Businesses are run by human-beings. Human-beings make them run smoothly; human-beings create value for the company and its stakeholders; human-beings make or break a business.
It’s odd then, that although so many companies talk about their people being their greatest asset, their actions don’t always align to that statement.
It’s time we embraced more human-centred leadership to bring out the best in people. I realise that leaders have a dearth of time – well actually, that’s not true, it’s really a dearth of attention. If only leaders would realise that investing time in conversations with their people would lead to the results that they currently focus most of their attention on, we’d all be better off. It’s not one or the other – human-centred leadership creates results, by engaging people in ways that motivate them.
I wrote this back in 2015.
Five years later, in the midst of global turmoil, this seems more pertinent than ever.
But what IS human-centred leadership apart from focusing on the human before the task?
Let’s take a step back for a moment and look at Human-Centred Design, which is where the term came from originally. HCD is:
“The discipline of generating solutions to problems and opportunities through the act of making something new where the activity is driven by the needs, desires, and context of the people for whom we design”. LUMA
So Human-Centred Leadership might be:
“The discipline of generating new ways of leading where the activity is driven by the needs, desires, and context of the people we lead”.
To understand the needs, desires and context of the people we lead, we need to ask questions.
Questions such as:
- What drives you?
- What motivates you?
- What gets you out of bed in the morning?
- What do you love doing?
- What are you best at?
- What do you hope for from work?
- What do you hold dear?
- What are your values?
- What is your family situation? Dependencies? Caring responsibilities?
- How does that influence your life decisions?
- How can we partner together to enable you to achieve your aspirations?
- How can I best support you?
- How much challenge would you like from me? etc
It’s not really rocket science, is it? But how many of these questions do you know the answers to for your people? How often do you have these kinds of conversations that get deep underneath the surface? People’s circumstances change regularly so the conversations need to be regular – not once and done. And let’s not assume we know the answers either. Just because we feel a certain way about looking after our aged Grandmother does not mean that our team member will feel the same.
I’m all about asking not telling, and this is just one more example. In this case it’s asking not assuming.
If you want to work on your own Human-Centred Leadership, through coaching, please get in touch via clare@clarenormancoachingassociates.com
