Balancing Toughness and Empathy

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People First, Processes Second
However— both are critical. People drive the business. Processes operate the business. They go hand in hand and your people must understand the importance of them. This is a two-way street.

I had a client who was a startup. As you can imagine, there are loads of things to worry about and get done. Frankly, there’s not enough time in the day, but what saved them from stalling their acceleration were the processes they put in place. However, it wasn’t easy.

A few seasoned members of the team were “fighting the changes” that needed to be put into place. This caused undue stress and slowed progress.

Once these folks realized that the processes in place were to their benefit, two magical things happened with this client:

These people were happier AND more productive.
The organizational harmony hummed.
Here’s the rub though: people and processes are not ghana telegram data mutually exclusive. The processes must work for the people in order for the people to be effective in deploying the processes.

This is one of the hardest things for a leader. On one hand, they must lead. On the other hand, they need their people more than their people need them.

Where I see A LOT of leaders fail is that they feel they must always be tough and direct. This is important for reinforcing goals and objectives. There’s no argument there.

The problem, though, is that their team’s motivation will keep dwindling if the leader doesn’t find a balance with deploying empathy. The leader may make their numbers but the morale of the team will be in the dumps.

It then becomes difficult to make future numbers as well as retain and motivate good people. And, at the end of the day, people drive businesses.

I know some wise leaders who have put the word “balance” on a sticky note on their desks to remind them how important it is. In the end, your people need to know that you care about them as individuals, not as cogs in the wheel of business.