Engagement and Alignment Flow From Leaders to Teams with Proven Success

Leaders Should Encourage Engagement!

Training and Today; that’s what the team announced the next step should be. Engagement is powerful when leaders align the combined strengths of their team! Allow your team to bring their own experiences to the table and you might be surprised with the outcome. When your team sees how their involvement influences a crucial decision or major development, they feel empowered and motivated! Sally knew once Engagement produced confident outcomes, she and her team were ready for the next step.

Sally shared with her coach her interest in keeping the momentum moving forward. “During the past three months I’ve worked on the first two steps of the HEART model, Horizon and Engagement with my team. My team and I are experiencing success, we have a shared Horizon for increasing customer service reviews by 10% in the next quarter. By increasing Engagement, we are experiencing team buy-in. In fact and to my surprise, the team thanked me for embodying leadership, motivation and inspiration, which allowed them to bring their best efforts to the table.” (see the previous two posts).

Leaders Should Encourage Alignment!

Sally explained that so far everyone is on board with the new direction. She felt ready to pursue the next step. She asked her coach, “What is the “A” in the HEART model?” Sally’s coach was pleased with her success and reminded her of another important element of leadership; alignment.

Alignment is the next step. Alignment is essential and necessary if you expect to lead your new team to new Horizons (Visions) with Engagement.”

Alignment is a great next step and it has tremendous impact on what great leaders do. Think of the concept of alignment as your favorite car that’s been sitting in the garage for the past two years. You decide to pull it out of the garage to see what if it will start. To your surprise it starts; you notice as you drive down the road the car pulls drastically to the left. You realize the car is out of alignment.”

Sally knew exactly what her coach was referring to; when Alignment does not exist it feels like a disconnect, something she witnessed before working with her team. The disengagement was realized from a sense of no clear boundaries and no accountability. People felt undervalued and underappreciated. There was no shared values, purpose, vision, engagement, or alignment.

Leaders Should use Engagement and Alignment Together

Moving forward, Sally recognized her teams eagerness and willingness to work. Her team was pleased with her leadership approach. They desired a shared sense of purpose to achieve better results; keeping momentum moving forward, training / development opportunities, and resources, and to leverage their strengths.

Sally thought and agreed with her team about their most important goal: raise customer service reviews by 10% in the next quarter. With the combined efforts of the team, they agreed that  professional etiquette in the office with better communication is the Alignment that will make a difference.

Sally knew the first approach…

Leaders Should: Establish Professional Etiquette

Establishing Professional Etiquette will:

1. Decrease the inappropriate behavior witnessed in the office when she first accepted the new leadership role.
2. Increase the importance of communicating in the office with a mutually respectful environment which improves communication and establishes rules for a productive atmosphere.
3. Employees and teams feel respected; customer relationships improve, and the end result, increased customer service reviews.

She also knew that the second approach, Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) message delivery, both verbal and written/electronic is another key resource.

Sally recalled from her younger days as a college student how her uncle shared stories about his military experience using BLUF; how it transformed his unit by declaring the purpose of the messages. Her uncle gave examples of how to answer messages quickly using the tool; sending and receiving messages using the five W’s: who, what, where, when, and why. In one particular example Sally remembered writing on a piece of paper and carrying it with her and how to set up BLUF, and the relevance of the resource.

Sally recognized implementing professional etiquette and BLUF is in Alignment with the value of the Horizon (Vision) and Engagement of the team. Professional etiquette and BLUF will increase customer service reviews 10% in the next quarter by Aligning personal and professional team value. One of the most important elements to form a relationship with employees is the Alignment of personal and professional values.

When leaders notice a collision of values (employee values are not aligned with the company’s values) leaders will have organizational issues. When engagement issues are not addressed, your high performers may leave, which is a very costly proposition (Christensen, J., 2017). Leaders want to avoid this proposition at all costs; it affects what’s on the Horizon for the company plus Engagement and Alignment.

To avoid such a collision of values, Sally instantly went to work ensuring she knew 5 STAR’s organizational values. In the cafeteria hung a large nicely framed plaque with the companies values.

Integrity

At 5 STAR, we believe strongly in the importance of integrity. It guides us in our relationships.  Honesty, trust, and dependability are central with and to our employees and customers with whom we work.  

Respect

At 5 STAR, we believe excellence in external customer service, the employees must first respect one another and the important roles played by everyone. At all levels of the organization, staff must value treating others with respect and civility.

Compassion

At 5 STAR, we believe happy employees also make for a more friendly workplace and improved customer service. Employees with compassion show a willingness to help peers and provide customer service on their own and tend to build higher-quality relationships with others at work. 

Communication

At 5 STAR, we believe open communication leads to new ideas and innovation; focus on making improvements and spotting opportunities further adds to success. Effective communication open minds and responsive feedback, leading to great ideas to help improve customer service.

Commitment to Excellence

At 5 STAR, every day is a learning day. We enjoy and learn from our work. We document and measure all our processes in order to minimize mistakes and to deliver extraordinary client experiences.

Engagement and Alignment are Powerful When Leaders Align the Combined Strengths of their Team!

Sally sent a memo to her team using BLUF.

Conclusion

Engagement and Alignment are powerful when leaders align the combined strengths of their team! Allow your team to bring their own experiences to the table and you might be surprised with the outcome. When Alignment does not exist it feels like a disconnect, no clear boundaries and no accountability. People feel undervalued and underappreciated.

There are no shared values, purpose, vision, engagement, or alignment. Alignment is a great next step and it has tremendous impact on what great leaders do. Leaders use alignment! When your team sees their involvement influenced a crucial decision or major development, they feel empowered, motivated, valued, and appreciated!

I am interested in reading your comments. Please share this post with your friends. If you would like to talk more about seeing beyond the Horizon Engagement and Alignment, reach out to me, I would love to chat!

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