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The Real Job of Managers C107

alignment of employee goals with organizational goals is at least as
important as employee engagement to company success. Getting all
employees to put their oars in the water at the same time and pull
together toward the same goal is critical, but it’s more difficult to ac-
complish than some may think.
Alignment means that the company’s goals and the employees’
goals are mutually reinforcing. This driver begins, of course, with se-
nior leaders being clear about their goals and communicating them
clearly, but it doesn’t stop there. Direct managers must be held ac-
countable for aligning those goals and linking them to employees’
daily work objectives and professional growth aspirations. Senior
leaders may communicate clear goals, but if managers do not clearly
understand company goals and make them personally meaningful to
their direct reports, employees’ career and performance goals may re-
main misaligned. The following survey quote illustrates that capable
senior leaders may have clear goals that are not cascading down to
the level of the employee in a meaningful or effective way because of
dysfunction at the manager level:

The executive level is highly competent and has clear goals and
direction, while the management level is mired in constant in-
fighting that lowers morale from the middle down. This makes
it hard on a day-to-day basis at times to want to stay here. But
once you look at the company direction you stay, because there
are no better executives based on integrity and hard work
anywhere.

On the other side of the coin, if senior leaders fail to communicate
clear goals, then managers certainly cannot reinforce them, and all
employees are left guessing, as this comment reveals:

My department is a good example of one with a leader given too
many directives from too many bosses, who, as a result, has no time
for the people in the department and no idea what they’re doing
day to day. As a result we operate with virtually no leader.