Avoid Talent Retention Mistake #192,653,478

I have led teams within organizations for nearly four decades. For the last 25 years, I’ve served as a senior executive. And, over the past decade, I have focused like a laser on speaking and consulting with leaders around the globe to help them transform their work environments into what I call “Cohesion Cultures.” A Cohesion Culture is one in which people feel a sense of belonging, have value and commit to both personal and organizational success.

Sessions with teams of executives permit discussions of strategies and practices for retaining talent, such as identifying the framework for creating a great work culture. The conversations reach their breakthrough point when participants take a deeper dive and start asking pointed questions about how to handle specific employee development and coaching situations.

The executives typically look for peer advice and best practices. Invariably, the dialogue gravitates toward exposing failures. In these ways, the sessions serve as great opportunities for learning how to set organizations on a path toward achievement and success.

Identifying the Problem

At the executive workshops, I have been asked, “What’s the number one mistake an organizational leader makes with talent retention?”

My response is simple, direct and concise: “You.”

And who am I to lay blame on the leader? How can I be so unapologetic about pointing out the leader’s failure? Quite simply, my decades of experience have shown me that more often than not, the leader is the prime culprit for causing the problem they are lamenting.

Furthermore, data make it clear that top executives deserve the blame. When Gallup asked employees why they quit, more than 75 percent named their supervisor as the number one reason. No factor other than a major life event came close to poor management in driving an employee’s decision to leave. As cliché as it sounds, people do not quit jobs. They quit the boss.

Now, I am mindful to fully disclose that I, too, have been the leader causing problems. It would be a fiction to claim that I have performed perfectly in every leadership endeavor and situation. In fact, my imperfect past prompted me to change my behaviors for the better.

I will also sometimes share what my mother would say about growing as a person and rising to meet a challenge. “Your character,” she would say, “is a reflection of your choices, not your circumstances.” Mom, who was a great mentor to me, inspired me to build a reputation for solutions rather than excuses.

You Cannot Serve the Many Until You Serve the One

I have witnessed my fair share of good, bad, and ugly leadership. The devastation poor leadership visits upon individual employees and the work culture is always tough to see. Tracing the problem back to its origin inevitably leads me to the leader’s mindset, level of emotional intelligence and general concern for others’ best interests and well-being.

Once I realized that employees are an organization’s greatest asset, I became committed to creating a legacy that develops people for future succession opportunities. This commitment led me to create a roadmap for leaders who wish to avoid losing good employees. The mileposts are

1. Be the leader
2. Build the culture, and
3. Bring it to life.

Leaders must first take care of themselves. If a leader is not properly prepared, then how can they be expected to lead others?

Additionally, leaders need to be self-aware, and they must treat employees as agents of transformation rather than variables in a transaction. Leaders who adopt transformative principles espouse a vision and teach it as a daily habit. They are good social architects, and they create trusting environments.

Observe, Imitate, Model

Most learning happens in the form of social learning. Albert Bandura, the American psychologist, theorized that social learning occurs when people observe the actions, behaviors and characteristics of others, decide what to imitate and then model the actions, behaviors or characteristics they interpret to be valued and valuable. For this reason, leaders must be intentional in how they act, what they say and which behaviors they reward.

It is easy to avoid becoming the number one cause of employees leaving. The trick involves giving employees reasons to belong. Good leaders pull the switch by showing employees that they have value and by committing to employee development.
Doing those things strongly positions a leader to align employees’ activities with desired organizational outcomes, And doing that results in greater achievement and accomplishment.

When it comes to talent retention, leaders who make the biggest impacts in the lives of others never want to be the number one cause for employees leaving. Instead, they strive to channel positivity and good into their relationships with their talent and take responsibility for being the number one reason employees stay.