Overcoming Leadership Barriers to Incentive Programs

Good leadership is vital if you want your incentive program to work. Participants aren’t the only ones who can hinder the program’s effectiveness—leaders can cause problems too. Here are some of the most common leadership barriers that can hinder your incentive program, and what you can do to avoid them.

Too Detached

Employees will often flounder when their leadership is too detached. Leaders should be present, not invisible. Employees will have difficulty acting in confidence if they feel management is absent. Winning a travel incentive reward will be little consolation to the employee who spends the rest of the year without any encouragement, mentorship, coaching, advice, or constructive criticism from leadership. If an incentive program lacks visible leadership, it will fail.  Detached leaders will show signs such as:

• Be clear about goals but won’t understand the strategy or tactics needed to reach them
• Focus on the past versus on the present
• Have a very small inner circle and rarely venture beyond it
• Lack energy and excitement; may be bored or burned out with work themselves
• Struggle with innovation and new ideas

To avoid this pitfall, managers need to realize the benefits of engaging their employees, and the costs of failing to do so. Creating opportunities for employees to seek counsel or share ideas will greatly benefit any program. Detachment, however, will hurt employee confidence, morale, and loyalty. Managers who make a habit of publicly praising good work, providing updates, and encouraging continued effort will create stronger teams.

How incentive programs can help detached managers win:
Incentive programs encourage detached managers to get involved and to be part of the process. By being actively involved in the process, there is now a strategy which has been clearly lacking in the past and likely some much needed excitement.

Too Involved

On the opposite end of the spectrum are leaders who are too involved. Whether it’s because they are controlling, paranoid, or nosy, overly-involved management can sap employees’ morale and motivation. Micromanaging shows a lack of trust, and doesn’t allow workers to flourish or increase their personal responsibility.

The best way to avoid micromanaging is to consider the cost. Micromanaged employees will not live up to their full potential, and won’t be able to grow in personal responsibility and self-motivation. Furthermore, micromanagement will frustrate many employees, often to the point of severely damaging their motivation and productivity. Managers who are too involved may also be reason for some workers to find work elsewhere.   One way to identify leaders who are too involved is to look closely at each leader.

• Is there a specific manager or leader who has high turn-over compared to peers?
• Do employees avoid a specific manager or seek advice, counsel or input from other managers?
• Does a particular manager seem to control the information coming into or going out of his or her department?
• Is a manager or leader struggling with delegation or always bogged down with tasks that could be assigned to others within his or her team?
• Does the team struggle to communicate with the manager or the manager get frustrated that the team doesn’t willing accept his or her input?

How incentive programs can help micro-managers win:
Incentive programs change the game for micromanagers by altering how information is distributed and transferred.  This effectively means that the micro-manager has to alter his or her management style and adapt to the new model which has a positive impact on the team’s performance.

Ego

Ego can be a problem in any area of life, but it’s certainly a threat in the business world. Leaders who think too highly of themselves may not believe that an incentive program should be necessary: ‘I don’t need a reward or incentives to do good work, so why should they?’ A leader’s ego could also cause them to resist any constructive criticism or proposed changes. A few of the warning signs are a manager or leader who:

• Always has to win
• Must get the last word in
• Views every interaction is a competition
• Demands that what they say must be obeyed to the letter
• Knows everything or has no need to learn or see things differently
• Perceives him/herself as the work problem-solver

Ego problems can be hard to address, but there is hope. Start by demonstrating how an incentive program is beneficial to your leader—it can put money in their pocket via a CEO bonus check, for example. Also, make sure you can explain all the benefits of your program, the advantages gained by your program’s success, and the cost of avoiding an incentive program altogether.

How incentive programs can help ego-driven managers win:
For the ego-driven manager, incentive programs ultimately must have to tie back to things which drive behavioral changes (for the organization to benefit) and ego needs (or the manager to benefit.)  Ultimately this boils down to the bottom-line.  The ROI of the average incentive program is 112%.

Dismissive

Another problem you may face is leadership that dismisses any criticism or new ideas. Some leaders don’t want to entertain any ideas that aren’t their own, while others are simply afraid of change or too confident that a program isn’t necessary.  Some other ways that leaders can be dismissive include:

• Thinking people work for them instead of for the company
• Failing to show appreciation and gratitude
• Taking the credit but assigning blame

To avoid the hindrance of dismissal, research, survey results, statistics, and other evidence must back up any opportunity which presents itself.  This should always be accompanied by the possible risks as well as the clear, compelling advantages which will more attractive to leaders who tend to be dismissive in nature.

How incentive programs can help dismissive managers win:
Incentive programs show dismissive managers how to effectively manage people and show appreciation, assign credit where credit is due, and get them out of their comfort zone.

Too Rigid

Some leaders are stuck in their ways, unwilling to adapt or compromise. This is a problem for any company, especially if there’s no accountability for leadership. They may think that employees shouldn’t need an incentive program for motivation, or believe that financial compensation is a sufficient motivator.  This kind of mentality is what holds companies back from succeeding while top performing companies excel year after year.  Rigid leadership may manifest in ways such as:

• Judgement about the way that employees perform work
• Creativity and innovation is either not encouraged or is discouraged
• There is only one way to do a job – the “right” way

The best way to address rigidity is to demonstrate how industries are growing and evolving. Technology is advancing, new generations are joining the workforce, and cultural expectations and desires are shifting. You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole, and old methods won’t work forever. Leaders need to be shown the ways that adapting to the times can benefit their business.

How incentive programs can help rigid managers win:
Rigid managers take their jobs too seriously and their people need the freedom to explore without the confines of this management style.  Incentive programs change the way that the game has been played. In the past there was only one game but with an incentive program it is a new game with new rules.  If set up correctly (especially if teams are involved in the early stages of development) they will have more freedom to explore other ways to do the job.  Ultimately this may be difficult for the rigid manager but if he or she starts seeing results, he or she may come to appreciate this new way and adapt.

Too Cautious

You may also encounter leaders who only play it safe, too afraid to take risks. Maybe they’ve experienced failure in the past and are worried they’ll fail again, or they could just be naturally timid. Regardless of the underlying reasons, their overly cautious nature can be a hindrance.  Cautious leaders often display characteristics such as:

• When stress is high, choses to stay in his or her office, hides behind email, finds busy work to do, meetings to attend or suddenly takes a vacation
• Avoids difficult choices that often blame other people or departments or cleverly postpones for discussion at a later time
• Ignores real problems such as costly mistakes/errors, bad behavior (e.g. sexual harassment), etc.
• Finds accountability, both for him/herself and for teams, difficult to manage

Your response to an overly cautious leader should be similar to your response to a dismissive leader. Leaders who tend to play it safe need to be shown an airtight proposal that weighs the advantages and disadvantages of the program. They need to see how the program can work, and how beneficial it will be. They’ll also be helped by taking things one step at a time, starting small and working your way up.

How incentive programs can help cautious managers win:
Cautious managers need accountability and need environments that better controlled though not micro-managed.  Incentive programs can help cautious managers by providing better accountability for their team members as well as themselves. Tools, resources, communication centers (e.g. websites, apps, etc.) are all part of a playbook that may not have existed before.

Conclusion

Your leaders will impact your program in significant ways, either positive or negative. If you want your efforts to succeed, you’ll need a healthy relationship with the people in charge. Through mutual self-awareness, clear communication, and helpful information, you can prevent the leadership obstacles that can ruin your program before it even begins.

Considering a travel incentive program?  Contact Gavel International to learn more about how we can help you strengthen your business objectives.