How well do you understand the people you lead?
This is the first in a short series about the leader as a student. And I want to start with the most important subject of all.
Here’s what leadership is: getting results with and through other people.
There is no leadership without people.
Yet people are often the hardest thing to study. Why? Because the subject is already all around us. We are surrounded by it every day, which makes it easy to overlook.
So here’s what I’m suggesting. Leaders need to become students of human nature.
How do we do that?
Be More Observant
Watch what energizes your people. Watch what drains them. Notice what’s going on when the pressure is on. Notice what’s going on when things are calm. Just be more attentive to what’s going on. Not just with your team, but in general.
Ask More
Curiosity wins. What would make this easier? What matters to you most here? Whatever it is you want to know more about, ask more questions. As a leader, doing that is a true superpower.
Talk Less
If we’re going to ask more, we need to remember to talk less. Too often, even for introverted leaders, we feel the pressure to talk more and say more. And when we’re talking, we can’t really be observing. We can’t really be learning, certainly not about others.
Do Plausible Cause Analysis
When you see people responding or acting in a certain way, ask yourself what might be the reasons why. You can’t necessarily know exactly why they did what they did. But you can come up with one, two, three, four, or five plausible reasons why they did it.
The point isn’t to say, “I have certainty.”
The point is to say, “I have more insight.”
Self-Reflect
You aren’t necessarily driven or motivated by the same things others on your team are. Remember that who we are isn’t necessarily how other people are.
We are all different. And yet we’re all human.
So we can learn something about human nature by observing others, and also by thinking more about ourselves.
Your One Thing This Week
If you want to do one thing this week to practice all of this, do this:
Think about one person on your team. Spend time focused on their behavior, their responses, their actions. See what you can learn about them. Just a little bit more.
A Thought for Organizations
Organizations invest heavily in technical skills and functional skills. And too often, they treat understanding people as a nice-to-have.
But understanding people, understanding human nature, is a core leadership capability. As organizations, we should be helping our leaders develop this skill. Being a student of human nature, on purpose.
Every part of leadership has a human element. The better you understand humans, the better leader you will be.
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