Summary

A combination of global pandemic and a new generation of employees are driving a realignment of the employee-employer dynamic. As people re-examine their work priorities, enlightened CEOs and senior leaders increasingly recognize that managers who understand and effectively influence human behavior deliver better results. Behavioral science is moving front and center as executives rethink leader development. With this focus they are asking which of the many behavioral science insights and tools will be the most useful. As a start, three capabilities should be a top priority for inclusion in leadership development programs:

* Developing habits that put trust and psychological safety at the core of leading.

* Inspiring intrinsic motivation by meeting people’s core psychological needs at work.

* Proactively seeing gaps on and between teams and closing them with behavior nudges.

In 2020, businesses went through the most rapid and challenging changes in modern history. Unlike the technology-driven industrial and digital revolutions, a virus ignited this one, accelerating a revolution in people’s attitudes and approaches to work.

The roots of this behavioral revolution have been in the making since Frederick Taylor’s scientific management began to shape modern industrial companies in the early 1900s. Influenced by Taylor and the success of the US military in WWII, most corporate organizations were characterized by top-down hierarchies with distinct divisions and narrow roles. It was clear who did the work, managed the workers, or led the managers. Business schools and corporate programs taught generations of managers to optimize processes, be effective with command and control, and motivate through money, perks, and promotion.

Today, we’re living through a realignment of the employee-employer dynamic. People are re-examining their priorities; they want different things from their employers including the option of hybrid or remote work when on-site work isn’t a necessity. People have high expectations of transparent, ethical leadership with trust and psychological safety at the core. The implications are enormous for organizational leaders because decades-old models and approaches to training and development will not adequately prepare managers for this revolution.

In the 19th century, industrialists turned to scientific management to improve productivity. Today, enlightened CEOs and senior leaders increasingly recognize that people who understand and effectively influence human behavior deliver better results. They are placing behavioral science — the blend of insights from psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience — front and center as they rethink leadership development. As organizations realize the impact behavioral science can make, a challenge emerges: Which of the many behavioral science insights and tools will be the most useful?

Putting Trust and Psychological Safety at the Core of Leading

You only need to scan the news to understand why trust and psychological safety are vital to modern organizations. Companies with toxic cultures experience increased turnover, and employees suffer from diminished physical and mental health and overall lower wellbeing. Instances of bullying, sexual harassment, misogyny, misandry, or racism can quickly metastasize cancer-like within companies. In their 2019 Access Economics report, Deloitte estimated that sexual harassment in Australia, a country with less than 10% of the population of the US, cost businesses there $2.6 billion in lost productivity. That number doesn’t begin to capture the total cost of behaviors that destroy trust and psychological safety.

Developed and used properly, employee surveys can provide a powerful tool for both predicting behaviors and creating rich, transformational coaching conversations. Unfortunately, most surveys fall short of providing the feedback that is most needed for modern team success.

Leaders are told over and over the importance and benefits of encouraging candid, healthy employee voice. They are told that they should surround themselves with people of diverse perspectives who can disagree without fear of retaliation. When they don’t hold themselves to the same standard, they abdicate an essential leadership responsibility.

From existentialist reflections on life and work, to building a case for how office layout and furniture choices can contribute to shared purpose and prosperity, there is no lack of advice on how to go about finding greater purpose in one’s work. However, for most first-level team leaders and mid-level managers, over-loaded days and limited access to coaching resources leave little hope for meaningful change in a leader’s personality and behavior. If your days feel like you and your team are changing tires on a moving car, then you only have time for solutions that are simple to implement and effective in their outcome. The key question is what actions can you realistically take to ensure that both the organization and your team reap the rewards of finding real purpose at work?

Among the many leadership styles researched and written about in the milieu of articles and books every year, one that receives little attention is “high-say-low-do” leadership. While not a style that many aspire to emulate, it is nonetheless one of the most pervasive. One particularly significant example is what gets said about team development versus what gets done. Virtually every leader touts a deep belief in teams and teamwork, and preaches the importance of it. The research that supports their enthusiasm is incontrovertible. Yet, most organizations do little to train their team leaders, especially first-level leaders, in how to develop and maintain high performance teams.

It would be the unusual leader who would admit that they don’t aspire to build energized engaged teams that deliver exceptional performance. Yet, across the leadership literature, research shows that results often fall short of aspirations. When I ask team leaders about the gap between their aspirations and reality, they give a variety of reasons for their team’s performance. A few leaders are reflective and introspective and ‘own the gap’. Most are quick to tell me why their team is superior, then go on to describe external factors beyond their control that lead to disappointing results.

How often have you heard observations like “my people don’t seem to be fully engaged” or, “my team needs more energy”? While the symptoms of lacking motivation may be easy to identify, solutions are hard to find – especially solutions that are practical and validated by research.

Leadership and coaching are fundamental to performance in both business and sports. Unlike in the business world, a coach can’t hide mediocrity once a team steps onto the field. No matter the sport, in the first few minutes of a game, capabilities are on full display. Recent research into the practices of consistently high-performing teams uncovered a new insight – the leadership qualities and actions demonstrated on the playing field by "athlete-leaders" have a significant impact on team performance.

the idea of connecting organizational purpose to performance and profit is gaining traction. Like many of the ideas before it, there is considerable research that demonstrates the importance of a clear, compelling organizational purpose. The question for leaders is: how do you break the repetitive cycle of non-results? The answer requires a deeper understanding of why purpose is essential, but insufficient, to drive organizational and individual success; and, how to identify the actions that can move an idea like being ‘purpose-led’ from the next management fad to daily reality.

The nature of team work has evolved rapidly over the last 25 years. The decline of organizational hierarchy, and the rise of global, cross-cultural work, has multiplied the challenges of building and leading teams. The narrative of exceptional team leaders in the 21st century is one of learning to be effective in flat, cross-cultural, virtual organizations.