Shift into High Gear: Turn Your Managers into Multipliers with Compounding Results
Gallup reports that only 31% of U.S. employees were engaged in 2024—the lowest in a decade. Globally it fell to 21%. The price tag? An estimated $8.8–$8.9T in lost productivity. That’s not a soft number; it’s a balance sheet disaster.
Gallup’s meta-analysis shows that highly engaged teams see +23% profitability, +18% sales productivity, +10% customer loyalty, 78% less absenteeism, plus safety and quality gains.
Translation: engagement is the shortest path from busy to better.
So why do so many firms still treat coaching and leader development like a cost to cut instead of the engine of ROI? An expense instead of the line item that literally prints revenue?
Because it’s easier to count tasks than to spark the inner shift that turns a transactional producer into a client-obsessed pro.
Managers are the lever: if they aren’t coaching and lifting their people, then engagement—and revenue—won’t compound.
Gallup’s data is blunt: managers control roughly 70% of the employee engagement lever. That means your culture, productivity, and sales momentum are not primarily dictated by HR programs, compensation tweaks, or motivational posters.
They’re driven by the person your team reports to—today.
John Maxwell says,
“Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
And the scoreboard agrees. When you raise the lid, your raise capacity—and revenue. The Law of the Lid | Maxwell Leadership
The Win You Want
You want a team that hits numbers without burning out, where individuals raise their own bar—and own the score.
Instead, you’re battling disengagement, execution drift, and activity that masquerades as impact. You’ve tried huddles and skills training—even flown in the big bosses to turn up the heat.
You need leaders who flip the lights on and ignite the room—fueling what wins: high energy, clear targets, relentless execution.
Above all, your people need confidence grounded in coached skills and repeatable processes.
What’s Really Holding Teams Back
Deals stall in review, handoffs leak, meetings multiply, and the pipeline lags. Activity is high; momentum isn’t. You see it in slow sales cycles, thin discovery conversations, and cross-sells that never quite materialize.
Meanwhile, managers react—jumping from compliance pings to customer flare-ups to senior-management urgencies—so coaching gets crowded out.
The fire alarm never stops, so the classroom stays closed.
The result? Inconsistency, exhaustion, and teams that stagnate or develop slowly because no one is engineering their growth by design.
The Philosophy: Work Should Make People Bigger
If leadership is influence, then our job is to build people—skills, courage, clarity—not just reports. Your team deserves a repeatable way to experience great leadership daily, not occasionally by accident.
Coaching the Manager: Raise the Leadership Lid
The Aim: Great managers don’t extract effort; they expand people. Coaching the manager is about lifting their own lid—mindset, motives, and habits—so the team can rise with them.
Shift 1: From Activity Cop → Capability Builder
- Belief upgrade: “My job isn’t to count widgets; it’s to grow and develop people.”
- Serve value: Teach craft, not just targets; ask, “What skill—if improved—would make next week easier for you?”
- Self-check: Where am I defaulting to policing because teaching feels slower?
Shift 2: From Self-as-Hero → Servant Leader
- Belief upgrade: “Leadership is service, not spotlight.”
- Serve value: Remove roadblocks no one else can; give credit away, take blame in-house.
- Self-check: What did I do this week that made someone else the hero?
Shift 3: From Fear of Mistakes → Learning Lab
- Belief upgrade: “Errors are tuition when we learn fast.”
- Serve value: Normalize small, safe experiments; debrief without shame.
- Self-check: When did I model curiosity over judgment?
Shift 4: From Rented Vision → Owned Mission
- Belief upgrade: “People commit to what they help create.”
- Serve value: Co-create the ‘why’ behind the week’s goals; link tasks to purpose.
- Self-check: Who on my team can tell the story of why this matters—in their own words?
Shift 5: From Unclear Standards → Lived Standards
- Belief upgrade: “What I permit, I promote.”
- Serve value: Make expectations observable (“What good looks like” examples), then live them first.
- Self-check: Where is my example blurry—and how do I tighten it?
Shift 6: From Sporadic Praise → Specific Recognition
- Belief upgrade: “Reinforcement creates repeatability.”
- Serve value: Name the behavior, why it mattered, and invite a repeat.
- Self-check: Did I recognize at least one concrete behavior per person this week?
Shift 7: From Busyness → Presence
- Belief upgrade: “Availability is an advantage.”
- Serve value: Be interruptible for the right things; give full attention in short bursts.
- Self-check: When did someone leave me taller—because I was fully there?
The Stakes: Failure vs. Success
If nothing changes: you keep paying the hidden tax—slower cycles, shallow pipelines, talent churn, and heroic firefighting.
If you change now: Managers become thermostats (set the climate) instead of thermometers (report the temperature). Engagement rises, execution tightens, and revenue follows.
Move Today: The Manager’s Lid Audit
- Where am I leading from ego (credit, control) instead of service (value, growth)?
- What fear (failure, conflict, looking foolish) is capping my team’s progress?
- Which habit of mine—if upgraded—would unlock the most lift for others?
- Who on my team needs belief from me this week, not just direction?
- What am I modeling daily that I want multiplied?
- If engagement is your 70% lever, what will you start, stop, and standardize by Friday?
A Simple, Human Scorecard for Managers
- People Lifted: # of specific recognitions given (behavior + why)
- Blocks Removed: # of roadblocks I eliminated that others couldn’t
- Growth Moments: # of times I taught a skill vs. tallied a task
- Belief Signals: # of times I said “I trust you to…” with a clear guardrail
- Presence Proof: % of 1:1s where I was on time, undistracted, prepared
Invitation
Raise the lid → raise capacity → raise revenue.
Are you ready to raise the leadership lid?
Manager Multiplier Intensive (60 minutes): We’ll identify your top two lid-shifts and set two 30-day targets that compound engagement and revenue.
Reply “LID” and I’ll send a brief intake + schedule link.
