Recognition, loyalty, engagement and Valentine's Day

As I tweeted early this morning, I truly hope that you show your appreciation and care to loved ones, employees, and co-workers throughout the year, authentically, and not just today, because your calendar happens to show a certain hyped up date.

Demonstrating interest, appreciation and loyalty towards your employees, including mustering the courage and taking the time to provide them with difficult feedback that lights up blind spots and opens new perspectives, has many positive effects.

- It increases engagement, defining an engaged employee as one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about, his or her work. Someone who will therefore act in a way that furthers the organization's interest. A loyal and devoted employee.

- It encourages integrity, which, as discussed in a previous post, I think consists of identity, authenticity, alignment, and accountability and results in effective, ethical, and engaging work and results.

- It increases accountability once clear expectations are set and communicated and once all parties understand and support the why and what of these expectations as well as how they will be measured and supported.

I'm sure it's clear from the above that engagement, integrity, and accountability are intertwined, as most (or all) of our world is. That's the beauty and the complexity of the world of organizational effectiveness and beyond.

In today's HBR post Bill Taylor refers to Vince Lombardi's most important principle: Love is more powerful than hate:"The love I'm speaking of is loyalty, which is the greatest of loves," Lombardi told his audiences. "Teamwork, the love that one man has for another and that he respects the dignity of another...I am not speaking of detraction. You show me a man who belittles another and I will show you a man who is not a leader...Heart power is the strength of your company."

Seems to me a perfect, powerful principle to keep in your heart and your actions on Valentine's Day and any other day of the year. Wishing you an abundance of Heart Power.