Participation as a Management Style Pays Off

There is a direct link between good Leadership and performance.

The Gallup organization’s research of more than 30 years that included 17 million employees, confirmed what good leaders have known instinctively:

Involve your employees and you will profit. Ignore them and your organization will underperform.

Studies show that when managers or leaders engage in a participatory management style, performance improves by nearly a third.

If you involve your employees, listen to them, use many of their suggestions, earnings have been proved to increase significantly.

Four times more employees resign because of poor managers than resign under good managers.

Several years ago the Herzberg motivational theory basically concluded that recognition, increased responsibility, challenging work, growth and development- the motivation factors, triumphed over the so called hygiene factors, such as job security, salary and benefits, provided the gap between the two was not too large.

Satisfied employees are also, generally speaking, more satisfied with their wages than dissatisfied employees.

I have been involved in management and with leaders my entire life.

The more a leader exhibits bully tactics like forcing his/her will on others, the weaker the organization becomes and the more there will be passive and sometimes even active resistance from the employees.

Every organization has an overall management style. This style flows from the top and when it is a prescriptive or “Tell” management style you can be sure that in general, things are not right under the surface. There are organizations and circumstances where a prescriptive style is needed such as when subordinates know very little of the task required, but that is not the point I am making here. I am referring to the inappropriate use of a prescriptive style.

The reaction to a prescriptive bullying form of management can assume various forms, from the employees doing nothing while the boss is away because they must only do what they are told, to theft, vandalism and general obstructionist tactics.

Achievement orientated persons seldom stay in this kind of organization.

So why do some leaders still manage this way?

Ego, immaturity, arrogance and narcissism, sometimes even psychopathic behavior, are a few of the reasons.

I have found these types of managers, the non team player group, to be the prime cause of organizational politics within the company.

Another interesting observation: Many of these weak managers or leaders, who often  have totally unrealistic opinions of their abilities, often don’t get fired. As their organizations start to fail and they see that blaming others no longer works for them, they join other companies, often in a more senior position.

The ability of poor managers to promote themselves is often the best skill they really have, and they con many people in the process.

The bottom line? Listen to your people. Absolutely everyone will benefit.

The first thing Bernard Kirk tells his clients is that the absolute critical factor in any situation is people.

Having the right people doing the right things in the right job is usually the difference between mediocrity and greatness for both the individual and the organization.

Throughout his career, Bernard has focused on human behavior and its effect on performance.

With seventeen years of operational management, twenty- two years of strategy implementation for multiple entrepreneurs, professionals, businesses and politicians across the globe, Bernard is regarded by many as an expert in how people affect outcomes.

Bernard’s methods of determining what needs to be done by what type of person and how to select and retain those persons has attracted interest on an international basis. Bernard has consulted in the retail, hospitality, manufacturing, medical, recycling, professional, political and academic fields. He lives in Arizona, USA.