“Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.” – Immanuel Kant

 

 

When training leaders, I’ve often used a simple exercise to frame our conversation: I’ll ask for everyone to give me the first one or two words that come to mind, when they hear the word, “Leader.”

 

As we go around the room, I write the words on a whiteboard. They sound like this:

• Visionary
• Caring
• Addresses issues
• Problem solver
• Good listener
• Vision
• Direction
• Trustworthy
• Etc.

I’ve done this exercise in a number of countries, and in many cultures and the answers are always similar.

I then ask the group if they’ve ever had a leader who didn’t represent these words. Predictably, there is laughter and head nodding.

Then we discuss how it is very possible to attain a leadership position yet not have the traits that people most naturally desire from their leaders.

Yes, people want decisive, direction-setters for leaders.

For most people, what this really boils down to is the question: Does this leader care about me and those around me?

Leadership is about people

It always amazes me, when I hear someone in leadership describe how they hate dealing with people.

Then they complain about the lack of commitment or loyalty from their team.

There is no mystery. The two go together.

Leaders who are “tone deaf” — not attuned to the impact of their decisions impact or just don’t care about others — aren’t leading.

They might be exercising power. But they aren’t leading.

Leadership is about people. There is a specific kind of relationship a leader creates when he or she is able to discover and tap into the motivation of others.

That’s always done by recognizing and valuing what is important to other people.

That reason isn’t mysterious.

Recognizing and expressing humanity

“The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality; The last is to say thank you. In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor . . .

A friend of mine characterized leaders simply like this: ‘Leaders don’t inflict pain; they bear pain.'”

— Max De Pree

There is a unique burden carried by leaders.

For leaders to be truly effective, they must be empathetic to the needs and concerns of those they lead. However, they can’t expect to necessarily receive empathy in return.

This isn’t a reflection that people don’t care about the leader. Instead, it’s a reflection that most people just can’t accurately imagine what it’s like to be in your shoes.

Leaders are always vulnerable to being put on a pedestal or in a pillory instead of being empathized with.

However, the more human a leader is, the more approachable and transparent, the more others relate to the leader as the person they are – as opposed to a figure they don’t understand.

How to Cultivate A Sense of Humanity

1. Self-Awareness: Leaders need to be aware of how others experience them. Most people have an inaccurate understanding of how we are experienced by others. But studies show that the greater the alignment between a leaders’ self-perception and everyone else’s perception – the more effective that leader is.

The best way to learn self-awareness is to get in the habit of asking others. You can use a tool, such as a 360-degree assessment. Or you can simply ask someone a “feed-forward” question along the lines of: “I intended to (make this impact/relate in this way/respond like this) how well do you think I did? What are one or two specific suggestions for how I could improve?

If you ask those questions often enough, you’ll develop a much more accurate perspective of yourself. (Note: Some leaders, inaccurately, believe that this question will cause others to see them as weak or unsure of themselves. That’s not what this question is about. It’s a calibration question. “I intended to hit target x. Did I? If not, how can I improve my aim?” Calibration is not weakness. People already know what they are thinking about you. You are just bringing it into the light.)

2. Practice Empathy: Empathy is not my strong point. I’m not on Oprah’s short list to fill in on a sick day. That said, many of my biggest leadership challenges have come from missing what someone is feeling.

I’m pretty intuitive, I usually pick up on where people are at. But I can get so goal-driven that I forget to respond to it. The result is often opposed to my goal to be winsome and draw people in –Instead I can accidentally push people away or contribute to them not feeling valued.

Due to many of those mistakes, I’ve learned that empathy is important. It’s helped me to practice empathy when it doesn’t seem necessary.

Here is an example of one way I practice: when one of my children is telling me about their day, I try to identify and reflect back the experience before I respond to what they said. “That sounds like that was pretty exciting!” or “I’m sorry to hear that, you sound frustrated.” Sometimes, that’s all they need to hear.

The moment that I take to do that, helps me slow down. When I slow down, I create space to connect with the other person. Connection makes leadership more effective.

3. Care for Others: Very early in my consulting career, I took a contract with a small non-profit. Just before I was hired, the executive director had put everyone on notice, “You are all replaceable.”

It was amazing at how efficiently she gutted the morale of her team. As I tried to adapt the project design to best meet the needs of the communities they served – she resisted me at each step. It became clear that not only did she not value her team, but she didn’t understand (or seemingly care) about bringing value to the communities they served.

I quit the project shortly after. Not surprisingly, the non-profit shut down within a couple years.

I love working with people who genuinely care about others. I have a hard time working with clients who view their staff as disposable, customers are just wallets, the community is just an economy and families are obligations. I feel zero motivation to help that client win.

I discovered something interesting: my highest performing clients, the ones who are most effectively achieving their goals and are the most profitable – are the ones who consistently care about people.

Of course, they need to do more than just care about people. But that care is a motivator and a compass which drives them forward to grow, create opportunities, offer more value and just run a better organization.

This is what people want and it makes good business sense. It creates loyalty, it’s what generates grace for inevitable leadership mistakes.

Benefits of Demonstrating Humanity

When leaders don’t do this well, when they operate like machines, they often miss the impact of their decisions. They tend to alienate others. They are unable to garner or retain respect. They generate opposition.

Leaders who do this well, tend to display social responsibility. They build the communities they live in. They tend to experience good employee relations. When issues or mistakes happen, they are more likely to experience understanding and support from employees and customers – than complaints.

In my experience, they are more profitable, more effective and happier in what they do. Not a bad return.

Take good care,

Christian

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