5 Behaviors of Highly Engaged Employees
January 16, 2024
How we choose to live our lives greatly impacts our attitude, our relationships, and our success at work and in life. Our job satisfaction level impacts workplace productivity, physical and mental health, and personal relationships. Employees, themselves, control 30% of the factors that account for their outlook and productivity. Let’s look at 5 actions individuals can take to increase their own workplace engagement and satisfaction.
- Be aware of your own values and needs, apply for jobs at right-fit companies. If you value integrity and collaboration, look for an organization that is known for teamwork and good customer service. Avoid those with a bad reputation.
- Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses and explore right-fit jobs. Look for positions that leverage your strengths. Avoid situations in which your weaknesses are apt to cause frequent stumbling. Using your strengths for 80% of your workday yields very high engagement, satisfaction, and productivity.
- Build relationships with your colleagues. Get to know each other during breaks and lunch. Offer to help others with their projects and ask others for ideas that could enhance your work. A friendly collaborative workplace experience increases results and personal satisfaction.
- Embrace accountability. Monitor your progress towards workplace goals. When you encounter an obstacle or a setback research alternative approaches and ask others for their input. Appreciate those who praise your progress, point out shortfalls kindly, and support you in overcoming challenges.
- Be proactive. Speak up when you foresee a problem, you’re aware of customer dissatisfaction, or a colleague is down. Take the initiative to resolve small issues so they don’t turn into serious bottlenecks.
When individuals seek out right-fit jobs and take the initiative to add value at work, their intentional behaviors enhance their commitment and enrich others’ workplace experience. What can you do this week to strengthen employee engagement, job satisfaction, and organizational results?
Most leaders say they want employees to speak up. They want people who spot risks, question assumptions, and help the organization make better decisions. Yet many employees hesitate to do exactly that. Why? Because leaders often respond to speaking up as if the speaker is complaining, criticizing or resisting. When people fear being viewed as difficult, they stop sharing what they see. The organization loses valuable information, ideas, and perspectives. A recent McKinsey article found that teams with high psychological safety are two to three times more likely to generate breakthrough ideas. When people feel safe speaking up, better thinking follows. The best leaders understand a simple truth: Speaking up is not defiance. It's duty. When employees question assumptions, raise concerns, or offer a different perspective, they are helping the team avoid blind spots and make stronger decisions. That's why effective leaders don't merely tolerate speaking up—they invite it. They ask: What are we not seeing? What assumptions are we making? Who might see this differently? What information are we missing? Just as importantly, they respond with curiosity instead of defensiveness. They thank people for expressing their perspective. They explain how input influenced decisions. They make speaking up safe. Because organizations don't improve when everyone agrees. They improve when people feel responsible for helping the team see what others may have missed. In healthy organizations, speaking up isn't rebellion. It's responsibility. It's duty. Leadership Reflection Think about your last leadership team meeting. Did people simply agree? Or did someone help the team see something it otherwise would have missed? Download 5 Questions That Surface Better Thinking and make speaking up a productive part of how your team thinks, decides, and performs.
Artificial Intelligence is becoming a powerful workplace tool. It can summarize information, analyze data, draft content, and generate ideas in seconds. But there is a growing risk leaders need to recognize: AI can sound convincing even when it is wrong. In an article by Erica Dhawan, she describes a legal case where attorneys used ChatGPT to help prepare a court filing. The brief looked professional, the reasoning seemed logical, and the citations appeared legitimate. There was only one problem: several of the cited cases did not exist. The AI had fabricated them. The danger wasn't carelessness. It was trust. Because the information was presented clearly, confidently, and professionally, nobody stopped to question it. Psychologists call this the "fluency heuristic"—our tendency to assume information is accurate when it is easy to process and sounds credible. As leaders, we cannot allow polished answers to replace critical thinking. When you find yourself thinking, "This is too good to be true," put your brain in gear. Dig deeper. Investigate. Verify the facts. Ask what assumptions were made, what information might be missing, and what evidence supports the conclusion. AI can be an incredible assistant. It should never become a substitute for judgment. The smooth answer is not always the wrong one—but it is often the one that deserves the most scrutiny. Before You Act, Verify. The biggest risk with AI isn't bad information. It's believable information that's wrong. That's why we created the AI Verification Checklist for Leaders —a simple 5-minute tool designed to help leaders challenge assumptions, identify missing information, verify conclusions, and make better decisions before acting on AI-generated recommendations. Download the free AI Verification Checklist for Leaders and start asking better questions before making important decisions.