From the trends identified in the survey analysis, my focus honed in
on rewards, recognition, praise, development, and workplace
conditions. c Across these focus areas, what stood out was the
challenges related to the relationship between team members and
their supervisors. Across the three surveys, questions regarding
supervisor leadership behaviors showed significant deterioration and
a clear sign of issues of trust, mutual respect, and collaboration when
building reward systems, synergistic goals, and shared value systems.
As a result, a breakdown in communication has left team members
feeling discouraged, unsupported, and unappreciated.
c There are three key leadership behaviors that contribute to a
turnaround: model the way, enable others to act, and encourage the
heart. Kouzes and Posner (2021) say that Model the Way means
leaders should lead by example, aligning their workplace behaviors
with their team, and making sure their voice clearly reinforces the
corporate mission. Sherman (2016) says by modeling the way, leaders
should ask purposeful questions and seek feedback from their team.
They should take action to show support and ensure their team feels
like they understand challenges and will help overcome obstacles.
This not only builds camaraderie, but helps reduce stress and aniexty.
With low scores specifically regarding trust, support, and
understanding, learning to model the way aligns with improved
scores.
c The survey results also showed challenges specific to rewards and
collaboration. "My supervisor takes time to praise those who do an
excellent job," scored just thirty-five percent favorable, dropping
from forty-four in the first survey. Kouzes and Posner (2021) define
the Encourage the Heart leadership behavior through a recognition of
success and personalized celebrations. In a more recent chapter, they
take it a step further and say that leaders should make celebrations a
common part of everyday workplace interaction (Kouzes & Posner,
2021). When team members have fun at work, they are more likely to
keep their spirits up through daily work stressors and contribute to
team positivity. Barry Chignell (2018) says that happy employees are
literally healthier, more creative, and more productive. If supervisors
can be more inclusive in their reward system creation and improve
workplace celebration, they should see significant score increases
when they encourage the heart.
c Finally, in Enable Others to Act, Kouzes and Posner (2021) say that
leaders should support each other and create a cohesive team
through collaboration and encouragement. While scores are high
specific to training skills, team members do not feel they are included
in the training and development processes. There is a disconnect
between training format creation and actually involving members of
the team. By sitting down with team members to create new training
materials together, leaders can improve their enable others to act
leadership behavior to drive up scores related to a collaborative
effort.
References
Chignell, Barry. (2018). Six Reasons Why Fun in the Office is the Future
of Work.
c CIPHR. https://www.ciphr.com/advice/fun-in-the-office/
Kouzes, J. & Posner, B. (2021). Leadership Challenge, 6th Edition for
Southern
c New Hampshire University. Available from: WileyPLUS, Wiley
Global Education US.
Sherman, Rose. (2016). Modeling the Way as a Leader. Emerging RN
Leader.
c https://www.emergingrnleader.com/modeling-the-way-as-a-
leader/
