Top leaders’ role in managing employee experience

One of the greatest challenges faced by organizations today is the ability to retain talent and get them to perform to the best of their abilities without continuous supervision and monitoring. It is rightly said that people join companies yet leave managers due to reasons of incompatibility. Thus, the greatest area that organizations need to emphasize upon is the employee engagement and employee experience in the organisation. This is broadly a subset of organisation culture but needs consistent attention by the leaders in specific. Various aspects of employee experience include norms at work, the culture of teamwork, ethics, camaraderie, growth opportunities at work and so on .In my opinion all the above is a continuous process and has to be internalized as a way of work.

It is here that the responsibility of the top management and leadership is paramount. It Is rightly said that culture building starts at the top and slowly seeps down to every level of the hierarchy downwards .Leaders obviously have to create the trust and  also be the role model that people look upto . Most successful and respected leaders are those who are seen following the rules and policies that have been curated and created by them .  The absence of this approach , leaders become guilty of corporate hypocrisy where they believe that they are beyond the policies they create and thus set a wrong example down the line. 

What are the leaders doing for their employees

I would believe that a top leadership in an organisation would be those 5 percent who influence the working and performance of the remaining 95 percent. In many organizations, these constitute the highest levels in the corporate hierarchy. Managers tend to get to such positions based on their seniority, length of service and proven track record of performance.

In my opinion , a good leader should be able to involve all the members of his team and ensure that everybody's strengths are harnessed .He should also be conscious of the weaknesses of the members of his team and give them an opportunity to overcome them through learning and development . Further they should be seen as a person who is unbiased i.e firm yet fair. Very often leaders are being accused of taking sides based on their own personal preferences or favouritism and this often ruins the morale  of the team .The leader should be always focusing on what is right and not who is right. Yet another important thing the leader must inculcate is a culture where the focus is on the WE and not the I. The realization that everybody in the team is important but nobody is indispensable must be internalised by all members of the team .This would lead to a healthy scenario to support each other rather than to pull each other down. Freedom of expression and openness and frank dialogue within the team must be encouraged . This will ensure that people do not talk behind each other's back or complain or backbite against each other .The leader must create a culture where one is able to discuss both strengths and weaknesses ,successes and failures the rights and wrongs in an open transparent manner so that all learnings are available to all members of the group and this produces a healthy environment where feedback is given and received in a positive manner. It's also important for the leader to create a culture in the team where performance rules as the paramount factor of recognition. A good leader is often defined as one who can inspire his followers to do their best .

How are they enhancing employee experience

In the current scenario with changing times and changing approaches to managing people ,I would believe a good leader is one who can produce more leaders .However this is easier said than done because the entire challenge of leadership is how to inspire people to do their best first as a member of  the group .It is then that they would earn the stripes to aspire for further growth and higher positions .In my opinion a good leader is one who is a role model and is able to walk the talk . In specific terms , he should know the way ,go to the way and show the way for others to follow . An effective team would be one where hierarchies are determined by competence, ability to execute and deliver a certain project rather than by the seniority or the number of years of experience the members have. This lays the foundation of situational leadership where you get an opportunity to lead the team daily based on your competence and skills and not on any other factor. Objectivity is the basis of decision making about leadership and not subjectivity.

A great leader is one who is extremely empathetic to his employees. Here it is very important to understand the difference between sympathy and empathy .Empathy is the use of emotional intelligence in trying to understand the situation and emotions behind the same and then take a suitable decision in the best interest of the team .

How top management empathize and encourage the workforce for better output and sustainability

A good starting point for any successful leader would be to ask instead of telling .Very often some of the best ideas in the team are lost because the leader tells the team what he would like them to do  instead of asking them .A plethora of good ideas might come out by asking and this might help the team want to innovative solutions to the same existing problem. 

I strongly believe that the hallmark of a great leader is the ability to display compassion. It is very easy to pass judgement on people but that is always remember that everyone is fighting their own battles and hence the display of compassion by the leader would bring in the right spirit of camaraderie & mutual understanding .In his effort towards supporting each  other, every member of the team should live by the belief that become successful by helping others become more successful.