WHAT DO STAFF SEE AS TOP LEADERSHIP TRAITS?

Yesterday we looked at leaders and what they feel are the top leadership traits.  This is the second part of an analysis in what leaders see as important traits versus what staff see.  Leaders determined that the top traits of effective leaders are Integrity/Honesty, Visionary and to a lesser extent Humility, Communication and Creativity. That is how leaders see it.  Now let's look at what staff consider key leadership traits.

Google & Facebook

For this I went to a couple of large organizations that have easy access to big data and who care about this issue; Google and Facebook.  In spite of the hype and the movie "The Internship" Google found itself struggling to retain staff. Facebook experienced this to a lesser degree but they too were interested in finding out about what staff were looking for in leadership.  

Project Oxygen

Project Oxygen was Google's approach to understanding staff views on effective leadership.  It involved an extensive culling of its performance review data bases to determine staff views of good leadership.  Here are the top 7;

• Be a good coach
• Empower your team
• Take interest in your team members success and well-being
• Be results oriented
• Be a good communicator and listen to your team
• Help employees with career development
• Have a clear vision for the team.  

 
Surprisingly (at least to Google) technical expertise was last on their list of items.  Many of these items focused on relational aspects of leadership involving getting to know your team members and their strengths.

High Employee Satisfaction

At Facebook they used their data to identify which teams reported the highest level of job satisfaction and surveyed those staff to understand what those leaders did to make being on that team so rewarding.  Here are the top 7;

• They care about their team members
• They provide opportunities for growth
• They set clear expectations and goals
• They give frequent, actionable feedback
• They provide helpful resources
• They hold the team accountable for success
• They recognize outstanding work.  

It's All About The People...

There is surprising similarity between the two studies.  Getting to know and demonstrating care about your team members, supporting their growth ambitions, providing regular feedback, giving them room to tackle problems and celebrating success seem to be the top traits of good bosses.  They are rooted in establishing a relationship with each team member but also involve a high level of communication, feedback and accountability.  

I am sure you are already thinking about the leaders list from the previous blog and wondering about any similarity.  That we will cover next.  Suffice it to say there will be lots to explore.  Performance Leadership - Think About It!