Gallup’s extensive research in employee engagement describes in no uncertain terms the failure of today’s organizations to engage employees. Its research shows that 69 percent of a typical workforce is disengaged. But the news gets even worse. A full 29 percent of the workforce is more than just disengaged, they are categorized as “actively disengaged.” That means these employees choose to do things that disrupt or harm the business. Sadly, these disruptive people are often the most creative and capable people in the organization who express their extreme frustration in the only way they have found possible, trouble.

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Organizations need leaders who can get great things done.  There is a secret on how to be a great leader–lead from the front.

Leading from the front is especially important in the face of significant change where the status quo is deadly to an organization’s ability to survive and grow.  Here’s what it looks like to lead from the front:

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Life is a precious thing, and to waste it by working in a job that lacks purpose and meaning is about as disengaging as its gets. It is human nature to want to be part of something greater than ourselves. Most organizations fail to connect each employee with the purpose they serve in the bigger organization, and that failure results in disengagement. Yet, every employee is a part of some greater processes; through that process they create value essential to work that matters to the organization.

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As I talk to friends and clients alike it seems pretty obvious we have all started to come to the same conclusion: we have witnessed the peak of this country’s global economic leadership. Sad but I believe it is true. That peak happened at the end of the Great Recession because it signaled our country’s attitude toward the creation of value: financial trickery. That’s not sustainable or responsible behavior.

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If you believe that most human beings actually care about their work and want to make positive contributions, then it’s easy to see how frustration can get displaced in unproductive ways. If you work inside an organization where it doesn’t matter how much you care because nothing comes of it, what would you do. I have to admit to some actions in my early career that clearly caused trouble when I once worked for a boss who was a jerk.

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Many levers are pulled by business leaders in attempt after attempt to get significantly different results through people. Whether it’s a new recognition system or black belt Six Sigma training or the latest program on change management, all of these efforts try to change underlying beliefs, models, behaviors and ultimately the organizational culture. Culture is caused by the management system, not by attempts at behavior modification.

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Employees engage when the organization they work for uses a system of management that is engineered with human nature in mind. Most of us live within a 100-year management system based on Henry Ford’s mass production thinking, and we don’t even know it. That system was designed to not engage the front line people—their job was to do what they were told. Nothing more; nothing less.

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