Managers Almost Demand Engagement, Yet Are Barely Engaged Themselves At Work

A high irony.

Had a ton of bad managers in my life. Maybe a metric ton. I probably wouldn’t write this blog if I hadn’t, or have gone to graduate school to study “organizational development” (and now work in marketing), or most of the last few years of my life, where I’ve been trying (and sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to figure out everything about work and how it relates back to life.

Here’s a rather sobering contextual situation about work.

Start here, with Gallup, who has been pulling no punches when it comes to the state of employee engagement in America recently. They figure that about 35 percent of all managers are engaged with their work:

That’s fairly low, yes.

Now, a middle manager would look at this and say, “Of course, I’m always in meetings or on conference calls! How could I be engaged in my work and team?” That’s true. He/she wouldn’t be wrong. The system is set up in a way that deliverables, products, and processes are what matters. “Engagement” as a concept is about people, and people don’t really matter. Read…