A leader is not your boss nor your manager or your team leader. Yes, you read it right! A true leader is one who doesn’t make himself be felt like someone who is commanding or controlling. He is someone who gives you the required guidance and empowers you to do things in your professional and personal life the right way. Leaders can be admired or adored if they are non-judgmental and always lend a helping hand to their subordinates. Leadership is not a tag of duty but a way of life in which the leader ensures to keep his employees or team members or subordinates motivated through their journey.
A humane approach to leadership is about having a balanced role in earning profits as well as caring for the humans who work for your company. For example, during the coronavirus pandemic, many leaders came up with ideas to allow their employees to work from wherever they can, at whatever time they could, and however, they could reach their targets. It was about showing humanity towards their employees who were struggling with the stress-induced lockdowns and getting their work done.
A humane approach to leadership involves empathy, kindness, trust, authenticity, humility, resilience, and agility in leaders which the Generation Z and Millenials expect from their leaders. After all, the future of work is quite technological-driven and even fragile, changing temporarily and bringing about a lot of innovations that employees cannot manage all alone without the leaders’ support. The world has seen a huge disruption due to two things: one is a technology and the second is a coronavirus pandemic.
An employee may want a leader who will understand his strengths and try to give him opportunities to develop his weaknesses into strengths rather than keep him under the stress of getting fired at any point of the time due to the lack of developing skills. If you are a leader, you need to be more patient with your employees rather than boss over them to achieve the targets.
Humanity has got a new ray of hope in the coronavirus pandemic times when the work-from-home option was introduced to the employees so that they can care for themselves along with reach the company goals. However, many companies couldn’t afford the work-from-home option because of their traditional mindset. This made many employees opt out of their workplace and search for another job.
Had there been a handful group of leaders who used a humane approach moreover profit approach, we would have gotten the needed productivity and loyalty too from the employees at the same time. Just imagine how employees would be motivated to report to a workplace where appreciation and up-gradation of the work is a daily business routine. Wouldn’t you admire your leader who asks you “how are you doing” on a daily basis rather than grilling you for not achieving the work target? It is all about how you see when you step in the shoes of your employees who are willing to give you their best work only if you understand their problems and issues that change from time to time.
