I’ve been beating the drum of approachability for a few years now, and there is a lot of research that suggests this leadership behavior is critically important. So much in fact that I call approachability the “one ring” of leadership in my keynote speech.
There is an important gap in the research, however. No study has looked at approachability in a comprehensive way. Nobody has looked at these behaviors from beginning (can I tell the approachable leaders from the unapproachable ones?) to the end (do approachable leaders predictably deliver better work outcomes than the unapproachable ones?)
Until now.
Cameron Brown is working on his doctoral dissertation and decided to focus his research on approachability. It’s been fun to watch the research project evolve. He has already collected a modest amount of data (n=208) with individuals from different companies while preparing to conduct surveys with larger populations from individual companies (by the way, if your company is interested in participating in this research let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Cameron). Here is an infographic he created summarizing some of the early findings:
Cameron will be the first to tell you that we can’t jump to any conclusions at this point. This is a small sample. It is all “self-report” data (for example, just because someone says they engage in organizational citizenship doesn’t necessarily mean they do). These folks all work at different organizations, so that could impact the data too.
Nevertheless, these early returns are exciting. They suggest there is a strong relationship between approachability and observable business outcomes (turnover, organizational citizenship). That is something that will be tested more strongly inside companies where you can observe more than self-report data. It is also clear that unapproachable leaders are associated with some pretty negative outcomes.
Stay tuned. I’ll keep you posted as the research project continues. Please let me know if you or someone you know might be interested in letting Cameron collect data in one or more of your locations.
