What can help us being great (human) leaders?
To answer this question, we should start with our personal values. Gandhi, in his great wisdom, said : “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony“. Before asking you to take human aspect into account, ask you if you care about human (not as a resource but as a human being). If you don’t, it is maybe time to think to move to another blog, you likely won’t be interested in what will follow. If you do really care, ask yourself if you fell in harmony with this value and your other values. If you feel something is wrong, you might have a need for real change. What matters for you? In a perfect world as you see it, as you dream it sometimes, what will be different?
If you can picture what should be different, you can start change yourself. Be the change you want to see in your company (to paraphrase Gandhi, him again). Changing a company culture starts at the top. Leading by example. You want to have a “human” company… be human! You don’t know how to do? It is fine, you are human. You can make mistakes. Just communicate, learn to be vulnerable. It will just make you a better person, a better leader. Making mistakes is not the problem. Not learning from it, is one.
You need to avoid two common pitfalls here. First, contrarily to lot of companies claiming their 3,5 or 10 corporate values, you should adapt your management style to reflect these values. If you talk about entrepreneurship, let people take decisions. When you talk about creativity, accept that employee (including yourself) will make mistake. Do what you say you do, not the opposite. If you are scared of making mistakes, you can’t be creative. It is paradoxical communication. If you want to have a psychotic kid, try such kind of communication, tell her/him you love him and slap her/him on the face.
Second pitfall is the definition of your job as a leader. Are you an expert, a decision maker, a key element in a complex machinery? Lot of managers believes or fell that they must be strong, always right, providing directions, controlling everything. If you do so, It does not let them you a lot margin of maneuver. How many leaders are stuck in meeting all day, taking decisions based on very limited knowledge and without a real understanding of what their subalterns, subject matters experts or not, thinks of the subject? You must be able to trust your team, you must be available in order to ear their ideas, their fears, their issues, their needs. You must understand what they do. In order to do this well, you cannot be in a complementary higher position. You need to be able to be high, low and symmetric. When you don’t know, you are low, accept it. When you take the decision, you are high (referring to Watzlawick).
The job of a leader is to define a strategy, directions, and to take the necessary decisions to make it happen. In order to do this, you must listen, be emphatic, take all inputs into accounts, accept to be challenged, take sounds decisions that you can explain to your kids. Leaders should trust their people, act as human, taking emotions into accounts, be available and take decisions, good or bad and stay consistent with their values, their directions. Be a leader, be human.
