Employee Engagement is most often thought of as the proverbial company-wide initiative, driven by HR and the people function to understand and improve the relationship between an organisation and its employees.

But at some point: the nature and quality of engagement comes down to the one-to-one interactions between an employee and their manager/leader. And this is a fundamental idea to hold in mind, because our experience of our company’s culture is primarily driven by our experience within our teams and our relationship with our boss.

This is not to discount Employee Engagement in its various forms as a global, company-wide initiative. Long may they continue. But I never want to lose sight of the fact that engagement is not an abstract concept that’s happening elsewhere; but is here, in this moment, working with my colleagues – doubly-so, if my role includes any form of management or leadership of a team.

So, for you as that manager/leader, my question is: At what level are you engaging with your people?

Our level of engagement with any circumstance shapes our experience of it – and our ability to respond (creatively or reactively) to it. And that level of perspective, awareness and responsibility we bring will determine the results we subsequently achieve.

As a leader: in what ways are your (chosen!) levels of engagement inspiring – or limiting – the team?

I invite you to live into this thought of bringing a high state of consciousness to your interactions with the team, and of choosing your level of engagement that will serve the project, the organisation and the individual.

Here are some options …

Level of Engagement: DRAMA

At times, when a team member comes to you with an issue, they will be in the DRAMA of the circumstance. We’re all familiar with drama and what that looks and feels like: we see it on TV, in movies, in the news. And we’ve experienced it ourselves. “Overwhelm Plus”.

And from our own experiences: we know two things about drama: (1) there’s no thinking at all going on when one is caught in the drama, and (2) there’s no reasoning with someone in the drama.

Your role as a leader, then, is twofold:

(1) NOT allow yourself to be pulled into the drama with them. An obvious thing to say, but that’s what people caught in their drama (non-consciously) seek to do: pull you in with them. You must keep yourself out of the drama by (a) noticing the drama as such, and (b) placing your focus at a different level of engagement.

(2) Take a non-logical approach to releasing them from their drama. This sounds odd: why wouldn’t I use logic and reasoning to demonstrate to this person they’re in the drama for no good reason? Because the drama isn’t logical, it’s emotional. And for someone with an emotional challenge, nothing infuriates them quite like a logical solution. It’s too soon for that. So, instead: COACH them up and out of the drama by addressing the emotions: take a breath, slow things down, reassurance, encouragement and so on. NOT a long list of logical reasons: they will feel unheard and/or made to feel lacking.

Leadership Mastery Lesson: Notice the drama. Place your focus at a higher level of engagement. Support others emotional to lift them up and out of their drama.

Level of Engagement: SITUATION PROBLEM

At the level of Drama, there’s no thinking, no learning and no responsibility happening. We’re a victim of the circumstances. And we’re pretty disconnected from reality – all of which, of course, hugely diminishes our capacity to create any useful change in the area.

An alternative to the Drama is to engage at the Situational level: where we replace fiction with fact, emotionality with objectivity, negativity with positivity. And this is a far more productive level of engagement because we can clear away any unhelpful emotionality and reactivity.

But that doesn’t happen in the majority of SITUATIONAL level engagements because the majority of leaders/managers, when presented with a problem by the team, inevitably ask all about … the problem. “Ok, let’s get into this. Let’s understand every aspect of this problem. Let’s dissect every corner. We’re in this together!”

And that’s its own problem – because problem-level thinking just finds more problems! It strengthens those circuits in the brain by giving them attention, and too early in the process. The brain is an attention economy and we get more of what we pay attention to. Instead of directing your team towards the problem, let’s elevate the thinking focus to the goal.

Leadership Mastery Lesson: Notice the percentage of time and attention you and the team are spending on the problem. Shift that weighting towards a solution focus by asking: What’s the goal?

Level of Engagement: SITUATION DETAIL

When we communicate with another person, that communication is primarily driven by our brain’s prefrontal cortex: a region implicated in functions like speech production, but also cognition, working memory and getting into the detail.

When we’re talking, we love to descend into the detail – but our conversational partner doesn’t! Our message lands in a quite different part of the recipient’s brain that wants to avoid the high energy-spend of thinking and ignore, radically simplify and/or pigeon-hole your message.

What this might mean for a manager/leader receiving an overly-detailed update on an issue is they get lost in the detail and miss the all-important consideration, in their desire to bottom-line it and escape the fatigue and frustration from TMI.

Like our previous level of situational engagement, we want to resist engaging at the level of detail, certainly at the outset of an interaction. Just as problem-level thinking will find more problems, detail-level thinking will only contribute brain fog and we’ll lose connection with the goal.

One great “Coaching Leader” skill to have in the toolkit is called Clarifying. Clarifying is a conversational technique that repeats your conversational partner’s communication in a way that capture the essence of the message AND moves the conversation on. For example: “Sounds like we’ve got a boundary issue that needs clarifying.”

Leadership Mastery Lesson: Notice the level of detail the conversation is descending into. Resist your temptation to escape it prematurely. List for the all-important detail, without getting drawn in. Don’t allow yourself and the team to get lost in the weeds. Build the skill of Clarifying.

Level of Engagement: VISION

At the highest level of engagement, we have VISION. This is where goals, solutions, outcomes and the future all reside. And what you’ll notice is that when you can support your team to elevate their thinking to this level, there’s a felt shift in the level of engagement; and a release of all the tension inherent in the lower levels.

Vision-level thinking is captured, in essence, with the simple question: “What’s the goal?” It’s simple and highly effective. But because we’re all so quick to get caught-up in drama, problem and detail, one of the last questions we think to ask.

Have this in the toolkit and make it your daily practice to ask this question A LOT. It’ll improve your level of engagement with the team. It’ll deliver results, faster and with less stress. And as you role model vision-level thinking for the team, they’ll quickly inherit the leadership habit, themselves.

Leadership Mastery Lesson: Ask “What’s the goal?” Stay in the goal-focused space for longer than feels necessary. Get yourself and your team entirely connected to the goal. Only then, ask about problems and/or details.

Enhancing Employee Engagement

You’ve probably been reading about these 4 levels of leadership engagement with problems, challenges and issues in mind. If so, I invite you to think where else this approach to employee engagement may be useful. Annual reviews. Career development. Side projects. Special initiatives. Professional development. Job satisfaction. Team morale.

Take some reflection time to notice where and how often you’re in the drama, problem and detail … when vision, goal and solution would be the deeper and more productive level of leadership engagement.

Thanks for reading!

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