Why the engagement is off

Why engagement books and seminars won’t help a disgruntled staff if leaders are untrustworthy

One of life’s great mysteries is how the term “employee engagement” morphed from an innocuous, albeit irritating buzz phrase into a business. We’re now seeing books on the subject and multi-day conferences cropping up, all dedicated to engaging our employees and promising to turn them from disgruntled to delighted.

Thing is, employee engagement is directly tied to the effectiveness of the organization’s leadership. The equation is simple: Poor leadership = Disengagement. If that applies to your organization, no book or conference or seminar or webinar is going to change it.

Everybody wants to be able to believe in their leaders. Everybody. When you can’t say, with conviction, that you trust that leadership is acting in the best interest of the company and its employees, that you admire and respect your leadership team, that you even — uh-hem — like them, you probably have an engagement issue.

The question is: Can it be fixed? The answer is: It depends.