Engagement, or employee engagement, is a topic that has never stopped being “hot.” If you search on Google using keywords like “engagement” or “motivation,” you will find hundreds of thousands of articles. In simple terms, engagement is a state in which you can feel the strength of your connection with your work, your team, and your organization. It is often reflected through loyalty, motivation, energy at work, and creativity – qualities that every organization hopes to cultivate in its members.

One important point to note is that “engagement” is the result of the behaviors, thinking, and beliefs of leaders at all levels within an organization. If we want to change the outcome, we must change these influencing factors.

So, how important is engagement?

Think back to a time when you were in a workplace with poor team cohesion, or when you yourself felt disconnected from someone or from a project. How did you feel during that time?

Now, recall a moment – perhaps a Thursday afternoon – when you still had plenty of energy to join a meeting for an improvement project. Or a Monday morning when you walked into work full of ideas and intentions for the week ahead. At that point, you can truly understand how important it is to feel engaged.

When you sign a job offer or an employment contract, that is the moment you enter a team, an organization, or a professional relationship. It is essentially a value exchange relationship. You contribute your value – your time, dedication, knowledge, and energy – and in return, you receive income, job opportunities, learning and development, and achievements.

From this perspective, managers are not simply responsible for planning tasks, assigning work, and receiving reports. They need to do more than that. They must lead – guide employees to participate, collaborate, and move forward together. This is where the concept of “leading” goes beyond basic task management. The next question is: what kind of mindset and actions should leaders adopt to build healthy engagement?

You can refer to the Gallup Q12 framework below, which measures engagement through surveys of direct reports. The Q12 results help assess team engagement levels based on leadership behaviors, thereby providing direction for necessary improvements.

Further reading: Gallup’s Q12—12 questions used to measure employee engagement (Gallup is a global organization specializing in workplace engagement).

If you have ever studied Job Relations, you may notice how closely its four fundamental principles align with the Gallup Q12 measurements.

Hopefully, you might find yourself thinking, “Is it really that simple?”