Whether you’re a seasoned manager, recently promoted into a leadership role or you are responsible for an entire team of leaders, everyone should be asking the same question: How can I exercise more effective, influential and empowering leadership?
Is your best approach to leadership geared for the Traditional Boss? Or, are you more suited for being a Human Leader?
What’s a traditional boss?
Traditional bosses are authoritarian figures who serve as the embodiment of hierarchical power in the workplace. Their influence may come from:
- Rank or seniority
- Day-to-day influence over others
- Direct control over employees’ workload and assignments, salaries and career advancement
- More formal relationships with employees typically characterized by power and control
- Process and metric driven
- Business-first mindset
A Traditional Boss is typically a more distant figure with whom employees interact at certain times, such as dry weekly check-ins, disciplinary or “problem” meetings and annual reviews. Not surprisingly, these tend to be experiences that employees can view as negative or stress inducing.
As a result, many employees feel a sense of dread or anxiety whenever they have to speak to their manager. Employees are motivated to stay in the good graces of these managers to avoid any unpleasant conversations or consequences. Instead, they hope to earn rewards in the form of good reviews, salary raises or promotions.
“It’s all about business here, let’s leave our emotions and personal issues at the door.”
This can be a well-intentioned approach to avoid messy issues that cause distractions; however, it’s unrealistic. Whether managers choose to acknowledge it or ignore it, people do bring their personal issues and stressors with them to work, and it is a factor that impacts their productivity, performance and relationships with colleagues.
Additionally, the business-first mindset leads traditional bosses to rely heavily on processes and metrics to set goals and assign work for their team. Traditional bosses are all about the numbers, tasks and workflow that are necessary to meet targets and get results.
What’s a human leader?
Human leaders want to serve employees by enabling their productivity and, ultimately, helping them achieve their goals. They are humans first and managers second. Characteristics of a Human Leader may include:
- A coach and facilitator who maintains active, two-way engagement with team members
- Empathetic and emotionally intelligent (high EQ)
- Understanding of how culture, environment and team dynamics impact productivity and performance
- Present and engaged with employees, may have an open-door policy
- Regular check-ins with employees to solicit any concerns or feedback
- Practice active listening
- Provide ongoing feedback – including positive feedback, development recommendations and recognition
Human leaders often ask:
- What are your personal and professional goals?
- How can I help?
- What tools or resources do you need?
In this way, they are still an authority figure, but also a guide, coach and form of support. Their influence comes from their connection with and usefulness to others, as well as the trust they’ve built with employees. They don’t just have power, they seek to empower others.
Of course, human leaders expect employees to deliver on their performance goals and hold them accountable, but they also understand that they have to create an environment of psychological safety in which strong performance is possible.
Psychological safety means that employees are able to perform their jobs without fear of negative consequences.
Lastly, human leaders have a keen understanding of how workplace culture, the work environment and team dynamics all create an “employee experience” that can impact the business.