Engagement provides fuel for productivity: certain behaviors of senior-level financial executives and leaders have been identified as having a quantifiable and measurable impact on their teams' engagement and performance.

• Author: Edinger, Scott
• Position: Leadership

Consider the contrast between the most successful financial executives and the average or even poor ones. An executive's success likely has little to do with just technical or financial expertise. Most financial leaders, by the time they reach a level of significant responsibility, are quite accomplished in this area. Many will have degrees from top schools and nearly all will possess superior analytical and technical skills.

What is often most interesting about the difference between great financial executives and their less accomplished counterparts is how they lead their teams, how they interact with people, how they connect with clients and how they pay close attention to the non-technical elements of their responsibilities. For financial leaders, technical abilities are the table stakes that provide the opportunity to create value for an organization. They are necessary, but alone not sufficient.

Renowned management guru Peter Drucker said: "The most valuable assets of a 20th century company were its production equipment. The most valuable asset of a 21st century institution, whether business or non-business, will be its knowledge workers and their productivity."

While all organizations preach that people are their most important asset, few actually behave accordingly. To drive productivity, both qualitatively and quantitatively, paying close attention to the factors that drive the engagement of the people in the organization or on the team is the key to success as a finance leader.

Consider just a few of the results of improved productivity:

* More efficient processes for workflow from simple reporting to complex tasks.

* Lower costs and the ability to deliver greater value while keeping up with the rapidly evolving regulatory environment.

* Reductions in costly re-work, errors and information overload (filter failure).

* A greater sense of work/life balance from lower levels of frustration and higher levels of satisfaction.

* Stronger relationships and teamwork with other organizational functions by creatine value with insight to the business.

The preceding is an enviable list that any leader would want for their team, division or organization. How then to go about achieving the kind of employee engagement that will produce these outcomes?

When evaluating employee engagement, several trends have emerged that have the greatest influence on employees. When applied specifically in the finance function, these leadership behaviors have a...