Preventing Lower Morale Through Higher Leadership

In the blog titled “Low Morale in the Workplace- Cause and Cures” I referenced the Challenger, Gray, and Christmas survey in which leadership was listed as the most common cause for low morale on the job by a wide margin. That blog has proven to be one of the most popular that I have written so I decided to expand upon the subject of leveraging better leadership as a primary driver of better morale.

I will cover what I consider to be the three essential skills of successful leadership as primary levers for improving morale in the workplace. The three essential skills of leadership are inspiration, collaboration, and communication.

Inspiration- A common misconception is that leaders should motivate their employees. Often, in training sessions, I like to ask a riddle to illustrate the root of that misconception. The riddle is “how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?” The answer is “one, but the light bulb has to want to change.” The fact is that no one can motivate anyone else; human beings can only choose to be motivated on their own for their own set of unique reasons. My motivation for writing a new article every week for this blog is that I receive a great deal of personal satisfaction from it and also my sense of obligation the readers. My INPSIRATION for each article changes weekly and comes from a wide variety of sources. As leaders, it is our job to find new and creative ways to help inspire our employees each and every week as well. It may be just reaching out to say thanks, it may be sending an inspirational article, it may be sending out inspirational quotes, or any number of almost limitless possibilities. The bottom line is that every great leader I know is always looking for ways to inspire their teams. It is a mission critical part of the leadership role that is also one of the easiest to overlook or become lazy about.

Collaboration- I have an associate whose wife has a new boss that is from the “old school” where fear and intimidation are considered effective management tools. That approach, popularized by Jack Welch in the 90’s, just doesn’t work in the long haul. If you don’t believe me see “Enron” as a case study.  Author and motivational expert Daniel Pink has written some breakthrough books on the subject of motivation. In the book “Drive” he makes a VERY compelling case for the fact that the “carrot and stick” method of tapping into what motivates employees is both out dated and ineffective. To be successful in today’s business world a manager needs to understand that working in collaboration with employees is both more inspirational and better for morale. People generally respond quite well to an environment of collaboration where they have greater autonomy. Obviously some of your newer folks may require a higher degree of direction but raise your level of collaboration with the rest and your team’s morale will surely benefit.

Communication- This one is simple, when people don’t feel secure in their work environment morale tends to suffer. Even in situations where an individual’s performance is an issue; clear, concise, and direct communication will improve everyone’s morale. When in doubt over communicate. Often times leaders communicate their position once and just assume every got it. Guess what? They probably didn’t, and even if they did you still need to communicate your position on a regular basis. Communicate to the group, communicate to the individuals and communicate to your customers. I have never heard anyone complain about be TOO CLEAR about where they stand. An effective tactic is to mix up the medium through which you communicate. Live, video, and written mediums can all be effective ways to insure the message is always received by everyone. You will be amazed at how higher communication levels can impact morale in a very positive way.

The “Big Three” skills of effective leadership are simple and easy to understand but incredibly hard to master. Focus on improving daily in each of these areas and your team will respond, I guarantee it!

Chuck Terry is the Executive Vice President and CSO of Carew International and is regular contributor to Carew’s blog – Executive Insights

Carew International is a leader in sales training and leadership development; specializing in comprehensive, proven training programs for sales, sales management and customer service excellence. For over 30 years, Carew has earned its reputation of delivering increased productivity and profitability to our valued clients world wide.