In this article
I have confidence in Senior Management's leadership.
Survey Domain: Organization
Survey Theme: Organizational Alignment
Understanding the Issue: The first step is to understand the issues behind the survey performance scores. Unless you are absolutely sure that you understand the issues related to a particular survey item, the best place to start is identifying them, and the section Understanding Issues can help you do so. The activities described in Understanding Issues can be used for any of the survey items. Make sure you know what is behind your low score before you begin acting.
Employees have confidence in and trust leaders when employees feel they can rely on consistent, direct, transparent, communications on issues affecting organization challenges and success, job security, and working conditions. As a manager, recognize that your behavior and attitude may be construed as representative of those at higher levels. Having accepted a leadership role, you have an obligation to be an effective ambassador for those above you. You are expected to translate policies, goals and outcomes for your employees and ensure that accurate messages are passed down to the frontline in a timely manner.
Improvement ideas:
Conduct a brainstorming session with employees to identify the actions and behaviors that would instill more confidence in the leaders above you. Identify those actions with the greatest potential for changing employees' perceptions and respectfully share this information "up the pipeline."
Partner with your boss and members of the senior team to conduct effective rounding across the units you manage. During these rounding sessions, build relationships and invite interaction.
Advise leaders at higher levels when special recognition is due to individuals or teams so the leaders are able to convey their thanks for a job well done.
When organization-wide policy changes or fiscal challenges must be communicated to your employees, clearly understand the intent of the change and the potential unfavorable outcomes if the changes were not to occur. Communicate the information to employees in a way that does not point fingers or place blame.
Be responsible to both senior management and your employees. Avoid placing blame on or passing the buck to senior leaders. At the same time, do not give the impression to employees that you are so loyal to senior management that you are not open to hearing their concerns.
Consider having your HR representative or someone else facilitate discussions with your employees. They may give more honest feedback to someone outside of management.
Make sure you communicate senior management's activities to your employees frequently. Managers often assume that employees know more than they actually know about what is going on in the organization. It's better to over-communicate than to assume the employees know what senior management is doing to ensure the organization's success.
(MI 213)