February 14, 2015

Engaged Leadership
Building a Culture to Overcome
Employee Disengagement
Second Edition
Clint Swindall
2011 by Clint Swindall
Adapted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ISBN: 978-0-470-93311-4

Key Concepts

There are three parts to the Engaged Leadership modelDirectional, Motivational, and Organizational. The
key to success is focusing on 12 challenges, four for each of the three areas, and undertaking specific action
items for each challenge.

Directional Leadership: Employees pursue their companies visionsrather than just performing the functions of their jobswhen they understand the visions and how they are contributing to carrying them
out. Managers have a responsibility to share this information with employees to help them become more
engaged. Managers must also be unified and on the same page in order to present and share their visions.

Motivational Leadership: Building a culture of motivation is critical in overcoming employee disengagement

and the loss of valued employees. Managers need to lead with positive motivation and give employees
something to run toward, not away from. Companies and work units should have dedicated times and
methods for celebrating employee successes.

Organizational Leadership: The culture and organization of a company must be independent of any one
employee, and leaders have a responsibility to develop these types of cultures. The right people should be
in the right positions, and employees should be assigned work that is both challenging and meaningful.

Introduction
Employee disengagement undoubtedly exists today, although productivity is high by historical standards.
Employees may seem more engaged in their work, but they may also be working hard out of fear of job loss or
just until conditions return to normal. Building a culture to overcome employee disengagement, or to maintain
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Engaged Leadership

Clint Swindall

employee productivity for positive reasons, is a critical role for todays corporate leaders. In Engaged Leadership, Clint Swindall presents a fable and a set of how-to guidelines that outline how leaders can build cultures
of employee engagement.

The First Quarter

Seth Owen, a new college graduate, enters the working world as an employee of Halifax, a large call center
company based in Texas. He will be managing a team of about 25 call center representatives, one of four such
teams in a relatively new call center near Austin. He finds his new boss, Hannah Jaxson, to be confident and
charismatic. His three colleagues are a varied group: Aaron seems friendly, sincere, and open-minded; Jill seems
friendly, but rather insecure; and Carmen seems to be rude and insubordinate toward Hannah.
Almost immediately, Seth learns that Hannah is working to change the culture of the call center, shifting it from
the current situation where employees just show up and do the minimum to earn their paychecks to a culture of
employee engagement. This will be especially challenging for Seth, as his team has been the lowest performing
by all measures. Hannah offers to mix up the teams, but Seth says he wants the challenge of the lowest performing group. Hannah tells Seth about the model of Engaged Leadership she is introducing to the management
team. The model comprises three elements:
1. Directional: Setting the vision of the organization and getting everyone to
agree to it, even if they do not agree with it.
2. Motivational: Inspiring employees to want to pursue the vision.
3. Organizational: Developing the team to realize the vision.
At the management teams January meeting, the Engaged Leadership model
takes center stage when Hannah informs the group that the corporate office
has hired an outside firm to conduct an employee engagement survey at
all call centers before the end of the month, with a follow-up survey to be
done in December. Managers year-end bonuses will depend on how much
improvement is shown. The four managers accept Hannahs offer to coach
them in the Engaged Leadership model.

Regardless of the
strength of an organization, the view of
employee engagement (and how that
ties to the overall culture of the organization) always differs
between the boardroom and the break
room.

Hannah begins her coaching that day with a discussion of the Gallup Organizations research on employee
disengagement. According to the research results, 29 percent of employees are engaged; 54 percent are disengaged; and 17 percent are actively disengaged. The best chance of building employee engagement, Hannah
says, is by focusing on the 54 percent in the middle. Employees want to be engaged, she says, and managers
have a responsibility to them and to their companies to engage them.
Hannah also reviews the four lessons that are related to Directional Leadership:
1. Recruit support from the top 29 percent and use this influence to build consensus with the middle 54 percent.
2. Prepare the organization for change. Employees accept change best from a united management team.
3. Let staff members know how they contribute; make sure employees know what is expected of them and
provide clear, positive consequences.
4. Constantly communicate progress and let employees know about progress being made in pursuit of the
vision.
In the next weeks, Seth makes it a point to walk around and greet each member of his team every morning. He
also spends time with his team to determine who the most engaged employees are. He then meets with the
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Engaged Leadership

Clint Swindall

six who are in the top 29 percent and gains their support in changing the procedure for measuring call center
efficiency. Seth also takes time to acknowledge, praise, and thank two team members who developed the old
procedure that is being phased out.

Leaders who wait

and hope employees
will simply see the
light and suddenly
become a productive
part of the workforce
will wait a long, disappointing time.

There is good news for Seth and his team in the February attendance report:
They have moved up to third place after two years of being at the bottom. Seth
celebrates by putting on a tuxedo and bringing doughnuts for his entire team,
along with a note for each thanking them and saying how proud he is to be
their leader. Seth also meets individually with the team member who has long
had the centers worst attendance record; recently, she has had perfect attendance. The center is now a nicer place to come to work, she says. Seth promises
to treat her and her husband to dinner if she can achieve perfect attendance
for the next four months.

The results of the employee engagement survey arrive and three things stand out:
1. Call center employees do not feel they know what is going on within the organization.
2. Employees feel they work way too much and never get recognized for their efforts.
3. Individual employees think they are pulling their weight, but that people around them are not.
When all managers are asked to share the survey results with their teams, Seth and Aaron decide to do so in a
joint Town Meeting setting.

The Second Quarter

The time for the second-quarter meeting rolls around. Hannah begins by reviewing the four lessons related to
Motivational Leadership:
1. Lead with positive motivation and give employees something to run toward, not away from. Seths dinner
promise to the employee with poor attendance is an example of positive motivation.
2. Celebrate small successes. Seths doughnuts are an example of this.
3. Encourage life balance for all employees. While employees should not be allowed to come and go as they
please, flexibility can be worked into their schedules.
4. Create a fair work environment. Beyond the equal treatment that is legally required, employees must feel
they are personally being treated fairly.
In the following weeks, Seth and Aaron discuss the importance of having as much positive content as possible in
a performance review. Equally or more important than telling employees what they have done wrong and need
to correct is praising them for what they have done well. A performance review with ample positive content can
be more effective than one that is largely negative. Striving to win more praise in the future can be an important
employee motivator.
The April reports on attendance and quality hold good news for Seth. His team has risen to first place in these
two key measurement categories. This time, Seths team plans the celebration. When he arrives at the office, a
large congratulatory banner signed by each team member graces his cubicle.
Aaron is the next to devise an innovative way to recognize the successes of his team members. While in a
meeting one day, Seth and Jill repeatedly hear a bell ringing. They discover the bell is in Aarons office. When a
member of Aarons team reaches a goal they have set for themselves, they get to ring the bell. It recognizes the
employee and raises the curiosity of everyone else in the office.
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Engaged Leadership

Clint Swindall

In June, Seth has a chance to encourage life balance in a way that maintains fair treatment. He permits a new
employee to take a vacation day prior to the date when it would normally be permitted. This is to the dismay of
Carmen, who believes he is inappropriately breaking company policy. Seth explains that the day off was to let
the employee be with her family on the day of her mothers surgery. It was only three days before the employee
would be eligible to take a vacation day. The employee also offered to come in
Too often we find ourearly and leave late to make up the time, but Seth did not require this.

The Third Quarter

As the third-quarter meeting comes around, Hannah continues explaining
the Engaged Leadership model by exploring the four dimensions of Organizational Leadership:

selves blaming the

employees for being
disengaged, when the
real problem is disengaged leadership.

1. Identify and position the appropriate talent; develop the team so the organization is bigger than individual employees.
2. Build a bridge between the generations. People who grow up at different times have different values, and
generational differences cannot be allowed to get in the way.
3. Move toward real empowerment and having a culture that allows people to fail without fear of being penalized. Share information with employees freely enough so they feel they have the knowledge needed to take
on more responsibilities. Allow employees to work through their own problems.
4. Establish a strategy to maintain success, and always have a plan of succession.
Empowerment comes quickly to the four managers when they learn that a corporate vice president is coming
to visit the call center. Hannah asks them each to make a presentation. A while later, Seth meets with Hannah
to discuss an employee problem. A longtime employee on his team has the lowest score in the entire office on
First Rate Resolution, the percentage of calls completed with a single contact. Seth has set expectations, positive consequences, and negative consequencesall to no availand he is considering termination. Hannah
informs him that there are four main reasons why people fail. They lack either the appropriate skills, knowledge,
resources, or motivations.
In a quickly called management meeting, unexpected news is announced. Realizing she will never be promoted
to a management position, Jill informs the group she has decided she wants to go back to being a call center
representative.

The Fourth Quarter

The teams fourth-quarter meeting arrives and Hannah announces that Aaron will lead it. Early on, he fills in
the final and central puzzle piece in the Engaged Leadership diagram: Character Core. Character is central to all
three aspects of Engaged Leadership. Too many organizations assume their leaders lead with integrity and see
no need to talk about it. When business ethics are lacking, personal ethics are lacking as well. Employees watch
their leaders and look for congruence between what leaders say and what they do. Congruency is the key.
However, everyone makes mistakes. For example, rather than involving her empowered managers and giving
them input into Jills replacement, Hannah abruptly announces to the group the person she thinks would be
a great fit for the job. When Carmen questions her thought process, Hannah realizes the error of her ways and
backs down. She agrees to step back and work with the group to first identify the kind of person they are looking for and what qualities matter most. After a lengthy discussion, they concur that attitude is more important
than skills and that, further, neither Hannahs preferred candidate nor the candidate suggested by Carmen are
the right people for the job. They begin to search for a new manager together.
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Engaged Leadership

Clint Swindall

The start of the new year brings a flurry of changes in addition to Jills job switch. In December, Hannah
announces she has been asked to run her own region comprising several call centers, and she expects to be
leaving soon. She recommends Aaron to be her replacement. In January, Seths departure is announced; his
one-year assignment is up and he will be moving on to a new assignment in a different city. The follow-up
results of the employee engagement survey are released and are favorable: The four teams show considerable
improvement and together beat the Austin office. Everyone gets their bonuses.
A year later, Seth, Aaron, and Hannah meet in Newark, New Jersey, at a Halifax leadership conference. During a
reunion dinner, they discuss the difficulties of managing during a recession and keeping staff members engaged.
People are working hard, says Hannah, but she knows this is as much out of fear and anxiety as engagement.
Aaron says he worries about staff members who may be worn out from picking up the slack. In his travels
around the country on training assignments, Seth says he sees again and again the importance of strong leadership. All in all, anything the company faces can be overcome as long as it stays focused on building a culture of
employee engagement.

For empowerment to The Application of Engaged Leadership

work, we must have a Employees are generally not lazy, unmotivated, and disengaged when they
are first hired; on the contrary, they are normally excited and motivated for
culture in place that the new challenges ahead. If they become disengaged, it is usually because
allows people to fail of how they are managed. Disengaged employees are a strong sign of diswithout the fear of engaged leadership. Providing engaged leadership and focusing on the 54
being knocked down. percent of employees who are disengaged, but not actively disengaged, is
the solution to achieving engaged employees.

Companies sometimes assign the three aspects of the Engaged Leadership model to different levels of the
organization: Directional Leadership to those at the top; Motivational Leadership to mid-level management;
and Organizational Leadership to managers on the front line. For true effectiveness, all leaders need to focus on
all three aspects of the model. The aspects themselves are not difficult to understand; the key to success is in the
application of the ideas. One way to apply the ideas is to view the 12 lessons taught by Hannah as challenges
and to consider specific action items for each challenge.

Directional Leadership
Leaders should not think they are the only ones worthy of creating and knowing corporate visions. All employees
need to know their companies visions and how their work contributes to them. When visions are established,
leaders need to build consensus. The aim must be for employees to come to work to pursue visions, not just
to perform the functions of their jobs. The four challenges applying to Directional Leadership and action items
related to the four challenges include:
Challenge One: Recruit support from the top 29 percent.

Identify the top 29 percent.

Bring the top 29 percent together as a group.

Solicit input from the top 29 percent into the vision.

Ask the top 29 percent to recruit the other 54 percent.

Challenge Two: Prepare the organization for change.

Agree on unity within the leadership team. For success, all members of the team must be on the same page.

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Engaged Leadership

Give the reason for the change.

Tell employees how the change will affect them.

Use data to tell the storynumbers and facts can be very powerful.

Introduce the change as an improvement.

Celebrate the past and the future.

Clint Swindall

Challenge Three: Let them know how they contribute.

Assess how well expectations have been communicated.

Let employees create the expectations through goal setting.

Assess how well consequences have been communicated.

Determine positive consequences that would drive behavior.

Ensure the consequences motivate the behavior.

Challenge Four: Constantly communicate progress.

Create a method to share information regularly.

Let employees know where they stand.

Host a quarterly vision review meeting.

While some people ...

dismiss the problem
as laziness or a lack
of motivation on the
part of the employee,
the opportunity to
overcome employee
disengagement lies
within the control of
leadership.

Motivational Leadership
Employees voluntarily leave companies for many reasons, including for more money, to spend time raising a
family, to move away, to go into business for themselves, or to find a better fit for themselves after a company
changes direction. In fact, the vast majority of employees do not leave companies; they leave bosses. Leaders
who build cultures of motivation can overcome employee disengagement and the loss of valued employees.
These are the four challenges applying to Motivational Leadership and action items backing them up:
Challenge Five: Lead with positive motivation.

Give employees something to run toward, not from.

Ask employees what inspires them most.

Focus on what employees are doing well and provide positive feedback.

Focus on the best by finding ways to direct attention to the top 29 percent.

Challenge Six: Celebrate small successes.

Create an impulsive reward system.

Establish a dedicated time to celebrate every day.

Establish a method to celebrate every success.

Challenge Seven: Encourage life balance for all employees.

Take advantage of technology, such as allowing an employee to work from home.

Change to a new mindset.

Make a list of flexibilities that might possibly be extended to employees.

Protect employees time off.

Set the example of life balance.

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Engaged Leadership

Clint Swindall

Challenge Eight: Create a fair work environment.

Compensate fairly.

Establish equitable reward systemsthe same achievements should receive the same rewards.

Be consistent when enforcing consequences.

By instructing people
to follow the vision
rather than building
consensus, we produce mediocrity at
best.

Organizational Leadership
With the wrong employees in place, achieving company growth and building for the future can be impossible tasks. In creating cultures of employee
engagement, leaders must be sure they have the right team of employees
in place. A strong organizational structure, with the right people in the right
places, is essential to a culture of strong employee engagement. People will
come and go, but organizations must be robust enough to continue pursuing
their visions. These are the challenges applying to Organizational Leadership
and action items for the challenges:

Challenge Nine: Identify and position the appropriate talent.

Inventory the available talent. Determine whether the right people are in the right places.

Determine who needs to go, but first give the culture of employee engagement a chance to work.

Recruit appropriate talent.

Hire for leadership needs.

Hire for attitude.

Be honest.

Give challenging and meaningful work. Employees become disengaged when they think their potential
and time are being wasted.

Train employees.

Challenge Ten: Build a bridge between generations.

Understand the generations. Learn what motivates each and why they think the way they do.

Suspend judgment long enough to first learn about people.

Do not treat everyone the same. Understand and cater to individuals needs.

Challenge Eleven: Move toward real empowerment.

Provide information.

Give authority with responsibility.

Share power.

Stop solving employees problems.

Get the team thinking about problems and solutions.

Challenge Twelve: Establish a strategy to maintain success.

Create a succession plan.

Document procedures.

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Engaged Leadership

Clint Swindall

Features of the Book

Estimated Reading Time: 34 hours, 213 pages
Engaged Leadership by Clint Swindall explains how managers can change their company cultures to overcome
employee disengagement. The first approach is an inviting, easy-to-read fable about one corporate managers
efforts to root out severe employee disengagement in a central Texas call center. The second is a how-to set of
challenges and action items executives can use to improve employee engagement within their own organizations. The guidance is especially geared toward mid-level and lower-level managers, although it can be relevant
and of interest to all. The chapters are best read in order.

Contents
Introduction
The Format
The Fable
Epilogue: One Year Later
The Application of Engaged Leadership
Directional Leadership
Challenge One: Recruit Support from the Top 29 Percent
Challenge Two: Prepare the Organization for Change
Challenge Three: Let Them Know How They Contribute
Challenge Four: Constantly Communicate Progress
Motivational Leadership
Challenge Five: Lead with Positive Motivation
Challenge Six: Celebrate Small Successes
Challenge Seven: Encourage Life Balance for All Employees
Challenge Eight: Create a Fair Work Environment
Organizational Leadership
Challenge Nine: Identify and Position the Appropriate Talent
Challenge Ten: Build a Bridge between Generations
Challenge Eleven: Move toward Real Empowerment
Challenge Twelve: Establish a Strategy to Maintain Success
The Importance of Character Core
Conclusion
The Employees Role
Acknowledgments
About the Author

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Engaged Leadership

Clint Swindall

Further Information
Information about the author and subject:
www.clintswindall.com
Information about this book and other business titles:
www.wiley.com

Click Here to Purchase the Book

Related summaries in the BBS Library:
Full Engagement!
Inspire, Motivate, and Bring Out the Best in Your People
By Brian Tracy
The Employee Engagement Mindset
The Six Drivers for Tapping into the Hidden Potential
of Everyone in Your Company
By Timothy R. Clark

About the Author

Clint Swindall is the president and CEO of Verbalocity, Inc., a personal development company that focuses on
leadership enhancement programs, training, speaking, and general consulting. Swindall is a recipient of the
Certified Speaking Professional designation. As a professional speaker, trainer, and leadership consultant, he has
presented programs throughout the United States, Canada, South America, Mexico, Bermuda, and the Bahamas. He is also the author of Living for the Weekday: What Every Employee and Boss Needs to Know about Enjoying
Work and Life.

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