Servant Leadership Workplace-Energy

Search Results Engagement & Energy – Connection to Mission Matters Most

Do people at your company feel connected to its mission?

If your answer that question is, “meh*,” then your company probably has low levels of employee engagement and energy.

These two ideas – engagement and energy – are related but distinct.

Employee engagement can be defined in many ways, including the willingness to spend discretionary effort on the job. As we wrote in an earlier blog, Gallup’s “State of the American Manager” report tells us that only 30% of US employees are engaged at work.

What causes this sorry state of affairs?

Gallup finds that managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores across business units. In short, it’s about leadership.

And what separates a great leader from a “meh” leader?

For one thing, a focus on employee energy.

To put it simply, employees may have a willingness to give discretionary effort, but they often lack the energy to do so. “Burnout” is real and on the rise.

That’s the conclusion of Tony Schwartz and his colleagues at The Energy Project. “Demand for our time is increasingly exceeding our capacity – draining us of the energy we need to bring our skill and talent to life,” Schwartz and Christine Porath wrote recently in the New York Times.

Based on extensive research, the folks at The Energy Project find that employees are far more engaged and energized when four “core needs” are met:

  • Physical (need to recharge and renew the body during the workday)
  • Emotional (need to feel valued by colleagues)
  • Mental (need to have focus and prioritize the use of time)
  • Spiritual (need for joy that comes from being connected to a higher purpose and meaning)

Interestingly, the spiritual need is most important.

No single factor in The Energy Project study influences engagement and energy as much as feeling connected to the company’s mission and deriving a sense of meaning and significance from the work. Yet most companies fall woefully short in helping employees make that connection. Only 34% of employees say that feel connection to the company’s mission; members of the remaining group were 62% less likely to stay with their companies and 45% less engaged.

Simply put, connection to mission matters most for high levels of energy, which in turn promotes engagement. Servant-leaders create environments where energy is renewed rather than exhausted. And like power cords, they help recharge those they serve by plugging them into shared purpose and meaning.

“The energy of leaders is, for better or worse, contagious,” write Schwartz and Porath. When leaders explicitly encourage employees to work in more “sustainable ways” – and especially when they model a more sustainable way of working – energy increases. And it increases most when they focus on mission.

How can we help ourselves and others stay connected to our company’s mission? Can you share valuable behaviors, habits or practices that you have experienced? Let us know.

To read the New York Times piece about The Energy Project, click here.

Don’t forget to download our latest ebook, Servant Leadership in the Workplace: A Brief Introduction. It’s free!

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* According to the Urban Dictionary: “Indifference; to be used when one simply does not care.”