CityU Enactus Team Develops Solution to Help Community
City University of Seattle is excited to announce that its Enactus team is partnering with...
READ MOREBy Dr. Arron Grow, Associate Program Director for Organizational Leadership
In my research into what helps leaders stands apart, one of the topics that most consistently rises to the top has to do with people in charge knowing the difference between personnel and people. This is a summarizing way of what I mean by knowing the difference between personnel and people. People are people; beings that have thoughts, ideas, emotions, preference, and all the other elements that go along with being human. Personnel is the office within an organization that manages the people-related stuff. The gist of the matter is this; leaders who treat their people as property are not effective. Leaders who treat their people as people are much more effective leaders. No surprises in this, but let’s go into a bit more detail about this anyway.
What impact does treating employees like personnel have on a team? If you’ve ever had a person as a boss who does this, you know what the impact is. Even if you haven’t been in this situation, you can guess the result, and you’d be right. Insulting, demoralizing, maddening, annoying are just a few of the adjectives that come from the voices of those that have endured this situation. Obviously, none of them are flattering and none of these feelings lead to heightened productivity.
What does lead to better productivity? Treating subordinates like people. Here are a few suggestions that can help make this happen.
Applying these three practices in a consistent matter can help leaders in all industries be more effective in their roles. If you find yourself holding back on any of these strategies, I recommend giving them more of a chance and see what difference it makes.