Healthy Leaders are 100% Human
When we are leading people in a business setting, we are actually managing at least two relationships with them.
The relationship we tend to focus on is the employer/employee relationship. In this relationship, the employer’s responsibility is to be a company where the employee wants to continue working. The employee’s responsibility is to fulfill their job description. There are plenty of resources that explore these relationships and responsibilities at a granular level.
But there is a second relationship when we are leading people, which is the human/human relationship. The employer/employee relationship is finite and defined by each party upholding their responsibilities. But the human/human relationship can exist before and extend well beyond the employer/employee relationship. It is often overlooked in business settings because it is more qualitative than quantitative. However, the human/human relationship is what makes or breaks the employer/employee relationship. When either side of the relationship forgets that their counterpart is 100% a human being, with all that entails, the employer/employee relationship will suffer.
A healthy leader remembers their own humanity - that there is more to them than their professional role and responsibilities. They remember that they are 100% human, and they need to care for the facets of who they are beyond the work environment. They understand that if they neglect their physical, mental, or emotional health, every area of their life will suffer. They understand that their relationships beyond work and their connections to their communities require deliberate effort.
When a leader is healthy enough to remember their own human needs, they are also able to recognize and care for the needs of the humans they are leading. If an employee knows that their leader cares about them as more than just a robot with a function, then that employee will almost always do better work and care for their own needs beyond work.
When a leader does not care about their employees as human beings, the employer/employee relationship will be characterized by distrust, resentment, decreased productivity, and higher turnover. When a leader does not care about the humanity of the people they lead, they are dehumanizing themselves and their employees. Dehumanizing may sound extreme, but it is exactly what we are doing if we only see the value in employees based on their business functions.
In order for a leader to care about the people they lead as human beings, the leader has to care about their own self as a human being. This is not the expectation in many leadership settings. In many settings, the leader is expected to sacrifice their human needs for the needs of the business or organization. When the leader does this, they are setting this as an example and expectation for their employees.
Healthy leadership starts with healthy self-leadership. When the leader prioritizes their own human needs, they have a greatly increased capacity to lead well and to steward their dual relationships with the people they lead.
Black letters on a green background that say “Healthy Leaders are 100% Human.” There is a background photo of green figs growing on a fig tree.
