Filed under: Employee Engagement, Executive Leadership, Leadership Development
According to research just released from the Pew Research Center, trust in the US government is at an all time low. In fact, just 22% of study participants said that they “trust the government in Washington almost always or most of the time.” With mid-term elections just a few months away, this news is creating quite a buzz.
To say I’m a political junky would be an exaggeration. But I do find the tracking of political opinions fascinating. Our public leaders live in a fish bowl. So many things within and outside of their control impact public support and their “job approval ratings.” And that support in turn impacts their political clout and their ability to get things done. At the end of the day, this lack of trust could cost elected officials their jobs. And so the panic begins.
It’s actually very similar in the corporate world. Okay – so maybe employees don’t have the same power to fire their employers’ leadership teams. But that lack of trust shows up in other ways. In commitment. In effort. In alignment with organizational direction. In client after client, we’ve seen the relationship: trust in senior leadership is a consistent predictor of employee engagement, discretionary effort, and likelihood to stay with an organization.
Yes – politics are everywhere. The biggest difference? Our publicly elected leaders know exactly where they stand. They labor under no illusion that everyone agrees with them. They know precisely how many people voted for them, and in which demographics. And dozens of polling organizations provide a constant feed of information about their strengths, their weaknesses, their level of support – and, yes, their political clout.
In contrast to that – how many CEO’s are flying blind?
Anna Erickson, Ph.D. | Director, Consulting Services
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