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Best Practices in HR
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  February 4, 2016

Forget Hired Mercenaries. Leadership Development Coaching is Where It’s At

Organizations that hire outside CEOs to fix problems and issues often don’t succeed. Find out why leadership development coaching is a better tactic.

What do today’s organizations do when they get into trouble with productivity? More and more, they are hiring “professional CEOs” to come and bail them out. The idea is that these “hired mercenaries” of sorts will come in with an outsider’s eye, figure out what’s wrong, make the necessary changes, and then leave when issues are fixed.

But I don’t think this is a good tactic, and an article I recently read on Human Resources IQ titled 5 Causes of Low Employee Morale — and How to Avoid Them, backs me up.

According to the article, low morale has a direct correlation to management and culture. The author cites a 2006 study done by the Gallup Organization, which estimated there were 32 million actively disengaged employees in the United States. How much did these folks cost us in lost productivity? Try $350 billion per year. And no, that’s not a typo.

By calling in hired mercenaries to fix their problems, organizations are just making their problems worse. Having a stranger come in with the intent of finding the problems—as well as the problem children—will not increase morale and engagement. If you’ve ever been an employee at an organization that experienced something like this, you know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t had that particular experience, perhaps you’ve been an employee at an organization that, for whatever reason, experienced massive layoffs. The feeling is the same. If you show up to work wondering if this is the day you, your project, or your team is going to be cut, it’s going to be difficult—extremely difficult—to give the day your best.

Furthermore, even if your job isn’t on the line, employees want to know that the folks who are leading them have their interests in mind. There’s no way for them to truly know this unless a long-term relationship is either established or the expected outcome. As a matter of fact, studies show that building relationships is one of the main steps that leaders should take to ensure that morale and engagement remain high. If employees believe that an executive is going to be out the door as soon as numbers are up or problems are solved, there’s really no motivation for that employee to stick around.

Instead of bringing in outsiders to identify and fix productivity issues, it makes loads more sense to develop your existing management and executive team. Leadership development coaching can give your executives the tools they need to effectively boost morale and engagement for the long term. And that will make a significant difference in your organization’s productivity and profits.

Let TurnKey Coaching Solutions help your leaders develop the relationships needed for ultimate productivity through leadership development training. Call us today at 281-469-4244.

Forget Hired Mercenaries. Leadership Development Coaching is Where It’s At

Source: Anisa Aven

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