By Marshall Mosher, founder & CEO of Vestigo | Leveling up remote teams via VR adventure.
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The so-called Great Resignation remains a dominant trend as employees leave their jobs at a torrid pace. While the rate of resignations has subsided since its April 2022 zenith, companies are still grappling with historically high quit rates.
Often, this burden lands on the shoulders of company leaders, who are at once blamed for making a job untenable and tasked with filling positions in a highly competitive hiring environment. When coupled with the added stress of economic uncertainty, supply chain disruptions and shifting consumer trends, it’s no surprise that many managers are struggling.
Consequently, according to one analysis, manager resignation rates increased by 1.2% year-over-year, a more drastic increase than for their employees.
For leaders, this predicament can feel bleak. After all, they are already approaching the upper echelons of their companies, so a promotion or job change is unlikely to offer the career (and life) altering changes that make work sustainable and rewarding. For companies, a leadership exodus can be crippling.
Therefore, companies should work to understand the particular predicament facing leaders before it’s too late.
Leaders Are Working Hard And Heading Out
Executives and managers are just people. They are prone to the same challenges as their employees, and the past two years have indeed been difficult.
For starters, overwork, fatigue and lack of support are overwhelming leaders, prompting them to look for better opportunities elsewhere. One leadership survey discovered that 60% of managers feel “used up” at the end of a workday.
As a result, a Deloitte survey found that 70% of executives are considering leaving their current jobs for more sustainable, supportive workplaces.
In addition, Gallup’s ongoing employee trends research shows that diagnosed depression increased for managers in the past year. Only 25% of managers strongly agree that they can “maintain a healthy balance between work and personal commitments.”
These trends are undoubtedly exacerbated by the rapid transition to remote or hybrid work. This change required managers to quickly develop new skills while reimagining their roles for a new digital-first work environment.
In a tight labor market, managers may be incentivized to quit this toxic dynamic, expecting that something—anything—is better than their current circumstances.
Helping Leaders Thrive
For businesses, this is a frightening proposition as leadership disruption can erode company culture, accelerate employee turnover and interfere with key company objectives. Simply put, businesses should support their leaders now with programs and processes that work. Here’s how they can begin that process today.
Upskill Leaders
Remote and hybrid work arrangements have been great for workers, but the transition may be more difficult for leaders. According to a Harvard Business Review study, 40% of managers expressed low self-confidence in their ability to manage their newly remote teams effectively.
Prioritizing upskilling can help leaders improve their performance and job satisfaction in a changing environment. This can include assisting leaders in developing hard skills, like leveraging new technologies to perform business tasks, and soft skills, like establishing trust and communicating with off-site team members.
Regardless of the approach, identify the skills managers need to thrive and upskill leaders to help them succeed.
Invest In A Strategic Retreat
Sometimes we need to step back to move forward.
Investing in strategic team challenge retreats can help leaders reconnect with their purpose while pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Whether mountain climbing or paragliding, surfing or white water rafting, caving or hiking, these mindset-altering experiences provide the space for people to rediscover their potential and accelerate self-discovery.
Notably, in a decentralized, digital environment, gathering leaders for a strategic retreat can be both in-person (like the options described above) or in the metaverse via virtual reality (VR) through hyper-realistic versions of similar experiences.
Uniquely challenging moments call for profoundly impactful responses. A strategic retreat can help facilitate those outcomes, supporting personal and professional development that helps leaders thrive where they are.
Allow People To ‘Explore And Exploit’
Quitting a company entirely is popular and convenient, but there are other options that enable change without abandoning an organization. Writing in the Atlantic, Derek Thompson explains this dynamic as an “explore-exploit” sequence where people constantly search for ways to quit their job without leaving their companies.
Simply put, exploring and exploiting means considering ways to change, expand or alter your current role to maximize personal growth and opportunity.
As Thompson helpfully explains, “Careers are not the mere linear progression of titles ascending toward the ‘C’ acronyms: CMO, CTO, CEO. Better to think of your working life not in one dimension, but in two: the horizontal exploration of ideas, skills, and tasks, and vertical commitments to a single line of work that really fits.”
Companies should empower and encourage this process, ensuring that high-performing leaders are positioned to best contribute to and remain with the organization.
Don’t Let Leaders Flounder
Conversations about the Great Resignation have rightly focused on employees and the destabilizing impact of their changing priorities and preferences. However, managers and upper management are also impacted, and thriving companies can’t afford to ignore this dynamic.
In this regard, doing nothing is not an option. Companies can’t just let leaders flounder. Instead, they should help leaders thrive by investing in processes, practices and experiences that equip their teams to succeed now and in the future.
