Hamed Wardak, Entrepreneur

That’s the title of a chapter in a 2015 book by leadership trainer and author Victor Lipman. With boomers retiring or preparing for retirement, more and more of today’s workforce is comprised of younger millennials and Gen Xers who have different defined values. Add to that, polling firm Gallup’s study of more than 40 years of data of 2.5 million teams led by managers and their analysis of research from 27 million employees concluded that management talent is rare. Only one in ten managers has the “God-given talent to manage a team of people,” reported Gallup.

Gallup’s most shocking discovery was that, 82% of the time, companies choose the wrong candidate for manager. They said the situation becomes compounded when companies try to fix the error by sending the manager off to training.

All’s Not Lost

In spite of the dire statistics that only one in ten managers has the right talent for the job, Gallup said they discovered a common set of talents among good managers. They found a unique way that these managers leverage and display their individual talents. Gallup cited two such examples.The first was Jerry Rudzinski. After starring as a starting outside linebacker for the Ohio State Buckeyes football team in the late 1990s, he graduated and went on to a successful career as senior director of sales for Stryker, a leading global medical technology company based in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Rudzinski successfully led a team of 11 regional managers and 112 sales representatives to post one of the highest sales engagement scores in company history. He also attracted the attention of Gallup when he was nominated for and won Gallup’s Inaugural Manager of the Year Award in 2014. What did Rudzinski credit for his success? He credited the same things that make for a successful coach. Rudzinski defined that as seeking out and recruiting the right talent for the job and then providing them with ongoing development opportunities to make the best use of their talent.

Don Payerle, a senior co-worker of his, described Rudzinski as a student of talent who loved finding, coaching and developing it. He added that Rudzinski also made it a point to learn what motivated each salesperson and then challenged them with high, but attainable goals.

The Director of the Harris Radiation Therapy Cancer Center at Gordon Hospital in Calhoun, George is the other example cited by Gallup. Lannell Jacobs is herself a cancer survivor and understands firsthand the fear and trepidation that many patients who visit the center are going through.

She understands what they need and want, and is dedicated to ensuring they receive it. Her challenge was to ensure that the rest of her staff of 15 and one physician also shared that commitment by being as psychologically and emotionally committed to their patients as she was.

Jacobs’ employee engagement score in Gallup’s database placed her in the top ten percentile and is credited to many factors. The most important is her leading by example. She’s passionate about providing holistic care to every patient at the clinic, but also balances that with the same degree of care for her staff. The personal attention and concern for her staff was demonstrated when Gordon Hospital announced plans to develop a new cancer center. Jacobs engaged her staff before the opening, asking them for input on such things as training protocols, orientation topics, and suggestions on how they could better work together as a team. This kind of empowerment and a commitment to put people first is what made Jacobs successful.