The Cost of Bad Leadership

I saw a post from another Leadership Coach last week about “defining the cost of leadership inaction and disengagement, what does it cost the company with a bad leader or leaders in the organization.”

Then I went down the google rabbit hole and turns out to (no-doubt EVERYONE’s) surprise:

It’s bad. The numbers are bad.

The total cost of overall leadership is costing the US Economy between $550 BILLION and $1.2 TRILLION – depending on which article or study you read.

Here they are:

Only 36% of your employees are engaged in their work…

One article by Gallup quoted:   

“Currently, 36% of U.S. employees are engaged in their work and workplace -- which matches Gallup's composite percentage of engaged employees in 2020. Globally, 20% of employees are engaged at work.”

While the article goes on to say only 15% or so are actively disengaged and mostly looking for new work there’s a huge 49% of our workforce stuck in the middle = “Not engaged”

Global Workplace unhappiness has been rising for decades…

Here’s another from Gallup, stating that global workplace unhappiness, defined by “anger, stress, sadness, and physical pain” is up to 33% globally from 24% in the early Aughts (yes, I said ‘aughts’ it’s a thing) 😉

 Trust in corporations is on a swift decline…

Gallup research found “74% of employees worldwide believe corruption is widespread among businesses in their country”, and that trust in institutions and corporations around the globe are declining.

The article went on to describe the behaviors of leadership necessary to increase trust (I thought the list was pretty good, so here you go):

• The ability to build relationships that establish connections that transmit ideas and accomplish work
• A drive for development that focuses on followers' needs, expectations and aspirations
• Comfort with leading change in organizational strategy and in alignment with the vision
• The capacity to inspire others by encouraging their efforts and celebrating success
• Critical thinking that seeks information openly, invites dissent and stimulates debate where needed
• Communication skills that result in clear, open and transparent dialog that empowers trust
• A need for accountability to hold yourself and others responsible for performance

THIS IS A PROBLEM!!

I won’t mince words – this is a leadership problem – and if you lead (or manage/supervise) any number of employees then you are FIRMLY and unescapably in the crosshairs here. This failure of having well over half of our teams being disengaged and a fair percentage being unhappy is on all of us, and we need to fix it.

Now, Think of the upside. What if your team could go from that 36% to maybe 50% - or 70%.  What could that look like in your team - or workplace in general?  If you're a CEO and all-of-a-sudden you're workforce was 20% more effective - how would that make you feel?

Let's take some ACTION:

• Find your numbers: How’s your team? Who’s disengaged and who’s unhappy? 
• Find the reason: How can we find out what’s dragging them down? What’s holding them back from bringing their authentic self and feel necessary to the organization?  
• Now LEAD!: This is your time now – it will take patience and time to crack this nut.  Dig in and bring those people along for the ride. Lead them into the boat and find a way to meet their needs as your team member to get them to start rowing. You may not have the confidence or skill to influence this to 100% but if you can start with one or two people

So what are your thoughts?  Where are you at here?

If you feel like you're really not sure what to do - you may need to upgrade your leadership – and here is where a leadership coach or executive coach comes in. They’ll help you find your blind spots and set focused action steps to raise this number. If you’re unsure how to proceed, give me a call and we can brainstorm a few things. I’m happy to listen over a cup of coffee.

Thank you for your time today,

Joe

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