In many organizations worldwide and especially here in North America, employee engagement is a significant problem. Employee engagement is a symptom of the employee experience. What many people don’t understand or recognize, though, is that the leader so impacts the employee experience. Whether it’s leading a team, department, or overall organization, leaders significantly impact overall engagement. With all this talk about employee engagement, there’s a lack of discussion about leadership engagement. Many leaders are disengaged because they are always firefighting, and that has a trickle-down effect on others.
What is firefighting?
Most leaders are firefighters. They solve problems and issues day after day, tackling the latest crisis or situation that has popped up. Far too often, in many organizations, leaders spend most of their time firefighting and addressing all these issues. Facing bureaucracy, walls, and silos within the organization, leaders struggle to resolve any problems promptly. Forget about personal development being a priority too. All attention is on fighting the latest crisis. Most leaders try to be heroes, and while that’s admirable, it’s not sustainable.
Why is it a problem?
The unfortunate thing is that the organization itself often creates most issues or crises sucking up all the leaders’ time. Far too often, you’re seeing and hearing about situations because one team didn’t effectively communicate with another. This type of dysfunction creates chaos and problems for a leader who must deal with the drama and fallout. The more connected we become as a society, the less capable we are of effectively communicating with one another.
Constantly firefighting burns leaders out quicker, stressing them and their employees out. It’s not fun when work the work environment is toxic and negative. We spend so much of our lives working. If leaders are always running from one crisis to the next, it takes a toll emotionally, physically, and mentally. Leaders who spend all their time firefighting miss out on the things that matter, such as strategy, business development, or coaching their team. Everything for them becomes rushed. They go from meeting to meeting, barely scanning emails that they probably should spend more time on too.
What should organizations do?
Firefighting is reactive. Managers and leaders are spending so much time combating the latest blaze that has popped up. They don’t have time to focus on other things. Organizations need to focus their attention on shifting left. By that, I mean that they need to become more proactive. Armed with the right strategy and roadmap, leaders need to plan well in advance. The more proactive organizations can become, the less stressed and stretched both leaders and their teams will feel.
There are times throughout my career, where I felt like I was always in firefighting mode. It’s not uncommon then for leaders to be frustrated and disengage from the role. As much as leaders try to fake it, employees can always tell when someone is not 100% all-in. Leaders are continually being looked at for everything they do when they don’t do.
If organizations want to increase employee engagement, they need to stop having leaders firefight so much. Being overly reactive drains leaders of both positive energy and opportunities to be the best versions of themselves. When a leader can be their best version, they can bring out the best in their employees.
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