Humanize your leadership

The story is told about a slave driver manager who would always treat his subordinates as expendable machines. That needs to work hard day in and day out. This was always the scenario for so many months until the subordinates had enough of the slave driver mentality of their manager.

So they talked to the said manager and warned him that if he would not change his foul behavior towards them. They would petition for his replacement. Aware of the repercussion if his subordinates would petition him he therefore changed his way of treatment towards his subordinates.

Organizational leadership is not only about the achievement of organizational goals, targets and objectives. It is also about humanely treating our employees. What use would it be if we are able to achieve our organizational targets when we don’t treat our employees humanely? If we treat them like robots?

We have to be aware that organizational leadership is not all about meeting the organization’s objectives and goals. It’s also about treating our employees rightly and humanely. So, how do we humanize our leadership in the midst of the frenetic pace of an organization?

Number one is we have to be inclusive when exercising our leadership function as much as possible. To be inclusive means that we consult and solicit the ideas of our subordinates before we do leadership decisions. The beauty of inclusive leadership is we convey a message to our subordinates that they are not simply employees. That they too are decision makers and vital members of the organizational family.

Number two is we have to be helpful. Many leaders choose to stay in their ivory towers and look and lead from afar. For the reason that they are already leaders they choose to create distance rather than mitigate the distance by being helpful towards their subordinates. When we are helpful towards our subordinates we create an invisible bond with our subordinates. Invisible bond which we can always activate whenever we want to activate it.

Number three is we have to be up close and personal in the right manner with our subordinates. Some filthy minded leaders take advantage of being up close and personal with their subordinates by despicably trying to build sexual relationship with them.

Being up close and personal with our subordinates simply means that we try to get to know them better and personally. For example, we try to know their family and once in a while inquire about how their family is doing etc. And it ends there.

There are infinite benefits when we humanize our leadership primary among this is we increase the intrinsic motivation of our employees. Therefore, try to humanize your leadership and see the transformation that it would bring to the behavior and motivation of your subordinates. – Marino J. Dasmarinas