Good Leadership - Seeing the Whole Person in Your Staff

I was reading a recent article from business2community.com about how leaders need to be actively engaged with creating a mentally safe and nurturing environment.  If I’m being truthful, especially to myself, I’m more of an old school professional…you get up, go to work, get your job done, and do the very best you can. This article struck me in terms of process as it was incredibly reasonable and yet insightful at the same time.

What resonated most with me was the way in which they ordered the five steps that they view as critical to creating a great work environment. As with most things, it starts with yourself. Where are you mentally? Where am I mentally? That includes both the professional and the things that are personal that come from home. Once we understand that, we can begin the outreach to our colleagues and those that we supervise. In the end, great leadership is finding ways to motivate each individual person just a little bit differently than another in an environment that meets not only their expectations but provides an atmosphere where they can be successful.

I also really appreciated how it focused on leaders concentrating on the mission. With the pandemic, I get the impression that some people either stayed in jobs or took jobs for purely financial security----or at least the majority of the rationale was economic safety. That can last for a little while, but from a leader’s perspective, you need everyone to be pulling in the same direction and that’s centered around what the organization is trying to accomplish. In the end, those just looking for a paycheck will never fully fit in.

The article concludes with the balance between patience and persistence. This is pretty wise commentary in today’s world. Leadership should be all about holding people accountable. But sometimes, patience is the better part of virtue. Maybe someone needs a little bit longer to get going and then produces phenomenal results. Maybe somebody has what would be the equivalent of an afternoon “drop” in energy in the middle of their year but rebounds well. Patience is all about seeing the long-term while persistence is about measuring expectations, goals, and activity in the right frame of mind.

I’m not normally moved so much by these types of articles, but this was worth the time. Leadership should always be about others more so than oneself.