Team Energy Risk by Functional Area and Job Level
Figure 3, below shows a heat map for the team energy risk by the functional area of the respondents. The areas of research and development, marketing, finance and accounting, public relations and general administration all have a team energy risk that is a third or less of the respondents being more than one point away from their best energy level. However, sales at 63.7%, human resource management at 67.6%, and engineering at 71.4% all have substantial team energy risk.
Sample comments from HR and engineering
• free fall, self absorbed leaders completely out of touch
• self centered selfish idiots as leaders
• Leadership seems to be reactive rather than predictive. Those strategies that we are implementing to not seem well thought out.
• We are in process of a full org redesign and shift to digital focus which will be a mindset shift
• Low motivation; no feedback that the work I do matters or is important to the organization
• Uncertainty, Lack of accountability, Poor leadership
Figure 4, below, shows a heat map of the team energy risk by the job level of the respondents. What is of note is the comparison of the team Energy risk of those in the top levels of organizations with those in middle levels of organizations. CEO/President, Other C-Core, and Senior VP or Executive VP all had a team energy risk below 40%. Meanwhile, Senior Manager, Director, and Manager/Supervisor had team energy risks of 59.1%, 61.9% and 69.2% respectively.Figure 4, below, shows a heat map of the team energy risk by the job level of the respondents. What is of note is the comparison of the team Energy risk of those in the top levels of organizations with those in middle levels of organizations. CEO/President, Other C-Core, and Senior VP or Executive VP all had a team energy risk below 40%. Meanwhile, Senior Manager, Director, and Manager/Supervisor had team energy risks of 59.1%, 61.9% and 69.2% respectively.
CEO’s, other C-level and VP’s have lower energy risk. This is as expected and hoped for. However, numbers in the 30’s for energy risk are still high for the senior leaders who need to help their employees manage their energy for peak performance.
Sample comments from senior leaders:
• We’re going through a transition period that has some economic discomfort. Doing some soul-searching and questioning of how we got to the current place
• The company is going through rapid growth/change and entering new markets. Our workforce needs to change quite significantly to support our efforts.
• With all of the changes in the economic situation, it is difficult to determine the needs of our clients making strategic management a little more difficult. I am confident that we will succeed, but not overly so.
• need to delegate; too many irons in the fire, working on training others to take on some of my tasks
• The direction of the economy keeps me awake at night sweating.
• As the CEO and business owner, I sometimes get a bit pessimistic about our ability to change as necessary…including me. Puts a drain on my own energy.
• Lack of planning & alignment; silo’d organization & decision making;
• Too many projects, not enough time
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Change in energy risk
Public administration, transportation and warehousing and wholesale trade all had large improvements in their energy risk, while mining had a large increase in energy risk.
Leadership Confidence
Leadership Confidence has also been measured since 2003. Leaders are asked to rate their confidence in seven items:
• their leadership team
• their personal leadership skills
• the economic climate for their organization
• they have the right people and skills
• their ability to change as needed
• their ability to execute on their vision
• their strategy making process.
The Leadership Confidence Index is the average of the responses to these 7 items, scored on a 1to 5 scale where 1 is Not at All Confident and 5 is Very Confident.
Figure 5, below, shows that a slight decline in the Leadership Confidence Index to 3.58 after reaching a plateau of 3.61. This plateau followed a larger decline since March of 2009 where the Leadership Confidence Index was 3.71. The continuing decline in the confidence of leaders is a large concern, and it is important to get an idea of what is causing this decline.
Confidence trends tell a story of leaders who are feeling more positive about the input to their businesses and less confident about their ability to take action on those inputs.
Table 3, below, shows the change over a 2 year period in the percent of leaders who are confident or very confident in each of the Leadership Confidence items. While confidence in the economic climate and their organization having the right people and skills showed slight increases, there were some noticeable drops. A 9 point drop in leader’s confidence in their strategy making process shows waning confidence in strategy making processes that are often inflexible and slow to implement when they need to be responsive and agile to compete. This is also reflected in a 3 point onfidence drop in their organizations ability to change as needed. Combine that with a 4 point confidence drop in the leadership team, a 3 point confidence drop in leader’s personal
leadership skills, and a 3 point confidence drop in their ability to change as needed indicates that while they may understand where they are at now and where they want to be, they are unsure of how to get there.
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