According to a Gallup Survey only 36% of Managers and Executives are engaged in their job.  51% are not engaged, and 13% are actively disengaged.  Wow!  

Workload and relatively flat earnings play a role.  Too many companies promote a view that everyone is replaceable.  But the survey found that the main driver was the boss.  “Managers from hell” are costing the US economy from $450 billion to $550 billion annually.

The survey also found that those who work off-site 20% of the time are more satisfied.  Why is that?  There are a number of surveys all confirming these findings.  We take two calls to action away from them:

1. If you are not engaged, or actively disengaged, what are you going to do about it?
2. If you are the boss, do you really know how your team feels about you and your leadership style?

Through our work we have met many executives who were desperately hanging onto a job they were not even sure they wanted.  Invariably their family feels it, and you can even see it in their faces.  So why do they stay?  One reason is that they do not know what else they would, or could, do.  Another is that “bird in hand is worth two in the bush.”  Neither are solving the core problem.  

Our society and workplace are evolving so fast that many new opportunities exist.  Talent and experience are more portable than ever before, as are ways to “get current” for different roles.  So, do you want to stay where you are as long as you can — or do you at least want to understand your options?  While you are pondering perhaps you will appreciate this poem:

If a man (or woman) does not keep pace with their companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Let him (or her) step to the music they hear, however measured or far away.

Henry David Thoreau

Link to survey:  http://theweek.com/article/index/246084/why-most-americans-hate-their-jobs-or-are-just-checked-out

– Jim Deupree