I recently stumbled upon an article over on the European Leaders Network that was titled Leadership Crucial in Retention of Talent. Needless to say, I was a little shocked. How much more obvious can you get? Come on! I don’t know about you, but I’ve never heard anyone say “My boss is a a**h0l3! I work nine hours, he tells me I should have worked ten. I do my job and his job, and then he asks if I can do the administrative assistant’s job as well so she can accompanying him on that Bermuda trip. I arrive five minutes late because I was honestly stuck in traffic due to a six-car pile up on the interstate, and I get my head chewed off for the next forty-five minutes. He arrives forty-five minutes late for the all-hands meeting he scheduled, and then gets a big bonus later that day. Of course I love working here and would never think of leaving, even it was for a job where I would get treated like a real human being!“

But it gets better – it’s based on a study by US-based Kenexa Research Institute who, apparently, had to survey workers in six countries to find out that those [senior management] teams who demonstrate a strong emphasis on customers, an unwavering commitment to ethical behavior, and who keep employees informed about the direction the company is headed, are the [senior management] teams who build more highly engaged workforces and outperform their competitors. It makes you wonder what type of hypothesis they started with – did they honestly think it was the companies who hired trained chimpanzees to manage their workforces that succeeded?

You don’t even have to pay me my not-insignificant day rate to get this consulting advice from me. I’ll give it to you for free! After all, it’s just the old adage of treat others as you would want to be treated yourself (unless, of course, you’re a masochist who revels in pain and mental anguish – then simply treat others as you would not want to be treated).