There are many theories and opinions about what constitutes a great business leader. However, much of this is from the perspective of the business executive—not from the ‘factory floor’ or the office.

The vast majority of employees will not have digested the theories of leadership, but they have seen it in practice every day, and they have well-defined views about what constitutes 'good' leadership. They know what works for them.

Given the resources that businesses devote to enhancing leadership capabilities, there remains a worrying gap between the priority and the results.

Businesses fail every day because of poor management, but high-performing enterprises go to great lengths to ensure that there is a shared vision of organizational goals and direction, from top to bottom.

Many employees who are isolated from the core mission may be the victims of leadership failure; it may be failure of managers to adequately develop a strategic goal or failure to communicate the goal. Either way, it’s a serious vacuum that is costly in terms of productivity and staff morale.

This poses a number of important questions for both employers and candidates.

For employers:

1. How are you evaluating your leadership development efforts? Are you considering how best to lead a multi- generational/cultural workforce?

2. Are you grooming leaders who are solely focused on growing the business from the bottom line? It may be
time to also teach them how to grow the business from the front line.

3. How are you revising your leadership development efforts to deal with the increase in the virtual workforce?

4. Are your leaders just too busy to lead?

5. Has the move to 'matrix structured' organizations contributed to the disconnect between workers and leaders?

6. How can you encourage more group collaboration and more decision-making authority?

For employees:

1. How do you cope when your manager doesn’t speak your language?

2. What are the ways of earning more responsibility on the job?

3. How can you improve your leadership skills?

4. How can you fuel your own individual inspiration?

This post is part of  the “The Leadership Disconnect”. You can download your complimentary version here.