Compassion, clarity, and fairness are values that most leaders aim to portray, but during times of stress and strain, humane leadership is often the path least taken instead of the route to resolution.
Whether work is thought of as a great or an unpleasant place is often a reflection of the company culture, and more importantly, the company leadership. Organisations are inanimate so it’s leaders who shape an environment for good or not.
Looking at them on paper, most people would agree with the principles of humane leadership, and perhaps even claim them as their own leadership style. But often, in the face of targets, deadlines, recessions, and other challenges, these principles evaporate.
Humane or values-based leadership, however, is about leading with your heart, and this means leading with honesty and compassion. It’s about not shying away from being human, and about recognising that employees are people and not payroll numbers. Calculations shouldn’t cancel out compassion
Leaders face a combination of task-related pressure and productivity stressors, as well as having to manage their teams well. The balance here can be quite difficult. While it’s easy to be aggressive with those you lead due to pressure to meet targets and increase productivity, this doesn’t always lead to better results. An inability to lead gently and with kindness can hamper productivity. Often, leaders and managers are overstretched with responsibilities and competing demands at work and home, so there is very little time to take care of ourselves. This is particularly common for entrepreneurs.
It seems justified that we should work around the clock to meet deadlines and achieve results. The boundary between work and home quickly becomes blurred and this leads to burn-out. This in turn leads to poor and inhumane leadership.
Conflict or tension will always be present in the workplace and there will be moments when we aren’t our ‘best selves’ as leaders. Accepting this should be standard in any organisation as it helps leaders set realistic expectations and the understanding that challenges are only natural parts of leadership. Embracing this means unrealistic ideas regarding smooth operations and perfect harmony at all times can be prevented.
One of the major contributors to bad leadership is fear of failure. It can be so consuming that it leads to poor and unethical choices. Perspective is everything, however. You can either let failure define you or allow yourself to learn from it.
It's important to be honest and to accept feelings of disappointment and defeat that you might have, but you need to come back quickly so you can continue your path. Failure is necessary to grow and be better, provided we learn from it. The great irony, of course, is that inhumane leadership often leads to crisis and failure. Leaders who fear failing can sometimes make poor choices that inevitably lead to catastrophe.
Let Wells Fargo be a lesson
First coming to light in 2016, the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal is an example of how unreasonable leadership choices led to unreasonable employee behaviour.
Staff at the bank created fake accounts in the names of its customers, who had no knowledge of these additional products and hadn’t consented to them. Under pressure to meet unrealistic sales targets, the bank employees came up with a scheme that they hoped would ensure success and avoid failure.
Cross-selling, the practice underpinning the fraud, is the attempt to sell multiple products to one consumer. A customer, for example, might open a short-term savings account. They would then be convinced to sign up for a credit card and tax-free investment account.
Success by retail banks was measured in part by the average number of products held by a customer, and Wells Fargo was long considered the most successful cross-seller.
In 2013, an investigation by The Los Angeles Times revealed there had been intense pressure on bank managers and individual bankers to produce sales against extremely aggressive, and even mathematically impossible, quotas. Between 2011 and 2015, company employees reportedly opened more than 1.5 million bank accounts and applied for more than 565 000 credit cards in customers’ names that may not have been authorised.
From 2002 to 2016, fraudulent activities conducted at the bank included forging customer signatures to open accounts, creating PINs to activate unauthorised debit cards, moving money from millions of customer accounts to unauthorised accounts and altering customers’ true contact information so they couldn’t be notified of the new unauthorised products.
The biggest lesson to be learned from this debacle is the importance of ethical business practices and healthy corporate culture.
Strong, effective oversight and governance must exist within companies and financial institutions, with strict regulatory compliance and accountability. Companies must prioritise their employees’ well-being to ensure they are not subjected to pressure that might lead them to act unethically. At Wells Fargo, there was pressure to meet unrealistic sale quotas that led to millions of unauthorised bank and credit card accounts. This also broke the trust between clients and the company, tainting the company’s reputation and trust.
While pushing to get the job done, we can easily neglect to check on those we are working with. We tend to be hard on issues and on people, instead of being gentle so staff can work as their authentic selves. In cases where people need feedback on improving in performance, they are more likely to take feedback that comes from a less hostile place. When we treat our staff, and even our clients, well, we build trust, and this works to benefit our companies and productivity at the end of the day. Compassion and kindness can not only mitigate crises, but they can also foster success.
The humane way leads to health and happiness
Having a great level of self-awareness is key to making better choices. It’s important for leaders to recognise their stress triggers, and know how to reflect on their emotional state and adjust their behaviour accordingly so they avoid passing on stress to others. Taking breaks to do mental-health check-ins with ourselves may help us be aware of our stressors and regulate our emotions through stress management and seeking support.
Being mindful and aware of other people’s feelings is also important. Targets and goals are necessary in a business, but when these are pursued at the expense of mental and emotional well-being, they are very harmful.
By contrast, companies that are realistic with their ambitions and customer-centric in their approach can conduct themselves with strong ethical practices and to then achieve strong financial performance.
Humane leadership is this radical reminder that while leading, we are people and in leading, we are leading people.
We are leaders, whether we are parents, leading our homes, or CEOs and directors in big corporations. Our position in society and status has little to do with being a leader; anyone who holds themselves accountable and is willing to find potential in others is a leader. And humane leaders are driven by empathy, compassion and authenticity.
In the financial services sector, Svenska Handelsbanken AB serves as a good contrast to Wells Fargo. It is conservative and operates with a decentralised model, which gives great decision-making powers to branch managers. It also empowers its employees to be engaged and motivated to act in the best interest of their customers. The bank's values are based on long-term thinking, taking responsibility, trust, and respect for the individual. It believes these are fundamental to enabling employees to do what they feel is right for customers.
When we consider humane leadership, like applying vulnerability in leadership, we disrupt the idea that we have to choose between being kind and being strong. A humane leader is not afraid of asking for help, asking questions, and seeking to find answers to questions with others instead of assuming the role of a know-it-all. Organisations that are committed to humane leadership are healthy communities where we can rely on each other and are able to forge more meaningful human experiences. There is a strong correlation between happiness and productivity. As such, applying humane leadership in organisations may be the most powerful tool to drive innovation, productivity and creativity in the workplace setting.
Dr. Maanda Tshifularo is a strategy lecturer, director of the Centre for Leadership and Dialogue and a strategy lecturer at GIBS. He is a skilled strategist, leadership coach, and author of Lead with Super Clarity: How Successful Leaders Achieve Exceptional Results. He is also the founding director of SuperLead Advisory, a consultancy specialising in strategy, operations, and leadership development.