6 Tips to Enhance Leadership Effectiveness at Your Company

Developing Leaders,  Leadership & Management

For better or for worse, people managers have the single biggest impact on an organization’s performance. To that end: Everyone deserves a great manager. But what makes an effective leader at your company? How can you identify great leaders? How can you replicate their behaviors to make everyone better?

Developing leaders should be a key component of any talent management strategy because effective leadership is essential to the success of any organization. Great leaders can inspire and motivate their teams, create a positive and productive company culture, and drive innovation and growth.

Think about it this way: If a restaurant only focused on hiring great chefs and didn't bother to teach them how to lead a team or run the kitchen, things could quickly fall apart.

By investing in leadership development, organizations can identify and nurture individuals with the potential to become future leaders and help them develop the skills and leadership qualities needed to succeed in these roles. This helps ensure the organization's long-term success and helps retain and engage employees who feel supported and valued by their employer.

Plus, a company with a strong leadership pipeline is better prepared to handle unexpected changes or challenges, easing the need to recruit external candidates for leadership positions. This can save the organization time and money, while also ensuring that new leaders have a deep understanding of the organization and its culture.

Finally, leadership development can help to create a culture of continuous learning and improvement, where employees are encouraged to develop their skills and take on new challenges. This can lead to higher engagement, job satisfaction, and improved performance and productivity.

What is leadership effectiveness?

Leadership effectiveness isn’t just a fancy title or a corner office. It’s about creating a high-performing, engaged, and purpose-driven team. Effective leaders don’t just manage people—they inspire them. They guide their teams toward shared goals while cultivating a workplace where everyone thrives.

What makes a leader effective?

Great leaders share a few key traits:

• Clear communication — The best leaders don’t just talk, they connect. Transparent, thoughtful communication builds trust and fuels collaboration.
• Trustworthiness — People follow leaders they trust. Transparency, integrity, and consistency create a safe space for teams to do their best work.
• Strategic thinking — Effective leaders see the big picture. They don’t just react, they plan, anticipate, and strategize for success.

Want to elevate leadership effectiveness in your organization? Great Place to Work® offers a tool that arms leaders with the right data to make informed decisions and drive their teams to success.

How do you measure leadership effectiveness?

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Here’s how organizations can assess leadership effectiveness:

• Employee engagement surveys — Engaged employees equals effective leadership and these surveys provide insights into how well leaders are supporting their teams
• 360-degree feedback — A holistic view of leadership, gathering input from peers, direct reports, and supervisors
• Leadership KPIs — Metrics like goal achievement, project success rates, and team performance indicators provide quantifiable proof of leadership impact
• Retention and productivity – High-performing teams with low turnover are the mark of an effective leader

The role of emotional intelligence in leadership effectiveness

Emotional intelligence (EI) is the secret sauce of great leadership. Leaders with high EI create environments where employees feel heard, valued, and motivated. The four key components of EI are:

1. Self-awareness — Understanding strengths, weaknesses, and emotions
2. Self-regulation — Staying composed under pressure
3. Empathy — Supporting employees’ needs and perspectives
4. Social skills — Building strong relationships and trust

High-EI leaders foster high-performance workplaces. When leaders understand their teams, engagement and productivity soar.

Leadership development: Lessons from Target and Allianz

Top companies (and Great Place To Work customers) like Target and Allianz invest heavily in leadership development. But here’s a surprising insight: middle managers—not executives—feel the most pressure.

Gartner research shows that 75% of HR leaders say managers are overwhelmed by their growing responsibilities. And yet, these mid-level leaders are the glue holding organizations together. They translate strategy into action, develop talent, and drive culture.

So, what happens when middle managers are ignored? Burnout. Disengagement. High turnover.

Companies investing in leadership development for middle managers see better engagement, retention, and financial performance. Removing middle managers isn’t the answer — supporting them is.

Mistakes to avoid when developing middle managers

Here’s what not to do when supporting middle managers:

• Focusing on time spent instead of outcomes — Leaders should be judged by results, not hours worked
• Failing to offer clear career progression — Employees need to see a future to stay engaged
• Not providing flexibility for development — Being flexible with leadership development means offering diverse learning formats that fit different schedules, such as on-demand e-learning, virtual coaching, or self-paced training.

The skills middle managers need to lead effectively

At Target, leadership training is aligned with business strategy. Key areas of focus include:

• Tech skills — AI and digital tools are transforming the workplace
• Change management — Helping teams navigate uncertainty with confidence
• Leadership behaviors — Inclusive communication, employee recognition, and performance management

At Allianz, the focus is on coaching and mentoring. Leaders are trained in active listening, conflict resolution, and employee development — because today’s workforce wants empathetic, approachable leaders.

How leadership development needs to evolve

The best organizations are rethinking leadership development:

• Expanding access — Training isn’t just for top performers; it should be available to all
• Measuring impact — Using HR metrics and analytics to connect leadership training with business outcomes
• Prioritizing soft skills — Leadership today is about coaching, mentoring, and emotional intelligence

At Allianz, middle managers are encouraged to be coaches, not micromanagers. Investing in leadership behaviors like active listening and feedback leads to higher engagement and retention.

9 high-trust leadership behaviors everyone should model

Great leadership isn’t about authority — it’s about trust. Great Place To Work has identified nine behaviors that build trust and create a thriving workplace:

1. Listening — The most important leadership skill—truly hear your team
2. Speaking — Clear, transparent communication fosters trust
3. Thanking — Show appreciation for contributions
4. Developing — Invest in employees’ growth
5. Caring — Support employees personally and professionally
6. Sharing — Fair compensation, bonuses, and recognition matter
7. Celebrating — Recognize achievements that align with company values
8. Inspiring — Help employees see their impact
9. Hiring & welcoming — Onboard new employees with intention

Leadership effectiveness isn’t about having all the answers — it’s about building trust, fostering connection, and creating an environment where people do their best work.

6 strategies to enhance leadership effectiveness

Our research on “For All” leaders (as laid out in our book), who intentionally build trust regardless of who a person is or what they do for the business, demonstrates that the most effective leaders focus on:

• Working with teams, seeking ideas from team members and involving them in decisions that affect them
• Recognizing employees, especially by calling out accomplishments and helping employees get ahead in their careers
• Inspiring employees to follow by showing them that leaders are competent, honest, and reliable

So how do you cultivate leaders like this at your company?

1. Identify the most important behaviors for great managers at your organization

While certain characteristics of manager effectiveness apply across most companies, true insights come from identifying the unique behaviors that best align with your organization’s mission, culture, customer needs, and strategic goals.

As mentioned above, Great Place To Work research identifies nine high-trust leadership behaviors that shape positive employee experiences and drive business success. These behaviors include listening, speaking, thanking, developing, caring, sharing, celebrating, inspiring, and hiring and welcoming.

First, identify the managers inside your organization who are successfully building high-trust relationships. Employee survey data is a source of truth here.

Interview these managers and ask them “how” they did what they did. Use this information to identify three to five habits that create a great work environment and share them across your organization.

2. Build trust

Employees follow their leaders when they trust in them. They trust managers because they believe them to be competent, honest, and reliable.

You can instill trust in your leadership in three ways:

• Create credibility: Do what you say you are going to do. If you promise your employee a project or learning opportunity, follow through on your word.
• Be respectful: Ensuring your people are set up for success. Arm them with the resources and support they need to do their best work.
• Make fair decisions: This is fundamental for building trust in your management effectiveness, especially when it comes to promotion decisions and for people who are different than you (whether gender, racial background, or tenure).

3. Be a true collaborator

Work with your team to co-create plans and concoct new ideas.

This doesn’t mean reaching a consensus or decision-making by committee. We’re talking about real involvement and collaboration.

Improve collaboration by:

• Involving your team in decisions that affect them by getting their feedback before decisions — such as moving to a new office space — are made and address any concerns
• Seeking employees’ opinions on the next problem you’re trying to solve
• Having regular one-to-ones and informal conversations, such as staffroom lunches and coffees away from the office

These effective management behaviors will make your employees feel included, valued, and inspired to do their best work.

4. Make employee recognition your ritual

Employee recognition shows employees their contributions are recognized and appreciated. A study of employee engagement by O.C. Tanner showed that personal recognition is the number one driver of employee performance — more than pay, promotions, inspiring work, training or autonomy.

Leaders can make recognition part of their manager ritual by:

• Having recognition “triggers” — for example, tangible goals with upfront guidance to managers on how to communicate the goals and track them
• Making it easy for managers to celebrate employees — for example, Hotel chain Hilton gives managers an annual “Recognition Calendar” with easy-to-implement ideas to thank employees every day of the year

5. Rethink how you promote your people

If managing a larger team is the only way to a promotion at your company, you may want to rethink your promotion process. Some people may be more valuable to the organization as an individual contributor or a part of a team.

Smart companies (and effective managers) create multiple avenues to success for employees. For example, they:

• Help people earn new responsibilities and develop their skills through new projects, lateral moves and stretch assignments
• Take an active role in employees’ development plans
• Keep an eye out for additional ways employees can add value to a project or lend their expertise to something outside of their general scope of responsibilities

6. Flip the traditional performance process

It's common for managers to rate and review their employees, but great managers want feedback to flow both ways. They make sure their employee surveys not only look at organizational culture as a whole but management effectiveness, too.

At Great Place To Work Certified™ companies, employees rate management on all five of the above behaviors in their Trust Index™ Survey.

Employees reflect on management’s behavior, whether management shows a sincere interest in them as a person (not just an employee), and how much management’s actions match their words. This authentic feedback gives a nuanced picture of management effectiveness.

Becoming a more effective leader

Want to take your leadership to the next level? The Great Place to Work Trust Index Survey gives leaders access to the insights they need to drive engagement and performance. Talk to someone on our team to learn how to measure and improve leadership effectiveness at your company.

Julian Lute