Leadership B.S.

October 11 2015
By: Terry L. Mathis

Industry Week just published an article by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford School of Business, which points out that while the amount of leadership training is increasing, organizational effectiveness is at an all-time low. It seems what gets leaders rewarded and advanced is not what helps workers become more productive and satisfied. This is a classic case of misaligned or missing inside strategy. Organizations tend to have strategies that aim at outside customers and markets but don't use the same thinking to address internal issues.

Although most organizations for whom we consult want employee engagement, they don't have a strategic approach to make it happen. You don't get customers to buy your product without marketing and sales. Likewise, you don't get your employees (who are your internal customers) to "buy in" or feel a sense of "ownership" for your internal programs and processes without any marketing to them. Leaders who depend on command-and-control tactics simply don't get the best from their workers and don't form cultures with strong teamwork and synergy. Sadly, leaders tend to focus their strategic thinking outside their own organizations and ignore the need for similar thinking inside them.

Perhaps business leaders should take a lesson from professional coaches who realize it is not enough to hire great talent and pay big salaries. You also need to build a team which has bought into their internal strategy for winning, and give a lot of pep talks.