The Golden Rule to Become a Leader | Emeritus India
Leaders must remember that their employees are not just any random object or physical asset to the company. Leaders need to treat their employees like humans and not machines. Whether expecting too much from them or putting a lot of pressure and threatening them, things can escalate and take a bad turn once a leader tries to dominate their employees.
Yes, being a leader is not easy, and it takes a lot of practice, experience, important decisions, and a good character to set an example for others. We also agree that leaders have several responsibilities, not just to empower their employees or motivate them towards success. But no matter what, using these reasons as excuses for treating others like machines is never acceptable.
So, to set examples for others and become a good leader, you must incorporate humanity into your leadership methods. However, it is not easy to suddenly bring changes in your leadership ways and become a strong example of a leader. This is why we have shed light on some ways you can easily incorporate human emotions and methods in your leadership approach. By the end, you will understand how these simple changes in your approach can make your employees feel better and help you take your team toward success.
Accept That Your Employees are Humans
It is a very common fact that most leaders consider their employees to be nothing but machines just because they are working for a company. If you also have this attitude towards your employees, you cannot expect them to have your back through tough times and support you without questioning anything.
You are comparing your employees with non-living objects, which isn’t true. You have to accept that they are humans, just like you. Since they are humans, they have the right to feel bad, express their emotions, or have their thoughts. When you accept this, you will understand that keeping such a negative attitude toward your employees is hurting their emotions and creating a huge distance between you as a leader and them.
Reaction and Response Depend on Multiple Factors
The next rule you must include in your leadership approaches is understanding the reaction and responses and the factors influencing them. Your employees are humans, and as a result, they will have certain experiences, a past and a present, their thoughts, morals, values, and emotions. These are the prime factors that influence the reaction and response of an individual.
Until and unless you have a proper understanding of these, you can never understand why your employees reacted in a certain way or assess what could be their response against a particular matter or fact. And that might make you a bad leader.
Improvise Your Message Based on Employees
As we have already discussed, humans have their own emotions and thoughts. Therefore, you cannot expect everyone to think in the same way or perceive your message at the same rate. For example, let’s say you have two employees, one of whom is an introvert and the other one is an extrovert. Now, the extroverted employee will easily understand what you are trying to say, and even if he doesn’t, he will come to you and question you from the start.
However, if we consider your introverted employee, he will neither come to you with the problems nor question you. Instead, he will give a simple nod, irrespective of the fact that he may not be able to understand or perceive your message. In this case, you have to personalize or improvise the way you put your message according to the mentality and character of your employees.
Listen to Problems and Interact
As a leader, you must ensure you communicate with your employees without having any biased or indifferent thoughts. However, the interaction or communication between you and your employees should be done in a proper way. For example, let’s see, you barely give any chance to your employees to approach you with their problems and convey their pain points. But you expect them to listen to everything you have to say.
In this way, you can never have their support or persuade them to listen to your ideas, goals, or something else. Therefore, it’s important to start listening to your employees, understand what they’re trying to say, and then put forth your viewpoints. This will help you a lot in the long run. You can even build a strong communication channel between you and your employees.
Conclusion
As a leader, you have to put yourself in your employee’s shoes and understand how you would feel if someone treated you in the same manner as you do. It’s quite obvious that you won’t feel good if you are treated in the same manner. Therefore, you should understand that your employees are humans and expect you to treat them the same way. Once you do so, you will set yourself as an example of being a great leader.
