Putting People First: The Power of Human-centred Leadership in Today's Workplace

In this post, you will be introduced to a simple tool to determine how good you are at human centred leadership.?

And, here it is:

No need to read more, unless you are curious...

What kind of leader are you?

There are reams of effective leadership styles, but one thing that runs across them is this:?good leaders empowers their people.?

Often this means, after setting a clear direction and clear milestones, good leaders get out of the way, to allow people and teams to deliver. In this process, people and teams have agency to use their experience and skills, and leaders demonstrate trust in their people to deliver. Here, the leader has a role, in coaching, training or up-skilling people where necessary, to support them to deliver objectives. Aside from this enabling role, the leaders role is to hold teams to account on the milestones set.?

So, people and team empowerment is one familiar part of effective leadership, however when we are human-centred, there is a second, possibly more important role, and this is where the tool above comes into play.

Human centred leadership?

Human centred leadership is simply leadership that puts people first. What does that actually mean? In practice, it relates to the development of 'inside-out' skills which increase a persons capabilities and sense of wellbeing. The goal in human centred leadership is to ensure that your people are better as a result of their sustained interactions with you as their leader.?

Your tool kit for human-centred leadership can include: mentoring or coaching techniques, regular connection with individuals and teams, e.g., giving people access to your time, and facilitating meaningful conversations in this time, taking the time to understand peoples strengths and passions so you can better deploy them in meaningful work, helping people discover their purpose, regular development sessions with opportunities for learning application, various meeting structures, such as whole organisation or devision meetings to keep people updated on change, and helping people to understand why their work matters and what it contributes to the organisation as a whole.?

There are in fact a myriad of ways to demonstrate your focus on people first. Whatever tools you decide to activate, it is about conducting yourself in such a manner that people feel that they are able to bring the best versions of themselves to their role, and that people feel seen and respected as human beings first.

Perhaps this sounds too soft?

Paradoxically, human centred leadership delivers better organisational outcomes, because as Mackenzie put it, businesses succeed more when they treat the soft stuff as the hard stuff.? We should also add, this form of leadership actually requires challenging each others viewpoints when we disagree, evaluating outputs and giving critical feedback. What’s different here, is that in holding each other to account, no challenge is seen to be personal, as there is a foundation of respect created through the operationalised elements from your human-centred leadership tool box.?

A common mistake for new leaders

Know how to operate in the appropriate sphere.

One pitfall I have seen with activities, structures and ways of working, designed to increase human centred leadership, is when leaders attempt to quickly or clumsily move from the public zone to the personal zones. This looks like team dinners, where staff are required to come, family fun days or fireside chats that demand high levels of vulnerability. These are actually great, but they will only work in teams with a robust sense of trust and psychological safety! The tools you use need to fit the environment you’re in.?

Simply put, ensure that there is psychological safety established before moving to compassionate leadership tools and techniques that tilter too far into the personal sphere. While human-centred leadership is fundermentally personal, it begins as personal in relation to wellbeing and optimisation for meaningful work. Depending on the level of psychological safety and depending on the temperaments of the people involved in the team, be mindful of the three spheres of influence. Move further into the personal once psychological safety is established.

Assessing your leadership style - are you human-centred??

In the world of elite performance sport, specifically football, we used the following simple tool. It is a checklist to help you determine whether you are developing your team from the inside-out. I have adapted the tool to act as a checklist for human-centred leadership.?

How to use the tool

1. Identify a team who you would like to focus on supporting with a human centred leadership approach.?

1. Ensure as a leader that you have done the basics: so there is a co-created clear objective for the departments and clear time-bound milestones aligned with business goals. Once this clarity is in place, activate human centred leadership?immediately (step 4, gives you the 'how')

1. Be conscious in how you communicate this new approach, explain that there will be a shift in ways of working, and explain what to expect: namely a greater focus on supporting you as a person, a focus on supporting you to be the best version of yourself, and a focus on engaging in meaningful work. ?

1. Select and implement up to 3 elements in the toolkit described above. It could be shifting your communication style to implement active listening, applying mentoring or coaching plans (including peer-to-peer), establishing 121 sessions where you learn more about what challenges people are facing, activating a well researched psychometric tests such as spotlight, so people better understand their own strengths and blind-spots, regular training and development opportunities. It could be agreeing that a percentage of time is given for research or training (life-long learning mindset), such as AI and digitalisation applications, one-pager clear role descriptors that specifically explain why the person’s work is integral part of the whole etc. etc. There are many many tools.?

???? DM me for more details on the toolkit.

In the first week you begin activating these human-centred leadership tools, share the checklist above your team. Ask your team to evaluate you on a weekly or biweekly basis. Of course, you are able to use the checklist to evaluate yourself now.?

Create your own checklist?

• What internal states, from the inside-out, do you want more or less of in the department/organisations?

• Utilise tools in the human-centred toolbox to activate these states

• Create a survey of more than and less than using a digital survey tool (such as, Survey Monkey, MS Forms or Survues)

• Ask for feedback weekly or bi-weekly. It needs to be regular.

• Evaluate trends over weeks and months?

• If successful in review stage, expand this to other teams, or share the tool with leaders in other devisions.

That's it folks.

?? ?? DM me for more on operationalising human-centred leadership.

#leadershipdevelopment #leadershiptips #leadership #business #culture #organisationalculture #ledelse #toolkit #hr #kopenhagen

For more on the philosophy of human-centred leadership

Including the principles of

?? Empathy

?? Vulnerability

?? Humility

you can also out this article below.