Advice for first-time leaders and supervisors

I teach humanistic leadership and management skills at Humanist Learning Systems. In fact – I have a brand new online course – Humanistic Leadership Principles, which teaches the 7 deadly sins of staff management and leadership principles to help people understand the role of a leader/manager.

You're in a leadership role at work for the first time. What should you know?

 2 Things Good Leaders Must Understand

1. You have 2 customers. Your bosses – and your staff. Yes – your staff are your customers. Your bosses are going to want you to file reports and let them know what work is being done.  Your staff – need you to support them.  A manager/leader is a support rule. The work is being done by workers. The leader’s job is to make sure workers have what they need to be able to do their job well. Do they need training? Supplies? Information? Information that is in another department? That’s the job of the manager. So – think of yourself as being below your staff – your job is to do the grunt work required to make sure – your team can function well. 

2. Bullying management is bad management. Bullying negatively impacts workflow and causes real harm to real people. Successful leaders – build up and support employees. They champion them. Help them feel valued and included. Kindness and compassion in everything you do – should be your guiding principle. That’s what makes a good leader a great leader. They inspire people to be the best they can be. Bosses – order people around. Be a leader – not a boss.

Are you a new leader?

Often folks are thrust into these positions without real training about how to supervise employees or take the lead on projects.

Understand – you were chosen because your managers have faith in you. Be diligent and conscientious and you will do fine. If you don’t know how best to do something- ask for help and advice.

Take online courses (like mine) and learn what you don’t know but need to know.  Everyone starts every job learning. Most people don’t become productive for several months.  You will feel pressure to perform but remember – you have a lot to learn – so part of your new job – as a manager/leader – is to learn how to lead. And there are plenty of resources to help you. You may also want to ask one of the senior managers/ leaders to mentor you.  Not only will that help you in your future career – but it will help you become the sort of leader you want to be.

Even if you're just supervising one intern, what are some things you should keep in mind? 

Treat everyone with dignity. Behave with dignity. When in doubt  - think -  with compassion and dignity. Eleanor Roosevelt once said – in her book You Learn by Living, to treat employees as if they are volunteers.  You don’t have the right to “boss” people around. Even if you are paying them. And especially if you are not. Treat people as if they matter and as if they have a choice. Treat them with gratitude for the work they are doing and with grace. Support them. Encourage them. Help them learn how to be awesome productive citizens of the world.

 Are there additional things to know as a young leader versus someone older or with more experience in the workforce?

“If you want to slide through life, try being polite.” – Christopher Shaw (my father).  Kindness will take you places that meanness can’t. Remember – to be kind. You will like the sort of person you are, and your employees will appreciate the effort you put into helping them be better.

And again - take my online course - you will be glad you did. https://humanistlearning.com/principles-of-humanistic-leadership/

Important Leadership Skills for Workplace Success

People are more critical than ever to the success of a business. But to get people to perform, they need to be inspired by a leader. But what are the skills that every great leader possesses? Are they different now than they used to be? And, can these skills be taught and learned?

Hi – I teach humanistic leadership and management skills through my company – Humanist LearningSystems.

I think there are 7 principles of humanistic leadership – and yes – they can be learned and practice. In fact, practicing these skills is key to success.

These principles are:

•             Dignity – carry yourself with dignity – treat everyone you meet with dignity

•             Compassion – for yourself and others. Compassion – actively practiced – acts as a moral compass and helps us to not only determine what is right and wrong, it helps remind us – to act with dignity and to treat people with dignity.

•             Ethics – Leaders who act ethically are leaders people want to follow.  Ethics based in human compassion yields the best results.

•             Responsibility – the role of a leader is to help a teach coordinate the work. Not to dictate the work, but to encourage staff to collaborate effectively to get the work done.  The manager can also step in to make decisions when the team is having trouble reaching consensus.  They act as a tie breaker for the team so the team can keep moving forward.  This is a philosophic tweak to how we think of our role as leaders and can be practiced.

•             Reason – a leader who does not understand how to think through difficult problems and help their teams use reason and science to solve their problems, is worthless to the team.  The leader should be the person asking for information and using reason and logic to help the team come to the best most effective decisions possible.

•             Strategic Thinking – understanding how small actions impact the larger bigger picture – is also something a good leader does.

•             Service to Others – the role of leader is of lead collaborator.  If you are not oriented to being of service to your team, you won’t be leading them.  You will instate be acting as a dictator. Dictating to them what they should be doing. Leaders – encourage, enable and support. They serve their team – not the other way around.

All of these are mindsets – that have to be actively practiced in order to become habits of mind.  As people start approaching their work with dignity, compassion, ethics, responsibility, reason, strategic thinking as a way to be of service to their team – they will naturally emerge as a leader.

If you want to learn more - consider taking my online course:
https://humanistlearning.com/principles-of-humanistic-management/

Great Leaders May Need Translators

Scientific American published an article on the science of why people dislike really smart leaders. It turns out - they may need translators.

Here is a link to the article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-people-dislike-really-smart-leaders/

It turns out that people with IQs higher than 120 are often rated as ineffective leaders by their teams. The problem is high IQ people - are REALLY valuable because they are often really good at problem solving and organizing and juggling lots of things simultaneously. Their brains are simply - really agile.

As with all leadership, if people don't like or don't understand the leader, then they won't follow and there will be problems.   Part of the problem may be that staff and teams may not understand what the solution is that the leader is proposing because - they can't follow the thinking of the leader - because they think so differently than people with IQs in the normal range.

Another problem may be that someone with a high IQ is so busy thinking, they aren't really concerned with the social aspects of leading. But it's the social aspects that help people trust the leader.

So what is the solution?  It may be that high IQ leaders need a translator. Someone who can explain the thinking of the high IQ person in a way that normal people understand so that they can follow it and understand why it will work.

Another reason for the translator is to help fill in the gaps in the social skills. My niece was recently hired to work at a hospital where she is - essentially - the social skills translator for her boss. Her boss can focus on the stuff she's good at. And my niece's job is to get to know people on staff, and support them so  that the staff feel valued and like they matter.

Great thinkers may not be great at the social aspects of a leadership job - but we still need their problem solving abilities to be recognized. Understanding our limitations as leaders can help us hire support people to manage the interpersonal relationships critical to creating successful teams.

Good Leaders Check Their Biases

We all have biases. We all have things we prefer and things we dislike. The problem is that biases cause us to have blind spots.

We overlook problems in things we like and see problems where they don’t exist in things we don’t like. There is a term for this. It’s called rationalizing. Deciding why you like or don’t like something after we’ve decided that we like or don’t like it, whatever it is.

We see this most clearly in the political realm where political opponents and their supporters are flinging mud every which way – even onto things they say they support, if their opponents like them. This is why – changing your mind in politics – is called flip flopping.

In the real world being able to change your mind is a good thing. It helps you avoid problems and solve problems when they arise. Reality and truth matter when you are solving problems. Your biases prevent you from seeing the truth. So, a good leader understands their biases and checks them to ensure they don’t interfere with decision making.

This is harder to do than most people realize because, as it turns out, a lot of our biases are unconscious. We don’t even know we have them! We rationalize our decisions without even realize we are doing so. Even people who pride themselves on not being biases or bigoted do this.

The only way to counteract these biases is to become aware of them. Fortunately, Harvard’s Implicit Bias Project has some free online tests you can take to find out what your hidden biases are so that you can come to terms with them and start working on fixing them. See: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

For people whose job requires them to treat everyone they meet fairly – which is pretty much everyone in the workforce, but especially those in hiring and management – you need to understand how your unconscious biases are impacting your behavior towards others.

We have systemic problems with discrimination in this country. We discriminate against the disabled and old people. We discriminate because of people’s skin tone and weight. We discriminate against people because of their sexuality or sexual expression and because of religion and ethnic.

The problem is so bad we have enacted laws to stop it. And still the problem persists and infects every area of our social lives (hiring, education, law enforcement, health care access and more).

Very few Americans think they are part of the problem. Other people discriminate. They don’t. The reality is we all do this. We all have these biases. If you truly want to help be part of the solution, find out what your biases are so that you can stop acting on them, consciously.

To learn more about the science of this and how you can use this information to improve your own behavior and responses so that you aren’t accidentally part of the problem take this free online course – Uncovering and Controlling Your Unconscious Biases at: https://humanistlearning.com/controlling-our-unconscious-bias/  It takes about 2 hours to complete and includes the free online implicit biases tests. And if you want to take this for self study credit – we do offer letters of participation.

Freedom, Leadership, Responsibility & Humanism

Why is leading people so darned hard? Freedom.

There is a joke in Humanist communities. Leading Humanists is like herding cats.  They all have their own ideas.  The hallmark of a good leader is that they can herd cats.

One of the ways you do this is by feeding them. The same is true of humans. If we are hungry, we will pretty much do anything for the person who offers us food (or money so that we can buy food).

But what has this got to do with freedom?  

Everyone you meet has autonomy, meaning, they are free to choose their actions, for the most part. There are limitations on individual autonomy (freedom) having to do with brain chemistry and conditioning, but it’s pretty clear that free will is something most of us experience.

For leaders, this means recognizing that the individuals on your team, or those you want to recruit to your team have a choice.  They don’t have to do what you say. You can entice them with benefits (money, food and so on). But enticements will only get you so far, especially if other leaders are also enticing those same individuals with benefits. With competition, comes choice.

Why promote responsibility? 

Freedom is related to responsibility. Sure, you are free to act however you want, but your actions have consequences. Most of us understand this instinctively. Responsibility is more than just understanding and accepting consequences.  It’s a choice.

People who chose to be responsible do so because they understand that freedom is bought with responsibility. To gain control over your life, you have to choose your behaviors to maximize the good and minimize the harm.

People also choose to be responsible because it feels good. To be responsible is to respect other people and the impact you have on them. Being responsible helps us feel connected to other people precisely because it causes us to accept their existence as real.

Great Leaders and Freedom

Great leaders are the ones who don’t just simply entice their team, they engage them.  What purpose the engagement takes determines how engaged the team is.  It’s about motivation. And freedom is one heck of a motivator.

To be free, one must not only have autonomy, they must not be restrained.  If you don’t have food to eat, you aren’t free. If you don’t have transportation, you aren’t really free.  Freedom isn’t just about whether there are laws restricting you. It is also about whether the conditions of your existence restrict you.

Why Humanism? 

This is why Humanistic management and leadership is so important as we as a society try to move forward. Humanistic responsibility focuses our efforts on others and on ourselves. If we can create the conditions where the basic standard of living for everyone is good enough that no one is restrained by extreme privation, we are creating the conditions in which we ourselves can thrive.

When a leader engages people in a task this important, they can motivate their team to work together to do great things. Our why is freedom. Our how is responsibility.