build better leaders, especially in your mid-level management, here are five tips to develop essential leadership skills:

1. promote Independent Thinking and Autonomy

Preventing micromanagement is the first step to strengthening employee leadership skills. Your employees should receive the support to take on responsibilities and make decisions independently. For example, it’s important to encourage managers to set clear expectations and goals for their team members before beginning a new project or entering a new performance period. Remind managers to allow their team members to come up with ideas

during this time, rather than simply dispensing orders. This enables employees to develop a plan of action themselves while using manager input as a guide.

It’s also crucial to foster a feedback culture in which mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth. Managers should provide constructive feedback that enables employees to understand what went wrong and how to avoid similar issues in the future. You can nurture this culture by establishing a system in your performance reviews that rewards employees for coming up with new initiatives.

2. Organize regular soft-skill training

Soft skills enable employees to understand other perspectives, collaborate with their peers, communicate well, solve problems, and develop resilience. Team building skills, for instance, allow leaders to motivate their team members, keep them accountable, steer them toward their individual goals, and foster mutual trust. Emotional intelligence skills allow leaders to better connect with and support their team members, especially during challenging moments. Similarly, decision-making skills help managers and team members produce effective outcomes that benefit the organization. Regular soft skills training programs can promote a positive workplace and mindful leaders.

3. develop effective Mentorship Opportunities

Effective mentoring allows experienced employees to show beginners what it takes to excel, and it can be a great way to help all parties build leadership skills. Compared to other techniques, mentoring is relatively inexpensive and less time-consuming. Simply identify experienced employees whose leadership qualities are consistent with your organizational values and pair them up with less-experienced coworkers. Mentors can then determine what their mentees require to succeed, help them set clear goals, teach them how to overcome setbacks and more.

4. delegate Tasks effectively

The kinds of projects your employees work on play a huge role in shaping their leadership skills. Assigning high-impact tasks that involve a significant amount of planning, collaboration, execution, and monitoring will truly help your employees understand the nuances of their work. This will also allow them to handle greater responsibilities and make key decisions effectively. Managers should divide high-impact tasks among team members rather than completing all the important tasks themselves. This ensures all employees have an equal opportunity to develop prob lem-solving and project management skills.

5. encourage C-level Leaders to set an example

How your organization’s C-level leaders conduct themselves among employees can have a huge

impact on project outcomes. That’s why C-level leaders must perform in a way that inspires employees. They should embody your organization’s culture in their management strategies while empowering employees to work towards strategic goals and connecting them with an overall purpose. Employee growth and development should be at the forefront of their minds. More than anything else, they should take a compassionate approach and lead with a strong sense of responsibility.

Building Better Leaders

Taking steps to cultivate leadership skills among your employees could transform your work environment for the better. As a result, your employees will be able to approach their work with greater motivation and a stronger sense of achievement.

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Chandrashekar LSP, is Senior Evangelist at Zoho Corp

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The Link Between Thriving Workplaces And Managers

Improving life at work begins with the manager

By Melissa Phillippi, WorkDove

Good managers are rare. Gallup found that companies fail to hire the manager with the right skill set for the job about 82% of the time. The data is clear. Improving life at work begins with the manager.

The pain point

The corporate world has a long history of promoting based on tenure, not talent. We train people leaders in the task-oriented functions of their roles and typically provide little coaching on how to lead and develop

their teams effectively. Skills such as holding crucial conversations, maximizing potential, and effective communication do not come naturally to most, yet employees are craving to be coached and developed. On the performance management side, 19% of workers receive feedback only once a year from their manager, yet 96% of employees consider regular feedback a positive thing. The gap between what employees want and what they receive from their direct leader continues to grow wider.

Employee dissatisfaction is unfortunately not something that turns off after 5 pm. It bleeds into personal lives, affecting relationships, mental health, and overall well-being. One study conducted in 2015 with 567 Malaysian women in the public sector found that “Satisfaction with the nature of work was the strongest predictor of psychological distress, sleep disorders, headaches, and gastrointestinal problems.”

Another study by KornFerry found that the second biggest stressor in the workplace is bad bosses, followed only by too heavy of a workload, which may be a direct result of the bad boss. The connection between failing managers and their employees’ declining health is only becoming more evident. When workers are miserable, stress and anxiety dictate their lives leading to mental and physical distress.

Another side to this alarming coin is that businesses suffer, too. Low well-being effectively results in lower productivity, more sick days used, and more medical costs incurred to treat mental and physical issues. Our employees, our team members, deserve far better.

The Good News

There is an alternative to this bleak outlook. When workplaces hire the right managers, or at the very least equip the current managers with the right skills, managers have the greatest influence on whether organizations thrive. The strength of the manager is the lifeblood of the organization. As any business leader knows from experience, initiatives from the top live or die with those on the front lines daily. The managers in the trenches keep the wheels of the workplace spinning. Employees look to their direct supervisor for how to work and behave, so supervisors have the power to instigate responses to leadership initiatives that range from deep criticism to inspired advocacy. Communicating well with managers ultimately means you are communicating well with the entire organization.

Well-equipped people leaders create more engaging environments for their direct reports. Engaged employees experience less workplace stress and are more physically and emotionally present. As a direct example, the C. Everett Koop National Health Award

The Link Between Thriving Workplaces And Managers

recognizes outstanding worksite health promotion and improvement programs. A study conducted on companies who have received this award revealed a link between investing in health and wellbeing programs and their stock market performance. The portfolio of Koop Award winners’ stock values appreciated by 325% compared with the market average appreciation of 105% tracked over 14 years. It quite literally pays when your employees are healthy and thriving.

The solution

The key to a healthy, thriving workplace begins with the managers. Promote managers for their talent, not just the years they have been around. Serve the managers who are already in place by giving the gift of training and development. Discover the natural talents they do possess and harness them, thereby turning them from managers to talent-focused coaches. Offer modern, digital tools that make it easy to document their conversations with direct reports and track and update performance progress. These are all examples of the organization’s minimal effort that guarantees significant returns. For managers to invest in their people well, they must first be invested in.

Below are a few practical applications you can empower your managers to implement immediately:

● Recognize your employees often. A “job well done” can go a long way but recognizing them at the moment for specific behaviors they displayed has a powerful impact. (Note- Digital recognition tools allow for recognizing to happen even with hybrid/remote work schedules.)

● Be intentional with one-on-one time and frequent communication. Managers should meet with their direct reports about personal and professional development at least once a month. These conversations, sometimes called check-ins or one-on-ones, should be coachingfocused at their core. Frequent communication closes performance gaps, creates alignment, and reduces the need for more crucial conversations before it’s too late.

● Minimize anxiety around performance reviews. If managers are checking in with their

employees on a consistent basis, by the time the performance review comes around there should be no surprises on how it will go. Do not let the review conversation be the one or two times each year managers have a formal discussion with employees about their performance and cultural fit. This leaves employees feeling like they are not valued, and it causes questions about where they stand with their leader, which can ultimately lead to high stress and anxiety. Over-communicate throughout the year so that review time is a helpful and enjoyable experience.

Improving life at work begins with the manager. Thriving in the workplace is multifaceted but ultimately all roads lead to leadership. Hire managers for their talent and when they are promoted, don’t stop there. Time and investment into the development of managers will pay dividends in the future and keep strong, healthy, thriving employees around for much longer.

Melissa Phillippi is the CEO of WorkDove Would you like to comment?

How Caring Leaders Nurture And Grow Collaboration

Collaboration is much more than people working together

By Bob DeKoch, Limitless and Phil Clampitt, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Caring

leaders know that they can’t bark a drill sergeant’s “Collaborate now!” command. Rather, cultivating collaboration requires a mindset similar to a master gardener committed to blending the right soils, planting the right seeds, and nourishing growth.

First, they foster a commitment to collaboration. For some people, committing to collaboration is as natural as cooperating on family chores. For other people, collaborative opportunities resemble a dysfunctional family outing. For some hyper-competitive people, collaborative opportunities dissipate because their egos will not allow others to win. Professor Morten Hansen of INSEAD studied the challenge of collaboration and noted that these “lone stars” deliver on their numbers “big-time” but their “behaviors run counter to the teamwork that the firm is trying to install.”

Second, they ensure they have the right structural elements—or the right soil and seeds to cultivate growth. Structural elements include making sure the right people are in the room, securing proper meeting spaces, and creating compelling agendas.

Third, they build and use the right skills. Active listening and empathy are a must, but so are questionasking skills. Caring leaders ask the right questions at

the right time and avoid the desire to fill silence at the wrong time.

Caring leaders recognize that all three building blocks are necessary and self-reinforcing. For example, leaders with excellent collaborative skills but without the right people in the room will become frustrated with the results. Likewise, assembling the right people, who are not skilled, will be equally infuriating. Integrating these building blocks requires both the visible and subtle strategies discussed next.

visible practices for Collaboration

These visible strategies emerged from our observations and experiences about how to synergize the core building blocks of commitment, structure, and skill:

1. Make sure the right people are in the room and participating at the expected level. Most collaborative opportunities occur during meetings of various types.

2. Use personal instruction manuals to jump-start collaboration in newly formed groups When you buy a new product, you receive an operating manual with a list of dos and don’ts. Why aren’t people equipped with a similar manual? A personal instruction manual can fill this gap.

3. Assess meeting mechanics. Are meeting facilitators sending out agendas before meetings? Providing information before meetings? Sharing

meeting summaries? Routinely evaluating the effectiveness of the meeting? These questions represent the top complaints in many organizations.

4. Co-develop meeting ground rules with the team. Collaborative dynamics are acutely sensitive to the media used for communication—a successful TV advertisement may not play well in print or social media.

In the long run, caring leaders will be respected for their collaborative approach to problem-solving, even if they’re not successful in every case. They will also be appreciated for their decisiveness when collaborations fail. Collaboration is much more than people working together; it is building a sense of community with a group of people who respect and trust one another. They support each other and are able to disagree while finding a path forward. They recognize that, together, they find better solutions than anyone individually.

Bob DeKoch has over 40 years of executive leadership experience, which included 20 years leading The Boldt Company, a $1 billion construction services and real estate development company. Bob is currently the President of his own leadership consulting firm, Limitless,

Phil Clampitt is an award-winning communication and information science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and has over 40 years of experience in university teaching, ground-breaking research, and business consulting.

They are co-authors of Leading with Care in a Tough World: Beyond Servant Leadership

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Leading Through The data deluge

Here is what business leaders should know

By Donna LaLonde, American Statistical Association

The amount of data we deal with daily is on the rise, in our professional and personal lives. In fact, the amount of data collected and stored annually has become so vast that the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) is considering a proposal to add ronna 1027 and quecca (1030) as prefixes to the metric system. So, what happens when it’s possible to measure just about anything? How does all that data turn into high-impact insight? In our modern digital world, this is a very real challenge.

According to a May 2022 IDC survey conducted for Alteryx, only half of business decisions are actually informed by analytics.

The myriad ways to collect data make it easy to become data-rich, but insight-poor—the gap between the desire for data-driven decision-making and the capability for implementation. By recognizing that “statistics is the science of learning from data, and of measuring, controlling, and communicating

uncertainty,” business leaders can leverage and implement statistical insight for strategic, effective decisions across the organization.

As the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Outreach of the American Statistical Association (ASA), I’ve had the opportunity to work with statisticians and data scientists who represent a broad range of applications across varied industries. Here is what they want business leaders to know.

support and engage Your Internal experts

Your company’s statisticians and data scientists are your data experts. Fostering company-wide relationships with these key professionals is critical. These members of your team can explain the statistical practices. They understand the provenance of the data and its fitness for use.

Of equal importance, a company must prioritize support for its statisticians and data scientists with professional development and recognition of their contributions and efforts. Statistics is a diverse profession, with statisticians working in areas from public health to national defense. This means your company isn’t only competing within your own industry for these high-demand experts, but also much more widely within the professional community. Combining this with the substantial effort to onboard new team members to optimize a team’s efforts and capabilities makes investing in your statistical talent a smart move.

promote a Culture that values Communication and sound practice

Recognizing and valuing the statistics talent within the company is crucial, but business leaders can further strengthen their data-driven approach by establishing a culture that values the validation of assumptions and the assessment of the performance of models over time. Consider working with your C-suite and executive peers to make this the standard across industries and businesses.

This does not mean a CEO needs to be an expert statistician (although there are instances of this with great success!). They need to be willing to ask questions and apply statistical insights appropriately

in decision-making and support transparent communication of the statistical insights behind strategic choices.

Taking the time to explain the data insights behind company decisions not only demonstrates good statistical practice for others within the company, but also offers highly valued transparency to employees about how and why decisions are made.

Focus on Innovation and ethical practice

Recognizing that innovation is fundamental to success, advocate for the appropriate, timely, inclusion and participation of statistical practitioners as contributors as new initiatives are considered.

When designing the collection and analysis of data, or the development and deployment of models or algorithms, use statistical practice in ways that are consistent with best practices and promote the ethical statistical practice.

Focus on the Future

The statistical sciences have made a substantial impact on science and society. Imagine a world that relies on data and analytics to drive discovery and inform decisions. The challenges to attaining this vision are significant, but the rewards for businesses are great; effective partnerships—with internal statisticians, consultants, and resources such as the ASA—are key to identifying opportunities and supporting innovation. Moving forward, business leaders should identify ways in which these groups can work together to address shared challenges, such as workforce development and training and establish a culture of communication and collaboration.

Donna LaLonde is the  Director of Strategic Initiatives and Outreach at the American Statistical Association - ASA. Would you like to comment?

To support employee Well-Being, We Must Connect Work To Organizational p urpose

Hr support is essential to

By Heide Abelli, SageX Inc.

establishing meaning

Workplace

well-being will remain important for HR going into 2023. The U.S. Surgeon General, in its November 2022 Framework for Workplace Mental Health & Well-Being report, listed mattering at work as one of its five essential initiatives to strengthen workplace well-being. The Surgeon General’s report highlights the importance of a worker’s ability to find a broader purpose and significance in their work. The report cited research that indicates that finding meaning and purpose in work increases both an employee’s physical and mental health, by reducing the risk for health complications such as heart attacks and stroke, and by increasing an employee’s motivation and sense of positivity. For businesses, the report cited research arguing that employees who find meaning in their work are more productive and more innovative, and they are more likely to remain with their organizations.

Many of us spend at least 40 hours a week working for our employers. We spend more time at work than we spend doing anything else, including parenting, interacting with our loved ones and engaging in personal passions. We want and need to feel that the significant time we invest in our work and the

sacrifices we make for our jobs serve an important purpose. Companies need to help employees find that purpose – the “why” – in their work. In particular, younger employees increasingly expect companies to reflect their personal values, as they seek to have a positive impact on other people’s lives and the world they live in. They believe that the purpose of business should be to contribute to human flourishing and to the creation of a more caring and equitable society. They want to belong to communities of meaning, including workplace communities of meaning.

If we establish that today’s employees need to find purpose in their work, what can companies do to help them identify that purpose? Companies must know the answers to two fundamental questions: “Why do we exist?” and “What broader societal purpose do we serve?” The answers to these questions must be authentic. Authenticity in a company’s purpose is apparent when purpose is threaded into the organization’s strategy and the everyday execution of that strategy in the form of actions, decisions, and choices.  If purpose is threaded into the execution of a company’s strategy, then it is woven into the jobs of its workforce. And yet, when we look at the average

written job description, we might struggle to link the job to organizational purpose. Establishing this link should not be challenging. Purpose can be found in job roles across all functions and in all sectors. Two examples from companies operating in the toy and financial services sectors illustrate the point.

When the LEGO toy company was on the brink of bankruptcy the CEO at the time asked two basic questions: What is our purpose? Why do we exist? The company’s answer: “Systematic Creativity.” The idea is that when playing with LEGOs, a child intuitively learns how to program and build algorithms and structures. Playing with LEGO toys also fosters imagination and creativity because children use LEGO toys to build in a systematic manner while also using their imaginations to create an infinite variety of unique structures. In a nutshell, LEGO’s purpose is to offer core products with a unique design that helps children learn systematic, creative problem solving which is a crucial twenty-first century skill for human society. Lego’s “systematic creativity” is very relevant to the flourishing of children and society. Every employee working for LEGO, across all roles and functions, understands the

company’s purpose of systematic creativity. Whether a LEGO employee’s job is in purchasing, logistics, sales, accounting or HR the importance of the job to enabling “systematic creativity” can be identified and articulated. Without the understanding of purpose, an employee at LEGO might think he or she earns a paycheck working for just another toy company. With an understanding of purpose, though, employees place tremendous value on performing their roles to unlock “systematic creativity” with the goal of helping children flourish.

When Dan Schulman took over PayPal in 2014 the company had high employee attrition and could not attract the right talent, especially high caliber technical talent. For Schulman, establishing a sense of purpose was a key factor in attracting new talent to the organization and in retaining that talent. Under Schulman, PayPal adopted a social purpose of democratizing access to financial services by focusing on the needs of lower-income populations Few will argue with the fact that there is a genuine societal need and market opportunity to provide secure and inexpensive financial services to lower income populations and small businesses. When the pandemic accelerated the shift from cash to electronic payments, the company’s attention to lower income consumers and small businesses enabled it to be of greater help than other financial institutions.

PayPal was able to get government bail-out funds into the hands of individuals and small businesses by processing more than $2 billion in small business loans to help organizations get through the worst of the crisis. In a very palpable sense, PayPal’s purpose allowed it to improve conditions in the communities and for the customers it serves. PayPal’s commitment to social purpose has enabled the company to attract and retain top-notch software engineers in a fiercely competitive market. It also enabled the company to achieve a greater degree of racial and gender diversity compared to other tech companies.

Employees at PayPal are able to connect their daily work to PayPal’s societal purpose and the organization has engendered trust among its workforce by living its purpose internally in visible

ways.  It raises wages and benefits and offers equity participation for all low-wage employees. The company also eliminated pay disparities by race in the U.S. PayPal’s ability to attract and retain superior talent demonstrates the company’s success in tying the work of its employees to the company’s purpose. Again, regardless of function or level, all PayPal employees understand the meaning in their work.

Whether it is Danone’s purpose of “Bringing health through food to as many people as possible” or Walmart’s purpose of “Helping customers save more of their hard-earned money for the things they care about most,” there is no doubt that having a valuable purpose and helping employees understand that purpose is becoming increasingly important to workplace well-being. As Walmart states, “delivering value to our customers, creating economic opportunity for associates and suppliers, strengthening local communities and enhancing the environmental and social sustainability of our business and product supply chains” addresses important societal needs.

Walmart has backed up its purpose statements in its everyday actions and operations. Even an organization of Walmart’s scale, with its 2.3 million associates, is in a position to link every job role to purpose.

HR has a real opportunity to improve workplace well-being by addressing the key aspect of mattering at work by making the connection between job role and purpose more explicit for employees. HR teams can help employees connect the dots by taking three actions:

1. Making purpose more visible to employees through “purpose communication campaigns”

2. Adding a bullet point linking the job to purpose in every job description

3. Spotlighting how individuals across functions and at all levels fulfill the purpose and highlighting examples of specific individuals in company newsletters, social media, etc.

These actions will help employees understand exactly how and why their work matters and a positive impact

on productivity, innovation, engagement and retention will follow.

Building a sense of shared purpose and a culture of working towards a common societal goal adds meaning to work, generates pride and fuels motivation, all the while reducing physical and mental stress. If organizations and HR leaders care about how their employees feel about the work they do every day, they will help them establish this important connection and everyone will be stronger for it.

Heide Abelli is an accomplished executive who has held senior leadership positions at leading educational technology and training providers such as Skillsoft and Harvard Business Publishing where she developed award-winning, groundbreaking corporate training solutions. She is a seasoned veteran of product development, innovation and product management in the fields of corporate training and HR tech. Abelli is a globally recognized subject matter expert in the areas of leadership, management, general business skills, the unique skills required for success in the digital economy, employee learning and development and effective corporate training practices. Abelli is currently a teaching faculty member of the Boston College Carroll School of Management, an independent consultant in the ed tech sector and the co-founder of an entrepreneurial venture in the employee performance support space called SageX Inc. Would you like to comment?

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