As many leaders across the globe grapple with retention and how to prevent their employees from joining the Great Resignation, they’re asking themselves hard questions.
Joseph Folkman, president, Zenger/Folkman
Takeaways of Note:
Pushing involves giving direction, telling people what to do, establishing a deadline, and generally holding others accountable. It is on the “authoritarian” end of the leadership style spectrum.
Pulling involves describing a needed task, explaining the underlying reason, seeking ideas on how to best accomplish, and asking if willing to take it on… and can be further enhanced by describing how the project might benefit the team member’s development. Ideally, the leader’s energy & enthusiasm for the goal are contagious.
360-degree assessment data findings on 3,875 leaders in the pandemic (also graphed below):
– when both push & pull are low… both confidence & satisfaction of direct reports are low
– when push is high & pull is low… both confidence & satisfaction increase
– when pull is high… satisfaction increases to a level substantially above confidence
– when both are high… the most significant increases are seen
bonus nugget
Over the past few years, there has been a call for leaders to be less demanding and more empathetic toward individual employees. More pull, less push seemed to be what’s needed to retain talented employees… data also offers a clear warning. Your efforts to increase empathy shouldn’t diminish your ability to, on occasion, push when needed. As our data shows that it can be a strong force that builds confidence.
