The Leadership-Profit Chain–How Leadership Impacts Employee Passion and Customer Devotion

In an article for the May issue of Chief Learning Officer magazine entitled The Leadership-Profit Chain, authors Drea Zigarmi and Scott Blanchard identify the impact of leadership behaviors on employee passion and customer devotion. Their research shows that organizations can’t treat employees poorly, put pressure on them, and then expect them to perform at high levels. Sometimes organizations…

Respect, Trust, and Accountability: 3 Tips for Managers from Southwest Airlines and WD-40 Company

Colleen Barrett, past president of Southwest Airlines, and Garry Ridge, president and CEO of WD-40 Company both spoke at The Ken Blanchard Companies recent 2010 Client Summit.  Each leader talked about the ways that they have created a close-knit, high performing culture in their organizations through a combination of high expectations with a sense of…

Incentives Can Negatively Impact Employee Engagement if Used Improperly

Organizations want their employees to be more intrinsically engaged at work.  They want their employees to be more creative, more innovative, and to take more risks.  One of the ways organizations are supporting these initiatives is through the use of incentives.  While incentives can be a good way to drive short term behavior, you have…

Leaders: Don’t Make Profit Your Only Goal

Making the bottom line your top priority may not be the best way to improve profitability. That’s the conclusion of recent research conducted by Mary Sully de Luque and Nathan T. Washburn of Thunderbird School of Global Management; David A. Waldman, of Arizona State University West; and Robert J. House, of the University of Pennsylvania,…

Employee Engagement Levels Drop Among High Performers

In an online article for Human Resource Executive Online, Propping Up Employee Morale, author Lin Grensing-Pophal shares new research showing that engagement levels among high-performing employees have decreased at a higher rate than average performers during the recent downturn in the economy. The 2009/2010 U.S. Strategic Rewards Survey by Watson Wyatt and WorldatWork found that “employee-engagement…

Middle managers becoming disengaged?

An in-progress, online survey by Sean Silverthorne of Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge newsletter shows that 82% of respondents indicate that “Yes, the crisis is sapping my enthusiasm.” (Econ Crisis Making Middle Managers Miserable)  Silverthorne also reports that 27% of middle managers find their current roles less meaningful and exciting than before the economic crisis,…

Helping People Win at Work

Most workers do not feel that employee performance reviews are valuable. That’s what Garry Ridge, CEO of  WD-40 Company discovered when he surveyed students in a business course he teaches at the University of San Diego.  The problem, according to Ridge, is that most performance systems are used for the wrong reasons. They are either arbitrary,…

Layoffs, Mergers, and Acquisitions: Where to focus first

What’s the best way for leaders to impact their organizations after a layoff, merger, or acquisition?  If you had to choose between focusing on your people, financials, or customers, where would you begin?  We asked that question to 700 frontline, mid-level, and senior executives who attended our webinar on Revitalizing the Downsized Organization this past…