Читать книгу Cracking the Leadership Code - Alain Hunkins - Страница 8

Ketchum, Inc. is a nearly 100-year-old global public relations firm. Every year, Ketchum interviews more than 25,000 people from 22 industries on five continents to ask them what they think about their leaders. They've found the following from their research:

 Only 23% believe their leaders are leading well. (This number has not been above 25% in the last five years.)

 Only 31% believe leaders communicate well.

 Only 17% have confidence that leadership will improve in the upcoming year.⁵

Ketchum's findings are not the exception, but the rule. Other research corroborates the shoddy state that leadership is in. Only 37% of the population believes CEOs are credible,⁶ and less than half (48%) of employees report their top management does a good job of providing effective leadership.

It gets worse. Bad leadership has a ripple effect—particularly on those being led. Worldwide 87% of employees are not engaged,⁷ 54% of employees claim they don't regularly get respect from their leaders,⁸ and less than half of full-time workers place a great deal of trust in their employers.⁹

The future of leadership also looks bleak. More than half (55%) of organizations are struggling with a talent shortage.¹⁰ Only 18% of HR professionals rate their leadership bench strength as strong or very strong,¹¹ and 71% said their leaders are not ready to lead their organizations into the future.¹²

No leader sets out to be mediocre. No one shows up to work and thinks, “Today I want to make someone else's life miserable.” No one says, “Today, I'm going to be a crummy communicator. None of my direct reports will trust me, and they'll assume that my overall leadership will get even worse in the future.” For the most part, people genuinely want to do a good job.

Unfortunately, good intentions don't translate into good results. Too many leaders don't understand what it takes for them to succeed. They mean well and work hard, but they lack the proper mind-set and tools.

Consider this startling finding: a poll of 2,058 adults reported that 69% of managers are often uncomfortable communicating with employees. Isn't communication a basic part of the job? Lou Solomon, CEO of Interact (the company that conducted the survey), elaborated, noting, “Many managers are uncomfortable with becoming vulnerable, recognizing achievements, delivering the ‘company line,’ giving clear directions, crediting others with having good ideas, speaking face to face, and having difficult feedback conversations in general.”¹³

Leading well is extremely difficult. If it were easy, more people would be doing it. Think back on your own life experience. Of the leaders you've worked with, how many would you rate as excellent? How many were middling? How many were eminently forgettable?

If you find that most of your memories fall on the negative end of the spectrum, you can take comfort in the fact that you're not alone. For most people, working in organizations with lousy leaders is just another day at the office.

But it doesn't have to be this way. There's a path out of the muddle of mediocrity. Great leaders aren't born—they're made. If you're committed, you can learn and apply specific tools to improve how you lead.