Researchers from the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)® presented several sessions at this year’s annual conference of the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology (SIOP). The conference was held April 3–6, in Denver, Colorado.

SIOP is the premier professional association for the science and practice of Industrial-Organizational (I-O) psychology, which focuses on the scientific study of human behavior in organizations and in the workplace. This specialty focuses on principles of individual, group, and organizational behavior and applying this knowledge to solving problems leaders experience in the workplace.

CCL researchers presented and lead discussions on several topics at the conference, ranging from wellbeing to coaching and more.

Listed below are the sessions researchers presented along with descriptions for each:

Does Team Virtuality Affect Perceptions of a Leader’s Power and Influence? A Natural Experiment from the COVID Pandemic

CCL Presenters: Dr. Andy Loignon and Dr. Diane Bergeron

This session featured a study that leveraged data from 485 senior leadership teams, collected around the COVID pandemic, to explore how virtual work impacts a leader’s power and influence. By using a network-based approach, it examined how virtuality affects a leader’s role as a source of influence and their reliance on others. By addressing endogeneity bias, the study offers causal insights from a natural experiment driven by pandemic-related shifts in team virtuality.

Capturing the Complexities of Leadership Coaching: A Test of AI-Assisted Evaluation

CCL Presenter: Katelyn McCoy

Coaching can be a highly effective method of leadership development, but evaluating its impact has traditionally been a difficult task. Evaluators often find participant reflections most insightful for understanding how and why coaching works well for leaders. To better understand the process and impact of coaching provided as part of leadership development programs, we engaged OpenAI’s GPT-4 model and a group of human coders in identifying and tagging themes to 1,500 participant comments from program evaluations. In this session, researchers shared their methods, lessons learned, and results.

Should’ve Learned That in Grad School: Gaps & Solutions in I-O Practitioner Curricula

CCL Presenter: Katelyn McCoy

Although most I-Os end up in nonacademic roles, graduate students often receive limited insight into the activities and competencies needed for applied careers. This session invited the audience to join breakouts to discuss the KSAOs that are lacking in I-O curricula and brainstorm practical solutions. A diverse range of professionals representing various stakeholders (e.g., professors, students, administration, managers of new grads) facilitated the breakouts which identified what is missing in I-O curricula, barriers to improving it, and concrete steps to bolster I-O education.

The Working Wounded: The Effect of Bereavement Grief and Workplace Practices on Employee Outcomes

CCL Presenters: Dr. Diane Bergeron

This symposium on bereavement (i.e., the death of someone significant), examined relationships among bereavement grief, bereavement leave, other organizational policies and practices, and work-related outcomes (job behaviors, work engagement, perceived organizational support). The insights shared showed concrete implications for people leaders and organizational decision makers.

The Bereavement Burden and Employee Leave Policies

CCL Presenters: Dr. Diane Bergeron and Dr. Andy Loignon 

The study featured in this session provided concrete evidence for managers, organizational leaders and policy makers to reference when making decisions about bereavement leave. In a survey of 1,535 bereaved employees, researchers investigated the prevalence and impact of various types of bereavement leave policies. Regardless of policy, 53% of participants reported their manager told them to “take as much time as you need.” They found that more generous bereavement leave policies predicted greater employee fairness perceptions, satisfaction with bereavement leave, and more favorable perceptions of the organization as supportive. Supportive leader behaviors also predicted these outcomes, but leader support does not substitute for flexible and generous bereavement policy.

Good Grief: Rethinking Workplace Policies and Practices Support Bereaved Employees

CCL Presenter: Dr. Diane Bergeron

Bereavement has a significant impact on employee well-being, and yet, surprisingly, it is a seldom-explored topic in the organizational sciences. This symposium covered the prevalence of bereavement in the workplace, the impact of bereavement, bereavement leave, and workplace practices on employee outcomes (e.g., work engagement, fairness perceptions, organizational commitment). It also focused on how organizations can better support bereaved employees.

Leading Wellbeing at Work: Creating Environments Where Humans Thrive

CCL Presenters: Sol Bulkin and Dr. Paige Graham

Leadership is pivotal in fostering workplace wellbeing. This session explored the integration of wellbeing into leadership development programs, the importance of recovery-friendly leadership, sleep leadership, and the impact of leadership on mental health. Presenters also shared practical communication, connection, and belonging tips. Following presentations from each panelist, participants also engaged in guided discussions in small groups, allowing for more in-depth exploration of the topics.

Practical Solutions to Common Challenges in Impact Measurement

CCL Presenters: Dr. Heather Champion and Dr. Jeff Kosovich

Drawing on the collective knowledge and experience of practitioners and researchers in impact measurement, this session explored common challenges in measuring the impact of learning and development initiatives. It introduced three practical, undervalued solutions to help address these challenges and demonstrated the application of the solutions with data and tools. Panelists also shared insights to demonstrate the value of learning and development through impact measurement.

Navigating the Labyrinth: Diverse Pathways to Success in I-O Psychology

CCL Presenter: Dr. Stephen Jeong

This panel discussion explored the diverse and often unexpected career paths in I-O psychology and featured four professionals sharing their unique journeys from aspiring students to successful practitioners and academicians. Designed for both aspiring and early-career I-O psychologists, the session illuminated the challenges, opportunities, and pivotal moments that shape careers in the field, demonstrating that success often comes through adaptability and embracing the unpredictable nature of professional growth.

Coaches Gone Wild? Executive Coaching in an Unregulated Environment

CCL Presenter: Patricia Overland

In this session, experienced practitioners from diverse backgrounds shared their insights regarding the self-regulated field of executive coaching. Panelists discussed ethical considerations surrounding navigating the coaching industry and used prompts to share how they would respond to specific ethical dilemmas.

Is Nature the Best Leadership Teacher? Outdoor Adventure for Leader Development

CCL Presenter: Trevor Rosenberg 

Drawing on the collective expertise of practitioners and researchers in experiential leadership development, learning agility, and nature contact, this session examined current practices in outdoor adventure leadership development. Panelists identified key elements in program design and execution and discussed potential challenges and opportunities. Panelists also shared insights to the benefits of outdoor adventure leadership development for individuals and organizations.

As a pioneer in the leadership development space with over 50 years of experience in leadership research, CCL’s presence at the SIOP conference allows us to amplify vital insights that help shape the field across leader levels, industries and sectors. It also provides an opportunity to integrate differing approaches and perspectives, further strengthening our dedication to our mission of advancing the understanding and practice of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide.

The post CCL Researchers Present at 2025 Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology Conference appeared first on CCL.

Who can forget the countless surveys that indicated a significant decline in confidence in leadership bench strength, or the reports that the leadership gap is a top concern among talent management professionals and CEOs alike?

Common causes of the leadership gap contributing to a leadership shortage include generational shifts in the workforce due to the retirement of many Baby Boomers, changes in the nature of work itself, recruiting wars for high-potential talent, and poor organizational practices identifying, selecting, and developing talent.

Yet companies, government agencies, nonprofits, and educational organizations need leaders who can effectively navigate complex and changing situations in the future.

To address the leadership gap, organizations need to be asking “Who do we have?” and “What do they need to do?” as well as “Are they equipped to do it?”

What Is the Leadership Gap?

Simply put, the leadership gap is how aligned current leadership is with what’s thought to be important for leadership effectiveness in the future.

And current research shows that current leaders aren’t adequately prepared for the future. This finding is consistent across countries, organizations, and levels in the organization.

At CCL, we have a long history of studying the leadership gap. More than 15 years ago, we started to document the gap between the readiness of future organizational leaders and their current leadership skills. Our research has found that the leadership gap persists, and that little progress has been made in addressing it.

We designed a research project to understand which leadership skills are critical for success, now and in the future; how strong current leaders are in these critical skills; and how aligned today’s leadership is with what will be the most important skills in the future. And we found that crucial leadership skills in organizations are insufficient for meeting current and future needs.

Other academics and leadership development organizations have documented similar shortcomings. Below we’ll share more about what the leadership gap is and what the challenges are with closing it.

What Causes a Leadership Gap?

A leadership gap can be caused by either:

• A lack of mastery of the required competencies, or
• A lack of focus on necessary skills.

The first is a matter of degree; the second is a matter of substance. But either can be a problem, in both the short and long term. Organizations will want to address this coming leadership gap in their talent development.

Our study found that today’s leadership capacity is insufficient to meet future leadership requirements. Many organizations have a list of high-priority leadership competencies for their future leaders; our research shows the limitations of current skills in many of these areas and flags areas of particular concern. The data from our study indicates that most organizations today are experiencing a leadership deficit now, and can expect a leadership gap in the future.

We’ve identified 9 specific leadership competencies that are weak or missing in terms of future leadership needs and current skills:

1. Managing change
2. Inspiring commitment
3. Leading employees
4. Taking initiative
5. Building collaborative relationships
6. Having a strategic perspective
7. Knowing strategic planning
8. Embracing participative management
9. Being a quick learner

Notably, the leadership gap appears most problematic in high-priority, high-stakes areas. Other areas where there’s a significant gap between the needed and existing skill levels were employee development and self-awareness.

Barriers to Bridging the Leadership Gap

To be sure, companies, government agencies, and nonprofits want their future leaders to be prepared for the future. But internal and external forces are often blocking or slowing down leader development efforts, creating the leadership gap. Those include:

• Outdated ideas about leadership. For many leaders and employees, the term “leader” still suggests an individual whose role is to provide all the answers. However, we know the most effective leaders are those who are skilled at influencing, collaborating, and helping a team or organization discover the answers through coaching conversations. Our research has also found that some individuals view leadership roles as requiring trade-offs with other priorities, such as family. Those perceptions — whether true or not — are likely dissuading many high-potential employees from pursuing leadership development and leadership roles.
• Digital disruption. The pace of technological innovation over the last generation has reshaped markets, created new industries, and transformed the way we work. But many organizations and their workers are struggling. Training and adoption of new technologies — such as those required for remote working and distributed teams — hasn’t kept up. One study a few years ago found that more than 60% of organizations surveyed provided no training for virtual teams or virtual team leaders on how to deal with the challenges of collaborating virtually. And opportunities such as analytics and the promise of Big Data have many organizations scrambling to understand what talent and skills they’ll need to fill their leadership pipeline. One way to mitigate this challenge may be by setting up reverse mentoring arrangements.
• Flatter organizations and more dynamic environments. In our faster-moving economy, rigid hierarchical organizational charts have given way to flatter, more agile structures. While this helps companies respond faster to customer needs and changing markets, it has also eliminated the traditional “move up the ladder” leadership development path. Now lateral movement — perhaps to a different geographic or functional area — is required for individuals who want to become leaders. Mapping out these lateral-and-upward career paths is tough for individuals and organizations.
• Intense competition for top talent and higher turnover. The days of a 30- or 40-year career with a single organization are long gone. Organizations find themselves focused on competing with other organizations to attract and retain high-potential talent. In addition, as more workers reach retirement age, organizations may be challenged to identify new potential leaders and build a leadership pipeline.
• Misaligned systems for measuring and rewarding work performance. Old ways of evaluating and rewarding employees don’t make much sense when career growth requires lateral movement — and employees may switch from one employer to another every few years. Furthermore, organizations may be investing in outdated practices that contribute to the leadership gap and also fail to align with organizational goals and strategies. Organizations need to become aware of what truly engages and motivates employees and start bridging their leadership gap with the 9 key leadership competencies.

In the face of unrelenting disruption, effective leadership is what’s needed most. Download our new Talent Development report to learn how investing in talent development today will position your organization to succeed tomorrow.

Get the Report

What Can Be Done About the Leadership Gap?

How Organizations Can Take Action on It Today

To avoid a discrepancy between areas of strength and areas of need, our white paper offers 5 steps that organizations can take to help bridge the leadership gap between current leadership talent and future leadership needs:

1. Perform a needs assessment.

Identify the capabilities that managers need now and in the future to execute and sustain the organization’s strategy. Use your people data to determine organizational needs and understand leadership gaps.

2. Create a leadership strategy.

A clear understanding of the leadership behaviors and business goals allows executives to develop a leadership strategy. In turn, organizational development initiatives can be aligned with operational needs.

3. Develop clear, specific goals and strategies for individual leadership development.

Assess managers’ strengths and weaknesses as leaders against the core competencies identified in the needs assessment. You can use 360-degree leadership assessment tools to do help evaluate individuals’ strengths and development needs. Be sure to factor in feedback, coaching, and assessment towards addressing these development needs and to ensure goal attainment.

4. Create systems.

When important competencies are found to be weak spots, targeted development initiatives can be put into place. Evaluating your managers’ opinions about development needs can help you create a plan for developing leadership talent and closing the leadership gap. On the individual and tactical level, managers need to align the development experiences of managers with organizational objectives. Make sure that you don’t overlook vertical development when doing this.

5. Evaluate.

Build in systems for measuring how these efforts are paying off across the organization. Evaluating the impact of leadership development is a critical final step in order to understand what additional resources are needed and key metrics to track. Leadership analytics and evaluation services can help you determine ROI.

A Closing Word on Addressing the Leadership Gap

At CCL, we have developed a Leadership Gap Indicator that’s specifically designed to help companies examine their own data and better understand particular strengths, challenges, current leadership deficits, and anticipated future leadership gaps specific to their organization. This information can help senior management facilitate conversations about the identification, development, and retention of key leadership talent.

The sooner organizations understand the reality of their leadership gap, the quicker they can move to adapt by refocusing leadership development efforts and rethinking recruitment priorities.

To increase leadership capacity, strengthen the future leadership pipeline, and close the leadership gap, organizations need to take both a strategic and a tactical approach.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Future-proofing your organization’s talent pipeline requires you to first understand where a leadership gap currently exists. We’re ready to help you to close the gap and build critical leadership skills and competencies that are right for your organization’s unique context and culture. Partner with us to unlock the power of your people data, diagnose your current state, and design a customized leadership development solution that will start closing your leadership gap today.

The post The Leadership Gap: How to Fix What Your Organization Lacks appeared first on CCL.

Each year, the Journal of Business and Psychology awards the Editor’s Commendation to papers that the journal’s editors find particularly intriguing and exciting. This recognition is awarded to the top 2% of all papers submitted to the journal each year.

Written by CCL’s Senior Research Scientist, Dr. Andy Loignon, and Senior Data Scientist, Sirish Shrestha, the paper was completed in conjunction with colleagues at Rice University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.  It discusses synthetic data as a solution to address concerns surrounding privacy and integrity in data sharing.

This recognition underscores CCL’s 50-year legacy of pioneering leadership research driven by cutting-edge data science.

“This groundbreaking work on synthetic data represents a pivotal advancement in leadership research, offering innovative solutions to data privacy challenges while enhancing the rigor and accessibility of our studies,” said Dr. Sarah Stawiski, Vice President of Leadership Research & Analytics. “By pioneering new methodologies, CCL is setting the stage for future explorations in leadership science.”

Learn more about our leadership development research.

The post CCL Researchers Honored With Editor’s Commendation appeared first on CCL.

For foundations and nonprofit leaders, developing leadership capacity while simultaneously measuring program impact is essential for driving transformative community change. Yet, leadership development and program evaluation are often treated as separate endeavors, creating a gap in understanding the full extent of their influence on social outcomes.

In this session, we will introduce Amplify Leadership and Program Evaluation Training — a new, integrated approach to nonprofit leadership development that equips organizations to elevate their leadership impact while building their capacity to measure outcomes effectively. Join us to learn how Amplify weaves together leadership development and program evaluation practices, providing nonprofit leaders with the skills and tools they need to generate meaningful, sustainable impact in the communities they serve.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar, nonprofit and foundation executives can learn:

• Strategies for using evaluation data to enhance leadership capacity and inform strategic decision-making
• Practical tools to strengthen program impact and storytelling, ultimately boosting community outcomes and funder engagement
• Key insights from our new Amplify program on the synergy between leadership development and program evaluation

The post Amplify Your Impact: Integrating Leadership Development and Program Evaluation for Greater Community Outcomes appeared first on CCL.

For nonprofit and philanthropic leaders, demonstrating impact is foundational. Typically, measuring community impact of an organization’s mission-driven work involves program and staff evaluations. But often, the impact of leadership development initiatives is considered separately. The key to establishing sustainable philanthropic practices is weaving together all the important ways nonprofit leaders and programs influence community impact — including effective leadership.

In partnership with with The Scattergood Foundation, we will explore the powerful intersection of leadership development and evaluation in amplifying and measuring community impact. Join us as we discuss how taking an integrated, holistic approach enables us to generate greater impact within our organizations and the communities we serve.

What You’ll Learn

In this webinar, nonprofit and foundation leaders can learn:

• CCL research and frameworks to examine the intersection of leadership and evaluation
• The role of self-awareness, evaluation, and authenticity in sustainable philanthropic practices
• Tactics to improve storytelling for greater fundraising and measuring community impact

The post Amplifying Impact Through Nonprofit Leadership and Evaluation appeared first on CCL.

The Center for Creative Leadership, a top-ranked global leadership development organization, will be presenting several sessions at this year’s annual conference of the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology (SIOP). The conference will be held April 17–20, in Chicago, Illinois and virtually.

SIOP is the premier professional association for the science and practice of Industrial-Organizational (I-O) psychology, which focuses on the scientific study of human behavior in organizations and in the workplace. This specialty focuses on principles of individual, group, and organizational behavior and applying this knowledge to solving problems leaders experience in the workplace.

CCL researchers will be presenting and leading discussions on several topics at the conference, ranging from program evaluation to hybrid workplace challenges. Listed below are the session dates and times when CCL will be presenting, along with descriptions for each session:

Approaches to Impact Evaluation in Leadership Development

Thursday, April 18, 8:00 am CST
Panel Discussion, Montreux 1
CCL Presenters: Dr. Jeff Kosovich and Dr. Stephen Jeong

Drawing on the collective expertise of practitioners and researchers in leadership development, this session will examine current practices in measuring the impact of leadership development, introduce 3 approaches to evaluating leadership development interventions, and discuss the application of these approaches. Panelists will share insights demonstrating the value of leadership development through impact evaluation data.

Virtually Possible: Understanding Employee Preferences in Remote Work Environments

Thursday, April 18, 8:00 am CST
Symposium, G Hall 1
CCL Presenter: Dr. Andy Loignon

The 4 empirical papers in this symposium explore pressing questions related to employee experiences in virtual work settings. This timely research investigates some of the more challenging areas related to remote work: managerial communication, autonomy, and the psychological contract; the effects of remote versus in-person interaction quality; interaction quality and workplace loneliness based on remote work preferences; and leadership behaviors and psychological safety in different degrees of virtuality. The findings present valuable insights for both academics and practitioners.

Invited: Conversations at All Stages of I-O

Thursday, April 18, 4:00 pm CST
Special Event, Z Room 1
CCL Presenter: Dr. Andy Loignon

This session consists of I-O graduate students, professionals, practitioners, and academics at different stages of their careers. After a brief introduction, authors will invite attendees to the breakout rooms according to their interests, where different speakers will facilitate conversations around critical moments in the career trajectory for I-Os, which includes navigating the stresses of graduate school, being on the job market for both industry and academia, transitioning into a new academic or industry job, job progression (tenure, promotion), and post-tenure (retirement, late-career issues).

Tech Trekking the Virtual Frontier: A Journey Into Meeting Dynamics and Inclusion

Thursday, April 18, 5:00 pm CST
Symposium, Room 208
CCL Presenters: Dr. Andy Loignon and Dr. Diane Bergeron

Authors explore 3 trends in meetings: the rise of virtual meetings, equality in meetings, and using AI to measure meeting behaviors. Kreamer & Rogelberg explore participation in virtual meetings, highlighting the potential of chat to enhance contributions. Loignon et al. reevaluate meetings as sources of inequalities using AI-enabled technology. Eden et al. explore meeting equity and counterproductive meeting behaviors relative to workers’ ages. These papers contribute to knowledge of meetings as essential sites where work happens, inequalities emerge, and technology can be harnessed.

A Multidimensional Framework for Measuring Change in Leadership Development

Friday, April 19, 9:00 am CST
Poster Session, Exhibit Hall 
CCL Presenters: Dr. Jeff Kosovich and Dr. Stephen Jeong 

This intermediate study describes a novel framework for conceptualizing change in leadership development, focusing on 4 types of change: relearning, reprioritizing, recalibrating, and traditional change. The framework parallels measurement invariance testing and builds on methods pioneered by quality-of-life researchers. Through a multiphase thematic analysis of 222 qualitative responses from a 360-degree feedback assessment, authors developed a coding scheme for identifying these types of change. Progressive improvement in rater agreement provides preliminary validity evidence.

Revisiting Gender Disparities in OCBs: Bridging Research and Practitioner Insights

Saturday, April 20, 2:00 pm CST
Alternative Presentation, Vevey 2/3
CCL Presenter: Dr. Diane Bergeron

Researchers and practitioners will present perspectives on revisiting the gender differences in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and performance evaluations in short, ignite-style presentations, followed by small group discussions among the audience over posed questions. The small groups will then have the opportunity to share their insights with the broader audience and hear the presenters’ perspectives. This session will discuss the implications of recognizing and rewarding OCBs and how this may improve gender equity in the workplace.

The post CCL Researchers Presenting at 2024 Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology Conference appeared first on CCL.

What Does It Mean to Have a Network Perspective?

Network perspective is the ability to look beyond formal, designated relationships and see the complex web of connections between people in and beyond your organization.

It’s one of the most important skills to develop for yourself — and your organization.

Network-savvy leaders intentionally develop the ability to see, understand, and engage the informal, invisible structure supporting the organization. They use this network perspective to create a more connected, interdependent culture at their organization. Some take it even further, expanding their organization’s network throughout the world.

At the individual level, a network perspective allows you to move beyond the official structure (the “org chart”) to get work done using informal networks.

This network perspective means knowing who has influence and where to go for information. It’s also about seeing — and tapping into — the ties that extend beyond your organization into other organizations, communities, and society.

At a broad level, networks are a natural part of an interdependent yet volatile world. Many leaders and academics are coming to the conclusion that our understanding of leadership should consider both the natural and strategically created networks.

The Connection Between Network Perspective and Leadership

Since we live in an extremely complex, changing, and interconnected world, the ability to understand and leverage informal organizational networks and connections is vital and crucial for leaders. In an environment that involves tough decision-making quickly and often, leaders can no longer rely on hierarchy or traditional approaches to get information or make things happen.

By embracing leadership as a shared process that engages and creates networks, organizational leaders with network savvy create several benefits:

• An increase in the collective capacity for leadership;
• The enabling of others to step up, adjust, and make decisions about the future of a project, team, organization, or community; and
• The transformation of the leadership culture from reliance on command-and-control hierarchies to adaptation within agile, interdependent networks.

Informal Networks Can Strengthen Your Organization’s Strategy

As we note in our research white paper, informal networks can strengthen your organization’s strategy.

The patterns and quality of informal social networks connecting members of an organization greatly affect its ability to succeed in a competitive marketplace. Suboptimal patterns of communication and influence may alienate critical future talent and lead to problems in strategy development and implementation.

Analyzing the networks of top executives uncovers gaps between how communication and influence should ideally flow — and how they do in reality. That network analysis opens the door to building network connections that can improve retention of high-potential talent and ultimately, optimize the development and execution of the organization’s strategy.

Conversations among leaders in upper and middle management often determine an organization’s strategy and eventual success. So senior leaders in particular should pay attention to their organization’s leadership networks and strengthen ties where they matter most.

Executives will want to ensure that high-potential middle managers are engaged and that their contributions are weighted appropriately by the top management team, which is critical to avoiding riskier, less robust, or ineffective organizational strategies.

Why Leaders Need a Network Perspective

7 Reasons to Take a Network Perspective

Now that you know what a network perspective is and the benefits of it for individuals and organizations, here’s why leaders need a network perspective:

1. Connections matter.

Individuals don’t exist in isolation and their connections provide opportunities, access to valuable information and resources, and also create constraints. The people they’re connected to influence their ideas, attitudes, and behaviors.

2. Work often happens through informal channels.

Even after decades of restructuring, work activities often occur through interactions outside of formal reporting and working relationships. Understanding informal networks is especially important in flat, team-based, and agile work environments where formal structure provides little guidance.

3. Leadership occurs through relationships.

Direction, alignment, and commitment are created through relationships between people working on shared challenges. All people contribute to this process and thus, leadership may be shared throughout the network. Further, boundary spanning leadership requires network perspective to accurately see and build connections between groups.

4. Successful leaders develop networks of strong, diverse relationships.

They realize that under- and over-connectivity stifle performance and limit outcomes. Purposeful (strategic) and authentic networking is the key to developing healthy networks that prevent insularity. They work collaboratively across boundaries (like hierarchies, geographic regions, functional silos, stakeholder interests, and demographic differences) to build relationships with diverse groups of people.

5. Network knowledge is an asset in change efforts.

Relying on formal, vertical channels alone hinders the capacity to adapt to emerging issues. Change efforts may be accelerated by activating and enhancing the network’s capacity to span boundaries. This approach is critically important in cultural transformation because organizational culture lives largely within the conversations between people. Understanding these connections provides insights into subcultures, pockets of resistance, and hidden champions of the transformation.

6. Innovation networks can be identified and supported.

Innovation first requires new, creative ideas. But new ideas are not enough; they must be implemented in the organization through a targeted innovation process. Research suggests network structures that facilitate creativity and implementation differ from each other in specific ways. Organizations need networks that support the generation and sharing of diverse ideas, as well as collective action. (It also helps when people understand how their role in driving innovation depends on where they sit.)

7. The most important challenges leaders face today are interdependent.

Complex challenges can’t be addressed by individuals alone; they’re best solved by groups of people across boundaries working together.

All in all, having a network perspective is the key to thriving in a world in which everything is, or will be, connected.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Upskill your team’s network perspective and leadership skills with a customized learning journey using our research-backed modules. Available leadership topics include Boundary Spanning, Communication, Collaboration & Teamwork, Conflict Resolution, the DAC Framework for Effective Leadership, Innovation Leadership, Leading People Through Change, Listening to Understand, and more.

Or, partner with our Leadership Analytics experts to better understand your organization’s network connections and strengthen your overall strategy and culture.

The post Network Perspective and Leadership: Are You Connected? appeared first on CCL.

Areas of Employee Engagement

4 Factors That Increase Retention & Improve Employee Engagement

At CCL, we developed a simple and intuitive framework to approach the various areas of employee engagement. These are the 4 key factors that drive employee engagement:

1. Leader engagement,
2. Job engagement,
3. Team engagement, and
4. Organizational engagement.

By focusing on these 4 key areas of employee engagement, leaders have the power to affect the people they lead and serve in a more targeted way.

Here are some specific steps that leaders at all levels of the organization can take to improve these 4 key areas of employee engagement.

Leader Engagement

One major reason employee engagement is so low is that managers on the front lines of organizations are simply not equipped to lead. First-line or frontline managers typically lead the biggest population of workers at most organizations — yet many frontline leaders lack critical skills, and as a result, those they manage feel uninspired, unempowered, and unhappy. Our research supports this:

• Approximately 60% of employees report a loss of engagement, productivity, and turnover with poor frontline leadership, and
• 25% of organizations experience profit loss due to ineffective frontline leaders.

Highly engaged employees feel energized by, and connected to, their direct manager or supervisor. Highly effective first-level leaders can build greater trust and loyalty across your entire workforce.

Tips for managers: Here are some ways you can improve employee engagement through building a stronger relationship with your direct reports:

• Increase your self-awareness so you understand your own strengths and weaknesses.
• Coach your employees and provide the right types of feedback.
• Show empathy in the workplace and in all interactions you have with your direct reports.

Tips for HR leaders: Be sure you’re supporting your first-level managers and equipping them to succeed in their leadership roles. Investing in developing more effective managers on the front lines of your organization will cascade benefits across your entire workforce, improving employee engagement, satisfaction, and retention. Some specific suggestions for HR leaders tackling this area of employee engagement:

• Provide access to support such as coaching and mentoring programs for new leaders.
• Offer development opportunities, ideally specific frontline leadership development programs that are designed to prepare them for the unique challenges they face as they shift into a leadership role.
• Train all people leaders in the concepts of respect and emotional intelligence.
• Equip everyone with the skills to give constructive feedback by holding coaching conversations.

Job Engagement

Compensation and benefits are important for motivating employees, but they’re not the only things that matter when it comes to keeping employees productive and engaged. Employees are more engaged when they feel their job matters and can connect their daily responsibilities to the goals and outcomes of the business of the organization, and when they are given flexibility and autonomy — especially when they’re working remotely.

Tips for managers: For individual leaders, make sure you’re helping your direct reports see how their role connects to outcomes. Some tips:

• Avoid micromanaging; build trust on your team by delegating more.
• Consider bringing in internal or external stakeholders who’ve directly benefited from the work employees have done to share specific impacts; this helps increase your employees’ sense of value alignment.

Tips for HR leaders: To continue improving employee engagement in the area of job engagement:

• Help employees feel connected to, and passionate about, the business and its mission; keep a focus on purposeful leadership wherever possible.

3. Team Engagement.

Getting team members with different styles, experiences, and knowledge to align around a common goal isn’t easy — and it can be especially challenging when working with hybrid teams, which can require new mindsets and communication skills. The success of any team often depends upon how well team members work together and how much they trust each other. Teams work best when members feel safe expressing divergent opinions and know that they can count on each other.

Tips for managers and HR leaders: Employees are more engaged when they’re motivated and excited by their coworkers. Here’s how to improve employee engagement in the area of team engagement:

• Create clear team norms and learn how to build trust, as it’s critical to team success.
• Strengthen direction, alignment, and commitment (DAC) to enhance team effectiveness (learn more about how to make good leadership happen with DAC).

4. Organizational Engagement.

Simply put, engaged employees feel supported by and connected to their organizations. The reverse is also true: the absence of support causes people to leave organizations. Increased organizational engagement is associated with lower employee turnover and better customer satisfaction.

One of the key things that improves employee engagement at the organizational level? Providing ample opportunities for growth and development. And if you don’t offer these opportunities, your employees will simply look to work somewhere else that will. In fact, a recent study found 58% of workers are likely to leave their company if they don’t receive professional development opportunities.

Tips for managers: Individual leaders can help strengthen this area of employee engagement with their direct reports in the following ways:

• Advocate for training opportunities for your direct reports, and recognize your responsibility in developing them; managers are key for employee talent development.
• Show sincere support for training, including before, after, and during it, which can make or break the effectiveness of the development opportunity; and if you’re not sure exactly how to do that, learn practical ways to show boss support for development.

Tips for HR leaders: To improve employee engagement at the organizational level:

• Build a common leadership language across your organization; offer development opportunities to all employees — don’t reserve growth and training only for those deemed “high-potentials.”
• Explore making targeted investments in your talent using people analytics as a foundation to pinpoint specific areas to focus your efforts on improving employee engagement.

Are You Using Your People Data for Increasing Employee Engagement?

Organizations are more likely to invest in improvement efforts that have a measurable business impact. By using predictive analytics data for leadership development, your organization can get a better understanding of where you stand in these 4 areas of employee engagement, and can more quickly and efficiently target interventions to increase engagement in low-scoring areas.

For example, if your organization’s people data shows workers are highly engaged with their jobs, organization, and teams, but less so with their managers, leadership development interventions should be directed specifically toward increasing leader engagement, and could include making sure leaders know what it takes to coach their people and provide effective feedback to others. Such an intervention would have the greatest possible return on investment because it’s targeted at the specific area of employee engagement that’s most needed.

At CCL, our leadership analytics experts developed a process that enables companies to identify what changes they can make to improve employee engagement — and reap the benefits that come with it — using their people data. Our process for designing leadership development provides a systematic, measurable way to improve employee engagement in a targeted, data-driven way.

It’s time to take a new, focused approach to improving employee engagement and retention by paying close attention to the 4 areas of employee engagement, and using that to strengthen the fabric of your entire organization.

We’re not suggesting that improving employee engagement is simple or even easy, but it is possible. And it can transform your organization’s ability to get results.

Ready to Take the Next Step?

Improve employee engagement at your organization by developing your largest population of leaders, your first tier of managers, with our frontline leadership program, Frontline Leader Impact. Or explore an  enterprise leadership development subscription, CCL Passport,  for unlimited access to our researched-backed content library and proven programs for leaders at all levels. 

The post Focused on Improving Employee Engagement? Pay Attention to These 4 Factors appeared first on CCL.