Are You Engaged in Your Job?
Engagement isn't just about finding joy and a deeper and more active involvement. It means you care enough to make something better. However, overall engagement could be better, and this is a fact that can and must change.
Many employees, including those in middle management, feel unheard, unvalued, and reduced to mere cogs in a corporate machine. On the other hand, executives often create fail-safe mousetraps that protect the company against the few who can’t be trusted, fostering less trust in people. Mousetraps like these often snap off the nose of trust, and have the opposite effect of its intended design.
What if both are right? This colossal issue plagues most companies today. Let's reframe the perspective on this problem.
Consider these questions:
Who better understands language? A linguistics professor or a poet?
Who better understands plants? A botanist or a gardener?
Who better understands music? A music theorist or a musician?
The theorist knows the structure and theory, while the musician breathes life into the composition through emotional and personal expression and performance.
The difference is between conceptual understanding and embodied understanding. In business, conceptual and embodied are opposite ends of the exact guitar string. And it takes both ends to have attunement, which results in great vibes.
Many leaders start on the front line. It can be inevitable and necessary that leaders adopt new perspectives. These perspectives are needed to spot macro-level issues that could cost jobs and market share.
And let's not skirt the reality that leaders hold real power. The most common complaint I hear everywhere is, "If I speak up, I'd better dust off my resume because I've seen people fired for trying to make things better." So, none of this is an excuse for leaders who have no idea how to wield the real power they hold. But, as much as I have heard the above statement, I've found that half the time, it's also an excuse not to speak up. Well intended people on both sides, with a few bad apples. Don’t be a bad apple.
Change is inevitable, and that's a good thing. Life would be incredibly stale and boring without change. Change also takes time for individuals and companies. Yet a 1% improvement weekly can lead to significant change over a year.
The first step to feeling a sense of personal engagement is to dance! Find the most essential responsibilities of your job and the most critical connections on your team and dance with them.
Put the noise and busyness down, and strive to be great at your work. Listen and value differing views and opinions (empathy), and do your best to demand excellence. Demand it from your peers and demand it from your leaders. In other words, care enough to do your ethical best.
This grassroots approach is the first step in making life better for you and everyone else.
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