The thing I wanted more than anything "growing up" as a leader was to be unforgettable to employees--for my impact on their performance, growth, happiness, and life. Did I achieve that status for anyone at all? I can only hope so because I know the impact that unforgettable leaders in my life had.
But alas, probably far too few have truly experienced this.
Research shows that 70 percent of employee engagement can be attributed to the managers or leaders, but only 30 percent of employees are engaged at work. So somebody isn't doing their job.
In conducting research for Find the Fire, I interviewed or surveyed over 1000 employees and 1000 managers and found that almost 60 percent of employees say that the single biggest thing they want from their boss is for him/her to be inspiring; yet only 11 percent answer in the affirmative when asked if their boss is indeed inspiring.
Furthermore, self-awareness on this front isn't exactly sky high among the leaders themselves. Leaders gave themselves an average score of seven out of ten for how inspirational they thought they were, while their employees scored them on this trait at an average of four out of ten or lower.