The Need for Humony
We cannot go back to the pre-pandemic methods of leadership and decision-making. The world has changed too drastically since March 2020. Future success means putting people before results. This does not mean a focus on people instead on results. Just a shift in priorities. Leaders must become people-centric first, then results-driven.
Fortunately, many leaders – particularly in the frontline trenches – have the mindsets, skills, and behaviors of Humony Leaders. These are the leaders people want to follow. These are the leaders who people want to share their ideas, concepts, and creative thinking. For these leaders, Humony Leadership is a reconfirmation that you instinctively are doing the right things. The ideas, actions, and behaviors found within the Humony Leadership book will help you lift your game higher.
For leaders unsure how to adapt to today’s New Abnormal, Humony Leadership shows you how to become a more respected, successful, and awesome leader and person. You have the core skills in place, but your results focus is overwhelming your humanness. And people today need leaders who bring their humanness to their leadership roles. For you, the core concepts of this book cannot be understated: you need to unlearn management and relearn to be human.
These Humony Leadership skills will bring out the greatness within you. And they will enhance your ability to deliver sustainable and desirable results. Plus, there is a surprising hidden benefit in all this: you may actually start liking yourself better and enjoying your leadership responsibilities more.
Humony Mindset
You lead people, not organizations, workgroups, or teams. Also, you do not manage people. You manage processes, policies, procedures, projects, and things.
A leader’s role is to develop and grow people. Understanding this is fundamental to a Humony Mindset.
The Humony Mindset comprises four integrated elements:
• Harmony
• Human Focus and Impact
• Human Needs (respect, acceptance, inclusion, belonging, and growth)
• Humanity Focus
This is not a check-box list. A Humony Mindset integrates these four components into how you think, behave, decide, and act as a leader. Consider these as your new set of leadership values. We can think of this as the new Triple-H Bottom Line: harmony, human beings, and humanity.
The most critical element of the Humony Leadership Mindset will fundamentally change your relationship with the people you lead. Toss aside the notion that your role as a leader is to get the most out of your people. That is 1990s thinking. It also leads to burnout, health issues, job dissatisfaction, and unmotivated human beings comprising the bulk of your staff. While these have been noticeably present in most workplaces since the 1990s, they escalated significantly during the two-plus years of the pandemic.
Your job as a leader is to put the most into your people! And reap the benefits and rewards for doing so: increased productivity, employee engagement, a happier workplace climate, and reduced employee attrition. By putting the most into your people, you will get the best out of them. This makes the continuous development of your people – through coaching, mentoring, motivating, and other methods – the number one priority for you as a leader.
What Employees Need to Succeed
People want to work for organizations where they are truly valued, cared for, and feel they belong. People also want to feel good when working. To feel good, they need four things:
• To be respected and trusted
• To be accepted for who they authentically are
• To be included in discussions and decisions
• To have responsibilities and assignments that lead to personal and professional growth
This essentially boils down to treating them as human beings and ensuring they feel they belong on your team, department, organization, or company. People need to feel good to be successful. If you make them feel good and they have a sense of belonging, they are more likely to take pride in their work. They are also more likely to contribute, collaborate, go the extra mile, and be innovative and creative.