| McKinsey Classics | June 2019 |
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| Nothing engages people in their jobs more deeply than progress in meaningful work. Yet managers at all levels unintentionally but routinely undermine that sense of meaning through their everyday words and actions. They belittle their subordinates’ work and ideas. They undermine feelings of ownership by reconfiguring teams before projects end. They shift goals so often that people wonder if anything they do will ever bear fruit. And when employees feel that way, very often nothing does.
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| On the most senior levels of management, you have relatively few opportunities to intervene in the daily work lives of lower-level employees, but they nonetheless intently observe everything you say and do. An overall sense of the purpose of work, and consistent action to reinforce it, must come from you because top executives have the best position to identify and express the higher purpose of what employees do every day. To learn how to make that purpose real—and to find greater meaning in your own role as an executive—read our 2012 classic “How leaders kill meaning at work.”
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| Did You Miss Our Previous McKinsey Classics? |
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| Innovative cultures don’t magically descend from heaven. The top two motivators are strong leaders who encourage and protect innovation and top executives who actively manage and promote it. Read the 2008 classic “Leadership and innovation.” |
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