So...Now What?

When I ask clients about their talent development, diversity, and other culture-building initiatives these days, they're at a loss for words. Across industries, they don't know what the priorities are: should they be involved in these extracurricular activities right now, or just stick to their core jobs?

Employees don’t want to be seen working on initiatives like diversity recruiting or culture-building events because they don’t want people to think they have time for anything nonessential to the business. And, in every case, I hear about leaders being too busy trying to keep the ship upright to tell their people what's important.

I understand the plight of leadership in these tough times. Huge pressure to cut costs to the bone, let go of people they'd much rather keep, and just plain survive. It's genuinely lonely.

But, if leaders don't tell their people where to focus, strategy becomes subject to interpretation, and a lot of productivity gets lost. (And, psst, leaders! If you tell your people what you need, you might even feel less isolated.)

So, now what? How do we get leaders to tell us what's important?