Hopefully, as a manager, you have become aware of the importance of employee engagement. Hint: As it turns out, engaged employees do better work! Yes, I know, absolutely shocking. But, it’s true – those employees that feel genuinely connected to the company, feel valued by the boss, and derive satisfaction from their work, significantly outperform their disengaged counterparts.

Now, engagement is being more closely scrutinized in light of the current challenges in the economy. Is engagement as important when the economy is sluggish, companies are cutting payrolls, and the future is uncertain? If your intuition is that engagement is even more important now than ever before, you would be right. The American Management Association (AMA) recently published an article entitled, “Emerging from the Rubble: Reengaging Employees in a Post-Recession Workplace.” Turns out, engagement numbers are not faring so well in the economic downturn:

According to Watson Wyatt’s 2009–2010 U.S. Strategic Rewards Report, levels of engagement are down 9 percent among all employees, but down 23% among high-performing employees. This research found more bad news when workers were asked about the line of sight between their efforts and company performance. The number of high-performing workers who said that their performance goals are linked to their company’s strategy and goals was down 20% from 2008 to 2009. The number who said that their supervisors tie rewards to organizational performance was down 37% and the number who said that their performance objectives are motivating was down 24 %.

According to Gallup, about one-in-three employees considers themselves to be fully engaged, which is significant when you consider that employee engagement is directly linked to key business metrics like productivity, profitability, safety, and customer advocacy. Now, the Watson Wyatt research mentioned above indicates that number is declining further – and dramatically so among “high-performance” employees.

The Squeeze on Top Performers

This is where it gets tricky in the workplace. Engagement is critical to creating top performance, but with lay-offs, downsizing, and shrinking budgets, a company’s top performers are being asked to do more and more – and the result could easily hasten a company’s downward spiral.

Consider the following, from a May 2010 Harvard Business Review article entitled The Acceleration Trap:

Faced with intense market pressures, corporations often take on more than they can handle: They increase the number and speed of their activities, raise performance goals, shorten innovation cycles, and introduce new management technologies or organizational systems…

We call this phenomenon the acceleration trap. It harms the company on many levels – over-accelerated firms fare worse than their peers on performance, efficiency, employee productivity, and retention, among other measures our research shows.

If companies increase the “number and speed of their activities,” why would productivity decline? Why would retention suffer? Is there a connection between the “acceleration trap” and employee engagement? It seems likely, although there is no specifically targeted research to prove the point. Clearly, the increased stress and pressure of additional activities and rising performance goals – in the absence of strong leadership and a strong culture – will adversely affect engagement.

All of this means that top performers can, in fact, be getting squeezed from both sides. Downsizing may create more workload for the remaining employees, and, at the same time, the company may now be adding projects and activities that further add to the workload, when they are, as yet, unwilling to rehire employees.

The Challenge for Managers

The challenge for companies is to create strong leaders, particularly in the mid-management sector. Average managers don’t typically look at high-performance employees and see trouble on the horizon, they see people who like challenges and handle them well. More work? Sure, they can handle it. Stellar performance; never complain….right up until the day they leave.

That is one of the key differences between an average manager and a strong management leader; the strong leader will pick up on the warning signs of a high-performance employee that is beginning to unwind. And, because they understand the value of building relationships and developing strong communication skills, they will have diagnosed the issues and created a solution for the employee that keeps them on board – and engaged.

“An inability to build relationships is the biggest reason why promising leaders derail. Also high on the list: poor communication and team-building skills.”   Five Rules for Making Smart Hires (Wall Street Journal)

In addition, the quote from the AMA article above identifies some key failures that managers have to rectify immediately: creating a strong line of sight between the employee’s efforts and company performance, and, creating compelling performance goals. Compelling to the employee, that is.

When a high-performance employee is not overworked and/or overstressed, the key is to let them see how their work drives the company forward (personal value), and provide them with the performance goals that motivate them (personal satisfaction). These are critical to driving engagement numbers forward.

Competition is fierce in consumer packaged goods (CPG), the industry sector that includes food and beverages, footwear and apparel, tobacco, and cleaning products (things that get used by consumers and replaced rather frequently). Product innovation is constant, space on store shelves is limited, and brand awareness is paramount. Even in a good economy, business in CPG can be tough sledding, and 2008 wasn’t one of the good years – a struggling economy and depressed consumer spending led to a decrease in median shareholder returns of 25% for consumer packaged goods companies.

In the midst of this carnage, Campbell’s (makers of several household brands, notably Campbell’s Soup) turned in a surprising 7% increase in net earnings per share in FY 2008. In fact, beginning the second year after Douglas Conant became CEO of Campbell’s in 2001, the company has marched steadily ahead – from $6.13 billion in revenue in 2002 to $8 billion in 2008.

In a February 2010 interview with Gallup Management Journal, Conant discussed the steps he took to get the company moving – a process that took about eighteen months and included the replacement of 300 (of 350) top managers.

I strongly believe that you can’t win in the marketplace unless you win first in the workplace. If you don’t have a winning culture inside, it’s hard to compete in the very tough world outside… You can’t ask employees to achieve extraordinary results if they’re not fully engaged. That’s why we focus a great deal on getting the workplace right so that people are engaged and proactive – so that people are moving forward arm in arm and competing with a spring in their step. As they become more engaged, they find ways to win in the marketplace that are sustainable.

Conant has seized on a crucial and profound principle in business: employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction are directly linked. In fact, it is fair to say that your customer’s satisfaction in the marketplace will rise and fall with your employee’s satisfaction in the workplace. Sure, I know this seems somewhat obvious (or completely obvious), but it is still the rare company that invests in leadership training for those managers who are responsible for employee job satisfaction.

Workplace Development

Training for managers? Why not training for the disgruntled employee? Actually, that is the first thought at most companies. So, perhaps knowing where the problem lies is the real challenge. When employees become disenchanted in the workplace, according to Leigh Branham, most of the time the issue is an ineffective manager. In his book The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, Branham dissected the responses of 19,700 employees who left their jobs and discovered that 70 percent left their positions for reasons directly attributable to their immediate supervisor or manager.

However, disgruntled employees rarely leads to management training. Instead, companies install casual dress Fridays, monthly birthday parties, and any number of other feel-good ideas. Don’t misunderstand, there is nothing wrong with any of those things per se; they just won’t make the problem of poor leadership go away. That’s the real challenge.

Employee engagement (employee job satisfaction) is a measure of how much an employee feels connected to the company. Are they bought in? Do they enjoy work? Do they trust the boss? Are they passionate about doing their best work? Research clearly shows that all of these things – and many more – are directly impacted by an employee’s direct manager or supervisor. Unfortunately, that manager or supervisor is rarely trained to function as a leader – to develop people, to communicate effectively, to inspire and engage. Instead, bright and capable employees are promoted to management simply because they are…well, bright and capable. They get things done. They take responsibility. They make things happen.

As managers (or supervisors), however, they come face-to-face with the brutal fact that the toughest part of their new job is dealing with the employees. Without any preparation or training for the position, they are left to figure things out for themselves, which creates frustration for both managers and employees.

Here’s an example: Ask any manager if they have ever been trained to create trust with their employees. It is likely that they have not, but look at Conant’s observation about the importance of creating trust with employees:

“…once you earn people’s trust, you have permission to do some amazing things. Trust gives you the permission to give people direction, get everyone aligned, and give them the energy to go get the job done. Trust enables you to execute with excellence and produce extraordinary results. As you execute with excellence and deliver on your commitments, trust becomes easier to inspire, creating a flywheel of performance.”

Conant observes that trust is a critical part of workplace performance. As a manager, then, it is critical to understand that marketplace performance ultimately is a function of trust. Trust leads to workplace engagement and engaged employees create satisfied customers. Starbucks CEO Howard Shultz made this point years ago when he said, “You can’t expect your employees to exceed the expectations of your customers if you don’t exceed the employees’ expectations of management.”

To win in the marketplace, it is essential to win first in the workplace.

Simple question: Do employees tend to do better work in a demanding workplace culture that is positive, encouraging, and empowering, or will they do better work in a demanding workplace that is negative, critical, and constricting?

Notice that in either cases the workplace environment is demanding; i.e., expectations for performance are high, employees are accountable to results, and tolerance of sub-par performance is almost non-existent. Some would suggest that a workplace culture that demands accountability and creates high-performance must, almost by definition, be negative or critical or pressure-packed.  I would thoroughly disagree.

Hard work doesn’t necessarily have to be accompanied by misery. Workplace excellence and employee freedom are not mutually exclusive. Take online retail sensation, Zappos, for instance. Zappos, acquired by Amazon in 2009, has become a $1 billion dollar online retail juggernaut in less than ten years – selling shoes. Not exactly high-tech. Or glamorous. Or awe-inspiring. However, in less than a decade, CEO Tony Hsieh (pictured) proved that a workplace culture can serve as a competitive advantage and result in an incredibly successful company – selling what is essentially a commodity.

A recent Business Week article described a significant part of the Zappos culture, which is focused on providing over-the-top customer service:

Customer service reps are given plenty of freedom. They may chat for hours with customers, write thank-you notes, send flowers, and even direct shoppers to rival Web sites if an item is out of stock. In a tough year for retail, sales are up by double digits.

Zappos rep Michelle Robles recently showed a reporter how the approach works. She offers coupons and free shipping to one unhappy customer while grabbing a returned pair of shearling boots for another. Robles knows her top priority is to establish an emotional connection. More than 95% of Zappos’ transactions take place over the Web, so each actual phone call is a special opportunity. “They may only call once in their life, but that is our chance to wow them,” Hsieh says.

I can hear the micro-managers screaming. Let’s see…there is wasting time (thank-you notes?), wasting money (flowers? really?), and helping competitors (sending them to rivals?).  Exactly how is revenue growing at a double-digit pace?

Disagree with the methodology if you want. The point is that Zappos hit the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For at No. 29. Sales are up sharply even in a down economy. And the interesting news is that corporate executives are paying $4,000-a-pop to attend a seminar conducted by Zappos that teaches them how to duplicate the Zappos culture. Exactly how much is someone willing to pay to learn how to duplicate your culture?

Make no mistake, Zappos’ employees are well-trained and excellence is not optional. High-performance is an expectation of the culture and working there is not all about fun and games. However, the Zappos culture is one that employees thrive in, and those employees are more willing to accept the demands of a high-performance work environment.

Any company could emulate the corporate culture at Zappos, but it would take great leadership, a clear vision, and an unwavering commitment to the company’s values. Unfortunately, as highlighted in another recent article, companies often view the elements of a strong culture as an unacceptable hit to the bottom line:

For many companies, catering to customers is seen as just another expense. Training employees to be effective and empathetic costs money. Perks like free shipping or no-questions-asked returns cost more money. Even setting out free coffee for office visitors adds up over the course of a year.

In these cost-conscious times, cutting back on those extras seems like an easy call. But companies like Zappos are taking the opposite tack. They still offer free shipping not only on every order, but for returns as well. And those returns are accepted for a full year after the date of purchase.

In a letter to employees announcing the Amazon deal, Zappos Chief Executive Officer Tony Hsieh wrote: “Our vision remains the same: delivering happiness to customers, employees and vendors. We just want to get there faster.”

Delivering happiness to customers, employees, and vendors. Who would be willing to pay someone to learn that?

I recently read a Blog post entitled “Why Engagement May be the Best Management Voodoo Ever.” As I worked through the article, I also worked my way rapidly through a range of emotions – from curiosity to irritation to anger to defensiveness to understanding and, finally, back to curiosity. The author, Wally Bock, posits that “employee engagement,” and those consultants that preach its importance, have simply created the next management fad. His points, if I understood them correctly, are that employee engagement is poorly defined and difficult to measure, that it is not the be-all, end-all answer to management success, and that consultants tend to be more concerned about the actual state of employee engagement rather than how engagement impacts productivity

Message received, understood, and ultimately agreed with.

That being said, I enthusiastically believe that employee engagement is absolutely critical in the workplace. Important in the sense that, with scant few exceptions, it is not possible to create a consistently top performing team (hence, a team with high productivity) with participants that are not engaged. Any kind of team for that matter – workplace, athletics, volunteers, whatever.

I believe the research data clearly indicates a direct correlation between employee engagement and key metrics like productivity, profitability, employee retention, safety and customer advocacy. I agree that definitions are not wholly consistent or crystal clear, but companies whose employees report (through independent surveys) that they like their jobs, like their bosses, feel valued on the job, and feel connected to the company’s vision and objectives consistently report better results in critical performance metrics.

Frankly, I don’t care what we call it, but the concept of employee “engagement” to me isn’t really new. An examination of successful leaders (as well as coaches and teachers, for that matter) reveals a consistent set of skills that have always been used to create highly productive teams. What are those skills? Here is my “short” list of ten critical management/leadership skills necessary to effectively engage employees and build a productive team:

• Be competent in the team’s core skill set
• Create an environment of trust
• Make sound and well-reasoned decisions
• Prepare and empower employees to do their jobs well
• Fully support employees with appropriate resources and training
• Provide a clear sense of vision and direction
• Set and communicate clear expectations, and create accountability to those expectations
• Provide effective feedback and coaching
• Recognize and reward excellence
• Sets leadership priorities as: communication, people development, and strategic planning

What Are Your Top Priorities?

From my perspective, effective leadership skills naturally create employee engagement. It’s simply a question of learning and applying those skills in the workplace.  The challenge is that most managers are not trained to be good leaders and/or they are too bogged down in the daily grind of the workplace to focus on leadership priorities. In my view, those leadership priorities should be: 1) communication, 2) people development, and 3) strategic planning, but are often these instead: 1) paperwork, 2) problem solving, and 3) doing a lot of the work employees should be doing instead.

Or something like that. Managers are so busying doing things that they have little time to develop things. In a recent article from CFO Magazine, I read this this quote:

“Internal communication issues are rarely top priorities….that is, until they create potential liabilities.”

I think this is pretty profound. Many of the important things that management/leadership should be doing for an organization are rarely even a priority – until a warning bell sounds. Employees, for example, routinely complain about the communication problems that exist in the organization, but rarely is it considered a priority to remedy the problem, so next year we will be talking about the very same communication problems.

Communication is rarely a priority because things like budgeting, decision-making, and resource allocation (to name a few management activities) seem more directly connected to productivity – except at those organizations where leadership believes there is a direct correlation between engagement and productivity. At those organizations, communication is seen as a critical component of employee engagement and, therefore, an absolutely necessary skill to be developed right along with budgeting, decision-making, etc.

Some consultants may use “engagement” as the latest fad; but, regardless of misuse by others, good leaders know that engagement is a critical part of a highly productive team.

Broad-based competition, a severe economic slowdown, and many other factors have combined to stagger the coffee juggernaut known as Starbucks. Sales are down; profits are down; and analysts, in general, have not been kind to the former Wall Street wunderkind.

So, it was with more than a passing interest that I read a WSJ article entitled Latest Starbucks Buzzword: ‘Lean’ Japanese Techniques (Julie Jargon, August 4, 2009). It seems that Starbucks has discovered the concept of a “lean” approach to doing business; i.e., changing processes to become more efficient in the use of labor and other resources.

It appears that the “lean” approach may be paying dividends. For the quarter ending June 30, Starbucks reported gross profits increasing 14.6 percent, while net income jumped from $25 million to $150 million. Of course, there are other factors at work in the performance improvements, but one store, for example, reported improvements in both efficiency and customer satisfaction as a result of working with “lean” techniques. This Chicago, IL store had a dismal customer-satisfaction score of 56 percent in April, but saw that number jump to 76 percent in June while customer transactions increased 9 percent in the same period.

However, my interest was more in how the everyday work changes were impacting the company’s employees and culture. To that end, one particular statement in the article caught my eye:

Starbucks has faced some resistance to the program. “They’re trying to turn workers into robots,” says Erik Forman, a barista in Minneapolis. “It’s going to essentially turn the cafe into a factory. They want to control our every move in order to pinch every possible penny.”

Here is the ever-present evidence of the consequences of change – there will always be resistance to doing things differently. While the reasons for resistance will vary considerably, the fact is that change always creates organizational friction. And, while that friction will never be completely eliminated, it can be lessened dramatically by focusing on communication before, during, and after the change.

How to Lose Up to 99% of Your Effectiveness

John Kotter, “widely regarded as the world’s foremost authority on leadership and change” and “the premier voice on how the best organizations actually “do” change,” believes that one of the problems in an organization during times of significant change is that leaders will under-communicate by a factor of ten or even a hundred.

Knowing that communication can have a dramatic impact on the change process, here are some things to remember:

• Communicate early and often; use different media (group meetings, email, memos, intranet, etc.)
• Explain the reasons for change; be specific (economy, sales and profits declining, competition from McDonalds, etc.)
• Acknowledge the inconvenience – the need to do things differently – especially when the perception is that things have worked fine in the past
• Show the benefits to each employee (improving profits helps avoid lay-offs, preserve benefits, etc.)
• Use one-on-one communication for best results

As a general rule, managers are promoted to their positions because they know how to get thing done – they learn quickly, overcome obstacles, complete projects on time, and often do all of this with little supervision or oversight. So, when it’s time to find a new manager, who better for the job than someone who makes things happen?

If these managers have a consistent, predictable weakness, what might it be? In my experience, the answer is most likely patience. These capable taskmasters are quite often long on activities and short on time; find it hard to delegate important responsibilities; and generally feel the need to be directing most tasks. After all, that “Just Do It” reputation they have created was a primary factor in their promotion to management.

People Issues Usually Include Emotions

Unfortunately, not all work problems are task problems, and this can present a unique challenge to managers: how to efficiently manage employee issues?

Employee issues come in all shapes and sizes: poor performance, lack of cooperation, inadequate communication, attitude problems, personal problems, and so on. Because these are people problems, they rarely come without the side effects produced by the emotional side of people: enthusiasm, impatience, fear, resentment, excitement, hurt feelings, worry, disappointment, and more.

The problem here is that is impossible to be efficient with emotions. Managers can’t just troubleshoot the problem and come up with a new process or a new solution. Of course, they often try to do exactly that (ignoring the emotional fallout), but the results are fairly predictable – the employee feels used or disregarded and the disengagement process begins.

Effective leaders understand that employees are human and have emotions that must be acknowledged and/or addressed, a process that takes an investment of time. In fact, the leadership concept of emotional intelligence relates to the ability to manage one’s own emotions and the emotions of the people you lead. However, investing time in your employees – to listen, to explain, to train and develop, and to deal with personal issues – rarely leads to efficiency.

Instead, the most important objective, in dealing with people, is to be effective.

1. Focus – engage the employee
2. Listen – don’t fix (not at first)
3. Clarify your understanding
4. Ask for input
5. Create clear expectations
6. Clarify their understanding

By the way, the time you invest in dealing with the issue now probably prevents you from wasting a whole lot of time you would have needed to revisit the problem/issue later (in many cases, more than once).

You might be more efficient than you think…

Failure is a tricky subject in the corporate world. On the one hand, when asked, most managers will admit that failure is a “good thing” since it allows employees to learn and grow. On the other hand, mistakes often elicit a range of negative reactions, including public criticism, sarcasm, and downright hostility.

I ran across an article I saved from an airline magazine some time ago entitled Celebrate Failure (Samuel Greengard) that detailed how some executives embrace “acceptable” failure as a part of their corporate culture. Failure characterized by repeated mistakes or negligence is never acceptable, but for many (most?) businesses, failure is never an “acceptable” option:

…sports teams often view videotapes of games and analyze breakdowns, and the military holds debriefings after every battle – [but] the business world can get shell-shocked by admitting failure. “Too often, people view failure as a sign of weakness, and they want to move on immediately,” says Richard Farson, president of Western Behavioral Sciences Institute…

Failure can be seen as a sign of weakness? Evidently, championship athletes never got the memo – most fail far more than they succeed. Still, in the corporate world, failure does seem to be construed as weakness. The problem is that the inability to evaluate and coach weakness usually only compounds the problem.

…those who lead a failed initiative lose a bit of their luster and watch their stock plummet within the organization. If the person winds up leaving the company, the institutional knowledge – what they learned from that failure – goes with him. The company may wind up using the same processes or methodology and make the same mistakes over and over again.

When a talented employee makes a mistake, isn’t that the time to capitalize? Having invested in their success, isn’t failure an opportunity to recoup some of that investment? After all, they might have learned something extremely valuable.

Great managers train their employees well, set clear expectations, and, when appropriate, provide them with the opportunity to stretch, to learn new skills, to take on new responsibilities. Then, when they fail to live up to expectations, they capitalize.

Failure is an opportunity to learn.
Failure is an opportunity to grow and mature.
Failure is an opportunity to learn what doesn’t work.
Failure is an opportunity to innovate.
Failure is an opportunity to create better plans.

The foundation of 1-on-1 Management™ philosophy is people development; hire talented employees with good character, work hard to develop their capabilities, and empower them to maximize their potential. There is, of course, a lot that goes into those three simple steps and it does not happen overnight – the great manager must invest a lot of time into his/her employees.

It doesn’t really matter what type of employee you manager – operations, administrative, sales – one of the keys to people development is good coaching. I was reminded of that in an article from the Selling Power sales management newsletter:

World-class managers do two things you should emulate in 2009, says Andrew Plunkett, a director with SPI. First, they make one-on-one coaching a priority. And second, they spend most of their coaching time on their middle performers because it’s those reps who can most impact your results. In short, world-class managers manage performance instead of non-performance. The difference is crucial because when you identify and coach the right people, it can impact your turnover by as much as 9 percent and increase the number of sales that occur in one to three months by 15 percent, according to SPI.

So why aren’t more managers using this powerful tool? According to Nathan Jamail, president of Jamail Development Group and author of The Sales Leader’s Playbook (Scooter, 2008), there are two big reasons sales managers don’t coach as often as they should – or even at all.

Reason #1: “I talk to my employees every day. I don’t need to schedule one-on-ones.” This is the most common reason managers cite for not coaching. It’s often followed by, “I have an open door policy so my employees can come see me any time they need me.”

Reason #2: “I’m busy! I don’t have time to coach people one-on-one.” The fact is, you’ll be less busy if you coach individually because performance will improve and turnover will drop. Coaching can help you get control of all those little fires you spend your days putting out.

The bottom line: Make coaching a priority in 2009… “Coaching is a process – not a one-shot deal,” concludes Jamail. “Successful coaching sessions with employees take time to develop. Be patient. The risk of trying something new is definitely worth the potential profit.”

Interesting… It doesn’t seem to matter if you are managing sales performance or any of several different types of on-the-job performance, 1-on-1 Meetings™ are extremely effective for engaging and coaching employees. The problem is that most managers don’t know where to start when it comes to coaching. The natural inclination is to view coaching as correction, which, of course, it often is, but coaching is much more than simply correcting failure. Coaching also involves training, helping an individual to see their potential, helping him/her to develop confidence in themselves, and providing opportunities to grow and develop. However, the key to all of this is to develop a relationship of trust with the individual you are coaching. Without trust, coaching is more akin to conflict.

In 2009, make time for coaching….and make time to develop a culture of trust that will allow you to coach effectively.

The recent economic turmoil will likely challenge small businesses in ways they haven’t experienced in many years. Managers will be forced to evaluate every dollar they spend, consider how resources are allocated, determine which initiatives should be advanced and which ones should be tabled. They may be forced to evaluate each and every employee and be asked to trim budgets through lay-offs.

For some businesses, the marketplace may change so dramatically that the company cannot survive. A small business supplying products to the flailing automotive industry, for example, may not be able to adapt their products or services to other industries and simply fail. For others, however, this down cycle may create enormous opportunities to dig in, improve products and services, and capture market share.

A recent Business Week article (“Managing Through a Crisis: The New Rules”, Emily Thornton, January 8, 2009), sets forth some advice in adapting to the realities of the changing marketplace:

Acknowledge to yourself and your team that the world has changed. Dennis Carey, a senior partner at Korn Ferry International (KFY), argues that now is the time to question every technique that worked during boom years. “You can’t rely on a peacetime general to fight a war,” says Carey. “The wartime CEO prepares for the worst so that his or her company can take market share away from players who haven’t.” Many of the best managers in 2008 were gearing up for battle during good times.

Perhaps you were one of the “best managers” that geared up for this battle during the good times; perhaps not. Regardless, this business climate provides enormous opportunities for the great manager.

First, this is the time to get back to basics. Review skills, ensure employees can do the basics of their jobs perfectly, provide additional training, update knowledge, even cross-train. Why? Because many companies – in a panic – will react quite differently. They will reduce training, automatically reduce their workforce, and slow down advertising. A “wartime” manager will recognize that opportunities abound as competitors pull back.

Second, turn to your employees for ideas. How can we improve? Where can we cut costs? How can we become more efficient? How can we become more competitive? What opportunities exist to capture market share? Great teams are often forged during tough economic times.

Third, if there was ever a time to evaluate and improve communication with your team, this is it. Change always creates stress, which, in turn, can create needless worry. Communicate with your team as a group, but spend plenty of time in one-on-one conversations with your direct reports – and make sure they do the same with the people they manage.

Economic downturns can create challenges; however, they don’t necessarily have to lead to crisis. Quite often, they can be opportunities in disguise.

In my experience, a manager that can be trusted is extremely high on the list of things that every employee desires. In fact, in relationships of any kind, it seems clear that trust is central to growth and, ultimately, success in that relationship.

In the world of sales, for example, Zig Ziglar has always preached that “people buy from people they like and trust.” In their extensive research on the effectiveness of teams, authors Carl Larson and Frank LaFasto make this observation (Teams: What Must Go Right/What Can Go Wrong, 1989):

“The absence of trust diverts the mental concentration and energy of a team away from its performance objective and onto other issues. The resulting loss of focus on the common goal is a critical factor. It wounds the team and often renders it ineffective.”

So what does it take to build trust with your team? Is it any one thing?

In an article entitled “Attributes of a Leader Who Can Be Trusted in Combat” taken from the book Leadership Lessons from West Point, the author shares the key traits that soldiers identified as building trust with their combat leaders:

A leader must be competent.

This seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? Who wants to work for a boss who doesn’t have a clue? Interestingly, however, soldiers extended the idea of competence to include interpersonal skills! Soldiers judged the competence of combat leaders based on functional effectiveness and on how effectively they relate to the troops.

A leader must be loyal.

Simply put, if a soldier doesn’t think the combat leader cares as much about the soldier as himself, it creates a significant strain on the trust a soldier has for the leader. When difficult decisions must be made that put a soldier in harm’s way, he/she wants to know intuitively that the leader has their personal welfare in mind.

A leader must have integrity.

There can be no equivocation on the battlefield; the leader must have an ironclad commitment to integrity. Soldiers, however, view integrity to include a number of ideas: “The soldiers wanted their leader to behave morally and to be honest and open in discussing problems.” In other words, combat leaders aren’t judged to have integrity if they are unwilling to accept input from their troops.

A leader must share information.

Transparency in leadership is perhaps one of the most pervasive problems in the workplace. As it turns out, soldiers have the same concerns. They have “… a strong desire and need for their leaders to keep them informed about the current situation and upcoming operations.” It seems clear that no organization is immune to the need for clear and consistent communication, and employees rarely do their best work without a clear understanding of what lies around the next corner.

A leader must create a personal connection with subordinates.

In years past, managers were convinced that you couldn’t “be a boss and be a friend” so they tended to avoid the idea of creating a personal connection with employees. Years of research have destroyed this misconception about management, and soldiers in this article insisted that a personal connection is critical to creating trust for a combat leader. They wanted “…leaders who made the effort to learn about them, listen to their concerns, and understand their basic needs.”

This is great insight from an organization that relies on strong leadership – at multiple levels – to be effective. Do you have the attributes of a leader who can be trusted?