A 12-month action plan for HR to foster human leadership at their organization
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Human Leadership: How HR Can Develop Your Organization's Leaders
Discover the human leadership approach that increases workforce productivity
Employees who evaluate their skip-level leader as a human leader are more likely to report high intent to stay, engagement and well-being. Yet human leadership is unfortunately rare. Only 29% of employees say that their skip-level leader is effective at human leadership.
Download the HR Guide to Enabling Human Leadership to discover:
A new approach to human leadership
How HR can foster human leadership with commitment, courage and confidence
A 12-month action plan for HR to develop human leaders
About Human Leadership
Business leaders must take a more human approach to leadership to attract and retain talent in the current environment. The call for more “human” leadership does not mean that leaders have an entirely new set of responsibilities; rather, they must achieve their same core responsibilities in a different way. Leaders must navigate a leader-to-employee relationship as well as a human-to-human one that necessitates human leadership: the ability to lead with authenticity, empathy, and adaptivity.
Social and political turbulence, work-life fusion and flexible work arrangements have changed leaders’ approaches to their core responsibilities in the following ways:
Role-modeling behavior requires greater authenticity — For employees to bring their full selves to work amid social and political turbulence, leaders must role-model acting and expressing themselves authentically and make it safe for their teams to do the same.
Supporting teams requires greater empathy — To support employees at work, as well as in other aspects of their lives, leaders must practice empathy and show genuine care, respect and concern for employees’ well-being.
Delivering results requires greater adaptivity — To encourage high performance while allowing employees a more individualized work experience, leaders must adapt to enable flexible work arrangements that fit team members’ unique needs.
Human Leadership FAQs
What is human leadership?
Human leadership is the ability to navigate not only a leader-to-employee relationship, but a human-to-human one by exhibiting:
Authenticity - Act with purpose and enable true self-expression
Empathy - Show genuine care, respect and concern for employees' well-being
Adaptivity - Enable flexibility and support that fit team members' unique needs
Why is creating human leadership important?
In today’s hypercompetitive talent market, organizations are seeking ways to differentiate themselves. 92% of HR leaders say their organizations can’t compete in the talent market without great leaders and are overhauling many aspects of the employee experience to better attract and retain talent.
What are the benefits of creating more "Human" leaders
Organizations that approach building commitment, confidence and courage by directly addressing leaders’ emotions in a more human way see better results, increasing their proportion of effective human leaders from 29% to 48%.
What are the ineffective types of human leadership?
After surveying 1,000 business leaders, Gartner research has found that there are three types of ineffective human leaders, including:
Doubtful achievers - Doubt that the qualities of human leadership are important to achieving business objectives
Fearful believers - May accept the need for human leadership, but are concerned about associated vulnerability and risk
Uncertain strivers - May agree that human leadership is the best path forward, but are uncertain of how to fulfil their organization's goals while facing the massive scope and ambiguity associated with adapting their leadership to individual employee needs, emerging situations and sensitive topics