How to Help Your Leaders Adapt to Rapid Change and Improve Engagement with Jim Clifton

Blanchard LeaderChat

In this episode, you’ll hear Jim Clifton describe the findings from Gallup’s largest study on the future of work from his new book, It’s the Manager. “We found that engagement—not satisfaction, but engagement, where people are developing and contributing to something bigger than themselves—is extremely low. In the United States, about 30 percent of employees are engaged at work. And if you look worldwide, that number drops to 15 percent,” says Clifton. “This tells us that in the world of management, something isn’t working. The numbers are depressing—but the possibilities are inspiring.”

After studying 300,000 teams across 160 countries, Gallup found that one thing makes the difference between high performing teams and failing teams: the manager. While the world’s workplaces have been going through extraordinary change, the practice of management has been stuck in time for more than 30 years.

Hear Clifton describe a few of the 52 discoveries from his book, including the importance of creating the kind of culture that supports employee development and the need for managers to stop being a boss and start being a coach. The new, younger workforce wants their work to have deep mission and purpose—and they don’t want old-style command-and-control bosses. They want coaches who inspire them, communicate with them frequently, and develop their strengths.

“Just imagine if we improved engagement from 15 percent to 50 percent. We would see meaningful growth like never before.”

About Jim Clifton For more information about Jim Clifton, visit www.gallup.com.