Rethinking Engagement: From Managed to Self-Led

We’ve spent decades trying to engage people — measuring it, managing it, incentivizing it. Yet, engagement remains one of the most elusive goals in modern work.

Maybe the problem isn’t with people. Maybe it’s with the premise.

Engagement isn’t something you get from others.

Engagement begins within

Every person has an internal engine of motivation — a drive to learn, to grow, to contribute, and to create. But in many organizations, that natural drive gets buried beneath layers of control, compliance, and well-intentioned systems designed to manage performance.

The truth is: engagement can’t be managed. It must be led — and the person who leads it first is the individual.

Self-led engagement begins when we shift the question from:

“How do we get people to care more?” to “How do we create the conditions where people can care fully?”

It’s not about adding new perks, slogans, or surveys. It’s about restoring ownership — giving people back the right to shape how they experience their work.

Why self-led engagement matters now

The old model of engagement depends on the organization to motivate the individual.

The new model recognizes that motivation is already there — it just needs space, trust, and awareness to surface.

For employees, it’s an invitation to reclaim agency. To approach work not as something that happens to you, but something you shape every day through awareness, choice, and action.

For leaders, it’s a challenge to stop managing engagement and start designing for it. That means:

• Creating conditions where people can experiment and learn without fear.
• Measuring growth as much as output.
• Seeing enjoyment — purpose, flow, connection — as a performance variable, not a distraction from it.

Redefining work

When people take ownership of their own engagement — and organizations support them in doing so — the entire experience of work changes.

Performance improves because people are focused on what matters.
Learning accelerates because curiosity replaces compliance.
Enjoyment deepens because contribution feels meaningful.

This is what it means to redefine work — to make it not just what we do, but who we become through the doing.