How and why tweaking your management style can boost employee engagement

Adjusting your management style can increase employee engagement.

Every employee is unique, and we all get motivated or turned off by different tactics and treatment. The trick, for managers, is having the willingness to discover what makes your team tick—and to modify your communication style accordingly.

A real-world example

Imagine your organization has hired a person to manage the social media accounts. Her manager sees what a great job she’s doing and wants to add a bit of marketing responsibility to her plate. She tells the manager that she’s not interested in doing marketing work. However, the manager feels that it’s important for her to try it, so the manager insists.

The employee gives it a go, but the more she learns about marketing, the more she hates it. She tells the manager that marketing is not her thing. The manager encourages her to persevere, noting that the work is valuable to the organization and that it’s good experience for her career.

So, the employee carries on, balancing her social media duties with marketing tasks. She starts to dread coming to work, and she avoids her manager as much as possible. Eventually, she threatens to quit if the marketing duties are now a permanent part of the job.

Does any of this sound familiar?