Mindful Leadership: Rescuing Productivity and People from the Awareness-Authority Gap

Every day, leaders strive to create an efficient workplace so their teams can offer their best. Still, productivity, people and best intentions are often lost to a gap in how we work.

Have you ever noticed a glaring hurdle in your workday that seemed insufficient or invisible to management? Workplaces hum with many frictions and frustrations that needlessly grind away at precious resources, momentum, and morale. As leaders, we can pivot our approach to ensure our people have a smooth and empowering environment.

Top-notch people bring to work an unwavering drive to contribute their best. When yesterday's results fall short, they still strive to maximize today. Yet, even with hard work, determination, and swift problem-solving, results can still fall short of their potential.

Over my career, I’ve seen a disconnect between a company’s aim to optimize resources and the actual use of those resources. A gap in perception can often block even the best of intentions from becoming results.

Peering at the Awareness-Authority Gap

A continuous improvement culture serves as an organization's eye in the sky, ensuring wasteful uses of time, energy, and resources receive the necessary attention. Concerned and responsible personnel do their part by spotting inefficient and disruptive elements that erode much-needed money, momentum, and morale. Yet, many of these noted issues elude even the watchful eyes of leadership and remain unchecked.

THE GAP DEFINED

These opportunities for improvement are lost to what I call the Awareness-Authority Gap: a disconnect between those aware of an issue and those with the power to affect it. On one side of the gap, the “Aware” are the people on the ground dealing with daily operations and often the first to notice an issue but can’t influence it. On the other is the “Authority,” those with power or responsibility (supervisors, managers, or business owners) to affect change but without the vantage to fully appreciate or understand the issue or its impacts.

Unfortunately, productivity and personnel that fall between this gap tend to suffer. I see several factors that contribute to inaction.

Into the Gap: Factors and Unfortunate Events

Leaders may miss underlying issues because they seem trivial or are masked by overall productivity, while admirable traits in employees can often hide systemic inefficiencies that need addressing.

LIMITED VANTAGE AND VISIBILITY

If you’re a leader, someone in your charge may directly or indirectly mention an issue they’ve been facing. Within the grand picture of your responsibilities, this issue may not be worth a second look when everyone seems productive. However, often, it’s only when a hindrance is frustrating enough, impacting performance, and outside of someone’s control, that they send it up the ladder.

Your people respect your time and theirs. So, any issues brought forward are often brief, as to fulfill their duty by mentioning their hurdles but not come off as a whiner. Also, they’re not going to dig into the depth and breadth of the issue because it’s not their call nor within their capability, despite that they still feel the drag of the disruptions.

Your personnel work within the environment provided to them and everything in it, including systems, processes, methods, forms, and tools. Most of their environment is out of their control, so it's reasonable to pass to those with control.

DISGUISED AS DESIRABLE

The friction and drag in a system can also disguise itself within our view of our people’s performance. Ideal traits like hard work, problem-solving and adaptability may mask more significant issues. For instance, an employee working late may appear as dedicated when, in reality, they’re burdened by the friction of an inefficient process. So then, how much time and effort do they spend each day pushing past obstacles that need not exist in the first place? How much of their capability and momentum is hindered?

Jobs naturally come with challenges, and our ability to overcome these is how we succeed and grow, but devoting our best selves to challenges that we know or feel should not be in our way can be a defeating thought.

TRIGGERED BY FEAR

Frictions deep within the day-to-day operations often only get addressed when they surpass comfort levels. As an issue radiates and affects more people, fear often ensues, triggered by the failure of a fatigued system or the uneasy ring of a near miss. The rumours and remarks then become real, but many resources, opportunities, and people will have already been lost.

THE MISSING FRICTION

If you truly want to empower your people, opportunities may not only lie with the issues you can see but with the ones you can’t. Your people would understandably choose to convey issues with the most friction and hindering impact on their performance and others, but what did they not raise, or worse, what did they not even notice?

OBSCURED FROM EVEN THEIR VIEW

Some people don’t see problems the way leaders see them. Individuals may perceive daily frictions and obstacles as inherent to their job, finding satisfaction in overcoming them. These minor victories are often rewarded with a sense of accomplishment and value, along with a reinforcing burst of dopamine. This cycle can further obscure the more profound issues from those with the authority to address them.

FRICTION TO FATIGUE TO FAILURE

Unchecked issues, even minor, can create a disruptive and costly ripple effect. Your people may reach a point where they not only realize their hard work, drive, and talents are wasted on valueless efforts but may also suspect change is unlikely. At this point, fatigue approaches failure. Individuals may feel their expertise and enthusiasm could be better spent with another company and simply leave. This vacancy in the organization often creates a ripple of loss with recruiting efforts, onboarding resources, and the ever-so-inefficient acclimation period to bring the newbie up to par. Or worse, they stay for the long haul but without the same drive, determination, and eagerness to solve problems as they once did.

Mending the Gap

We can catch these frictions and frustrations before they become operational fatigue and failures. Not every bump people feel in their day is worth devoting time and attention to. However, we should still promote a maintenance mindset to prevent as much loss and damage as possible.

The Awareness-Authority gaps can be closed so everyone can contribute to boosting productivity and morale. Here are some ways to create a maintenance mindset and close the gap.

BE OPEN

Ensure your people know that any persistent hindrances affecting their performance can be mentioned and will be considered. As a leader, your people are your eyes and ears for the details of the day. They become your sensors that can feel hot spots in your operation before anyone else. What interferences, misalignments, and vibrations are your people detecting?

LOOK

Be observant of how your people handle their work and the kinds of challenges they work through. Are they applying valuable hard work, determination, and problem-solving to overcome unnecessary?

LISTEN

Pay attention to the issues, annoyances, or alternative methods your people discuss. Consider these concerns may be worse than they appear. Each member of your team could be experiencing far more friction, drag and frustrations than they’re sharing. These events may seem isolated to you, but what if it’s not? What if a seemingly small drag or detour comes up several times a day, every day, and by multiple people? If they took the time to not only identify an issue but also request your time to mention it, then in their minds, it’s significant and worth bringing up.

HEAR

The squeaky wheel may get the grease, but not if drowned out by the daily grind. Keep an ear out for noises like these in conversation. Whether a direct or indirect comment throughout the day or an overheard complaint to a coworker, they are often signs of a deeper issue. Listen for those rumbles, aches, and concerns throughout the day. Things that sound like: “This is frustrating.”, “Why do we do it this way?”, “I feel like there is a better way.” or “I don’t understand why we are…”.

Responsible for their Realm and Performance

Throughout my career, I’ve noticed, experienced, and witnessed this Awareness-Authority Gap in some form or another, grinding away at vital resources, keen opportunities, and great people. So, I try to view the performance of people through an empathetic lens that reveals their less obvious friction and frustrations. If I am responsible for their environment, I am also responsible for their performance, whether it be empowering their wins or preventing their failures. My perspective and inaction could be hindering their success.

Enhance and Empower the Productivity of Your People

By minding and mending the Awareness-Authority Gap, we can not only uplift our teams but also drive our organizations toward sustainable success. As leaders, it's our responsibility to actively listen, observe, and empower our teams to voice their challenges. Close the gap to transform your organization's productivity and morale.

Remember, your people are your greatest asset, and you are responsible for the environment that enhances or hinders that asset. Give them the tools they need to succeed, and they will help your organization thrive.