Lead with Compassion - Roles
Although roles may vary, contribution is consistent. As such, classism has no place in a workplace. If your company's president was out on vacation for a few days, you may not even notice their absence, but if your janitor was gone for a few day, you would probably notice the messy breakroom and dirty bathrooms.
Everyone has different roles and they are all very important for your company's success. If you are looking for information about market conditions or business strategy, then ask the company president. But, if you want information to improve a process, then ask an operator. Employees in different roles have different perspectives and all are valuable.
As a leader, it is important to recognize the contribution of every role and every person. Although the the janitors and the operators may be less educated, less influential and lower income, it doesn't make them less valuable team members and it certainly doesn't make them less valuable people. Lead with compassion and treat everyone with equal respect. If you normally say hello or good morning to a high-ranking manager, then always make it a point to greet the frontline employees too.
Throughout my career, I would be able to recognize a strong leader vs. a weak leader by the way they interacted with the various employee levels. When someone goes out of their way to create a positive interaction with a higher-ranking manager but treats lower-ranking employees poorly, I expect to see this person missing their KPI's. Of course I am rarely proven wrong in this assumption. In leadership, classism almost always yields poor results.
Leaders who interact well with all levels of employees get better results. That's no surprise. But still, some people in leadership positions only care about about schmoozing the executives. They plan on catapulting their careers through politicking, instead of advancing their career through a series a results-driven progressions. I would like to think that a politicking strategy fails 100% of the time, but unfortunately sometimes it does workout to be a successful career strategy. At least up to a few levels of promotion. Eventually though, results prevail and schmoozing loses. It may take years for things to shake-out the right-way, but it always rectifies itself. Poor performance eventually catches-up to those damn schmoozers. Meanwhile though, they leave a trail of disengaged employees in their wake.
Good leaders have good hearts. They know that engaging people and being respectful yields better results, but that is not why they are engaging and respectful. Good leaders treat people right because it is in their hearts to do so. They genuinely care about people. They care about the janitor as much as they care about the CEO and they treat both with equal respect.
Be a Strong Leader: Strong leaders advance their careers by continually achieving their company defined objectives. Ultimately, leadership requires that the leader accomplishes results through the people on their team. The leader respects their team members (employees) and their teammates (peers). In return people respect the leader and want to perform well for that leader. A strong leader achieves great results with the help and support of other people.
Be a Compassionate Leader: A compassionate leaders gets results through people but not by using people. They put people first and the results follow. Compassionate leaders don't practice classism. They respect everyone equally.
A strong and compassionate leader treats everyone with equal respect. They get results through people but not because they use people. They get results because they respect and engage others. Give respect and respect will be returned to you!
Continue reading this series:
- Lead with Compassion - Addiction
- Lead with Compassion - Mental Health
- Lead with Compassion - Diversity
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