How Conscious Leadership Can Help Improve Engagement

With research indicating that UK workers are some of the least engaged globally – just around 45% of them are engaged at work, workplace consciousness and strong leadership are more vital now than ever before. 

Fulfilled employees are crucial to any company’s success. It’s not about implementing ping pong tables, or pay rises just to keep them happy; it’s about employees feeling valued, appreciated and supported by their leaders, especially now more than ever.

Conscious leadership could be a revolutionary way forward to improving a company’s culture, so in this article, we’ll cover why consciousness might be the key to employee engagement.

What is conscious leadership?

The University College London (UCL) has given a scientific validation of the Conscious Leadership Psychometric, which is proven to be a highly accurate predictor of wellbeing, burnout, and performance.  

This psychometric measure is different from other concepts and provides important data around which performance and wellbeing can be managed. 

Specifically, beyond personality, it provides:

• 46% more information about a person’s potential job satisfaction
• 43% more information about work engagement
• 37% more information about potential performance
• 30% more information about wellbeing
• 19% more information about burnout

This means that conscious leadership as a concept is statistically reliable and is an empirically valid measure that predicts important work criteria.

A leader who is ‘aware’ or has a ‘conscious’ mindset will have a significant impact on the behaviours of employees:

• Employees will have a positive outlook at work that will bounce onto other members of staff
• Employees will praise the company they work for 
• Employees become determined to hit their targets 
• Employees will want to stay with a company long-term
• Employees will align with the company’s mission and values

How leaders can create a ‘conscious’ culture 

Ultimately, being conscious as a leader starts with becoming conscious of yourself.

Here are some daily practices that can help leaders become more conscious:

1. Reflection 
2. Asking for feedback
3. Being aware of your emotions during the day
4. Being empathic
5. Having patience
6. Being mindful
7. Considering how your actions affect others
8. Being disciplined 

Then it’s about building honest and open relationships with every employee. It’s also about showing people that they are recognised and supported in all areas, reassuring them their employers actually care. Employee engagement initiatives aren’t easy to implement. They will take time to roll out and perfect.

In a world where burnout is seen as an occupational phenomenon more than ever before, managers will now have to take a more comprehensive approach to leading.

This means:

1. Creating a clear purpose to help everyone to focus on the work that matters most
2. Building resilience into the system to allow people to adapt the way they work
3. Creating plenty of opportunities for growth and development

For leaders, using consciousness as a way to build relationships, trust and commitment results in a deeply engaged workforce while sustaining energy — their own and that of everyone else.