What Followers Want
The Gallup Organization conducted research regarding how followers were influenced by their leaders. The Gallup research team asked more than 10,000 followers (“follower” job roles) what the most influential leaders did to contribute to their lives. Gallup’s findings indicate that the most influential leaders focused on key needs followers have. There are four basic needs followers have and it’s important for leaders to understand those needs and consider what they can do to help meet those needs.
Let me state the obvious that leadership and followership are essential for team and organizational performance. We must have great leaders; it’s important to have great followers, too. Leaders are privileged to lead and with that leadership comes a greater responsibility to create an environment where followers/team members can do their best work. At the same time, it’s important to emphasize that followers have a responsibility, too, for behaviors that will help themselves and their teammates be successful. So, everyone plays a critical role in making contributions to the dynamics of positive team performance.
The four basic follower needs identified by Gallup include:
TRUST: Trust building is dynamic and has many layers. It includes demonstrating integrity — being a person of your word — and competency — being able to get things done and advocating for your people. It means following up and following through for your team.
As I work with organizations, I’ll oftentimes seek feedback from employees regarding how trust may or may not be demonstrated. More often, I’m hearing employees say that their leaders may be hard to find/connect with when needed and/or they don’t follow through on what they’ve committed to do. Over time, as you can imagine, this has a tendency to dismantle trust.
COMPASSION: Gallup's research shows significant correlations to better business outcomes -- including productivity, profitability, customer scores, retention, attendance and even safety -- when employees feel cared about and have best friends in the work environment. So, compassion, simply put, converts to performance. Showing compassion means demonstrating that people matter, helping them see why they matter, and emphasizing their contributions. It’s part of human nature: people want to matter. When we feel we matter, we will help our organizations matter.
STABILITY: According to Gallup, a greater sense of stability may be fostered by involving employees in conversations about the business, having greater transparency about the organization’s vision and financials, and having greater clarity about roles, responsibilities, and expectations. Helping to ensure employees can truly use their talents in their roles and giving them recognition and appreciation for doing their work well promotes stability, too.
It’s not uncommon for me to hear from leaders that they feel they are involving employees in conversations about the business, fostering transparency where they can, and providing recognition and praise. But it’s critical to assess vital signs from your employees that your efforts are making a difference. This is important because what we may think is effective from our perspective as leaders may not necessarily be translating well with employees.
HOPE: More than ever, we are facing an increased amount of complexity and change as a part of doing business. Hope helps employees see a way forward when facing uncertainty. According to Gallup, when asked whether their company's leadership made them feel enthusiastic about the future, 69% of employees who strongly agreed were engaged, compared with just 1% who disagreed or strongly disagreed. Hope is a powerful thing.
In the Gallup study, followers used words like direction, faith, and guidance. As leaders, how are we instilling faith in the future? Are we guiding people toward a tomorrow that looks better than today? Are we creating a sense of direction toward exciting possibilities ahead of us? Can we help employees see where they fit in this hopeful future.
IMPLICATIONS
According to Gallup:
When followers trust their leaders, one in two are engaged. When followers don't find leaders trustworthy, only one in 12 are engaged at work.
Followers expect compassion and "general positive energy" from high-level organizational and global leaders. More locally, when followers were asked if their "supervisor or someone at work" cared about them, they were significantly more likely to stay with companies, have much more engaged customers, were substantially more productive and were more profitable to their employers.
Employees need to feel their jobs are stable for them to do their best work. In fact, followers are nine times more likely to be engaged in their jobs if they feel the company's financial future is secure.
The most powerful question Gallup asked followers was about hope -- 69% who strongly agreed that their leaders made them "feel enthusiastic about the future" were engaged. Only 1% of those who disagreed with the statement were engaged.
SOURCES