Five Dilemmas of Humanistic Leadership
When My Personal and Company Values Clash and Is There a Way Out?
Things clicked for me a few years ago when I was reading a book by Carl Rogers On Becoming a Person. I was reading about the humanistic approach to interactions with other people and how transformative it can be. I knew these principles worked great for me in therapy, and I knew that providing trust and genuine interest in my colleagues led to interesting transformations in the past. Yet, back then, I did not know what had happened there. Carl Rogers mentioned that core PCA conditions could be applied in the corporate world as well, but he did not elaborate on it much. I went on a journey of seeking a way how to apply Roger’s principles in the workplace. On my journey, I not only faced misunderstandings from some of my colleagues, but also struggled with my personal dilemmas of the approach.
Dilemma 1: Can I Unconditionally Accept When Goals Are Not Met?
I have struggled with this one for a long time. In the past, I was a manager that only pushed for performance. I had good relationships with my people, but only as far as everyone was performing. After my personal burnout, I started changing my view on leadership significantly. Unconditional acceptance was a concept that felt very close to me, as part of my life crisis (even in the work environment), was a lack of self-acceptance. And self-acceptance sometimes cannot be achieved without someone bringing out what we have inside and accepting it with kindness. This is how Carl Rogers describes a process of becoming a congruent person.
Soon after, I asked myself where the borderline between acceptance and performance is. Just purely pushing for performance in a long-term is not sustainable for both, company and employees. However, the same applies to unconditional acceptance once it does not lead to self-actualization.
There are some boundaries given by the agreement the company and the employee have closed. Performance is the energy a company needs to exist. It cannot exist without it. Acceptance can lead to great innovative performance and self- actualization. However, not always the core conditions are met, and the transformative process does not start. Yet, a leader still needs to be a skilled listener and understand when the goals are those that should change first.
I accept the person and I accept the person unconditionally, always. What I, however, don’t have to accept is the behavior once the agreement we have closed or the goals we need to achieve are not met.
How does this work in practice?
We struggled with the outcomes of our employee’s work. At some point, we ran out of tools and did not know what else we could try to help the employee find an alignment with the team’s vision. The only possible way out was to make an agreement and let them go. I could not accept the situation because if I accepted it, I would not have accepted team’s and company’s needs. I, however, at any point did not have any doubt about the colleague being a great person. We could not find a match in how to have the work done. I did not accept the behavior and had to act, but I kept and still keep accepting the person as they are unconditionally and have huge respect towards them.
When we talk about humanistic leadership or a person-centered approach (PCA) in management, we talk about three core conditions:
1) Unconditional acceptance/positive regard (we create a safe environment free of criticism and judgement)
2) Empathy (understanding what our employees experience = walking in our colleague’s shoes)
3) Congruence (leaders are real and congruent)
Dilemma 2: I Can Try but What if the Whole Corporate World Lacks Empathy?
We might face a traumatized workforce after covid, Russian aggression and now perhaps going into another recession. The level of uncertainty we have to face as a humankind is enormous recently. This creates pressure on leaders to be more empathetic than ever before. But are they really? Empathy can be taught, but is there always the will?
After running a series of workshops on mental health and what role leaders have here, a few people reached out to me. They said that the workshops were great, but asked what they can do to help their managers be empathetic or at least have them listen to such workshops. I felt a lot of frustration when I heard how people desire to be respected and treated like human beings and that they often are not. Encouraging humanity in leaders is a tough task, especially when they are not ready for that as people.
It all goes to why people actually aspire for leadership roles. It can be because of the desire to help teams and their colleagues grow, but it can be also a lack of one’s own value, blindly seeking for what they consider as success, gaining confidence through power over others etc. Promoting a charming narcissistic person into a leader is also a pretty common pattern. That’s why I believe a soul of companies is sick these days. We talk about mental health, promote company values, but we still don’t know how to deal with leaders that have zero empathy. Moreover, we praise them if they achieve their goals. The cost of a stressed and emotionally exhausted workforce is often tolerated.
Humanism needs to be grounded in company values and culture, and it needs to be lived. Charismatic narcissistic leaders should not enchant us during an interview process. And foremost, we need to stop seeing vulnerability in the workplace as a weakness.
I can work on my empathy and be even more empathetic, but how does that overall help? Unless we heal the soul of companies, the workplace won’t get any better.
Dilemma 3: Congruence Means Being a Mature Person Which Goes Way Beyond the Workplace
Being congruent and not get lost in today’s world is a challenge. First, because having a decent understanding of who we are requires a lot of self-work. Second, because it takes a lot of courage to stick to one’s own values in the work environment where we are supposed to live company values and culture. Being a congruent and mature leader is also not a skill to be trained easily. A mature leader is only the consequence of a very mature personality.
A mature person has great self-awareness and is open to their emotions. I believe these are the most crucial traits. Yet, I hardly ever see managers being coached in this area. I have never had a genuine conversation about my emotions and needs with any of my managers, but I have been in many abusive and hurtful conversations where emotions took over and caused a lot of harm.
A colleague of mine would say anything possible, including aggressive and abusive comments, just to achieve what they wanted. While they often got what they wanted, they caused a lot of emotional distress to other people, including taking time off and not sleeping well. I still think the person felt successful in pushing their agenda through. At the same time, I believe the person must have been so incongruent in this as a human being that behind all this success was a lot of emptiness.
Only as far as a leader acts in accordance to their inner beliefs and emotions, and these levels are aligned, the person can be fully satisfied with what they do and how they do it.
Dilemma 4: My DNA Is Non-directiveness, but What if I Need to Step in and Act Fast?
Humanistic leadership is a way to lead by avoiding even subtle verbal manifestations of violence. It is also about believing in the other person unconditionally. In such a process, we can simply just serve as another set of eyes and ears, provide reflection and ask well. But what if things escalate, require a fast decision, or start going in a wrong direction?
Recently, we were in the discussion with our stakeholders about a long-term project. For some time, I was not convinced about how much time we dedicated to the project in the context of the actual results. We had a meeting where everybody was well-prepared, sharing the vision for the next months. The vision was grand, but it would take a few years to get it done. Unless we significantly change something, we would spend a lot of time working on the project and still be uncertain about whether we will merge everything together in the end. I stepped into the process and was very vocal about how risky this approach is and that we need to change it. I consider my behavior violent, to some extent disrespectful, but I felt that none of us would like to carry responsibility for such an uncertain outcome and unless we stop it now, it would be hard to stop it later. Yet, I was not acting in accordance to my humanistic values and I perceived my behavior violent not only towards my colleagues but even towards myself.
Dilemma 5: Humanistic Leadership Only Works When Employees at Least Partly Perceive the Effect of Acceptance And Empathy
The effect of humanistic leadership is, on an individual level, the most unpredictable part of the process. To make it work, we need to be trusted by our employees. We need to be perceived as those that have a genuine desire to help. Unless we have such trust, people won’t open up to us. Sometimes, we cannot influence whether the other person would open themselves up or whether they will acknowledge the meaning of what we bring to the relationship. However, if it clicks on both sides, it can skyrocket the relationship and self-actualization (usually on both sides). Where the self-actualization process would go is very unpredictable, but it always leads to very satisfying and innovative outcomes.
Even though it’s not very natural for me, I have to apply different principles when working with some people. For example, I intentionally don’t go below the surface and don’t ask about a person’s inner beliefs and intentions. Some colleagues perceive my leadership approach as “too alternative”. Some seem to be confused about the non-directiveness, and it makes them feel uncertain (I can see this pattern in cooperation with people that are more junior or those that are used to work in a very directive environment). While I can still apply humanistic principles in such relationships, I know it might be impossible to achieve a more genuine, self-actualizing contact. In such cases, I apply different tools and leadership approaches that feel more suitable. Self-actualizing contact is rare and requires a lot of conditions to be met on both sides.
“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” — Mahatma Gandhi
Humanistic leadership is a huge enablement of self-actualization and growth. It’s a hidden force full of growth, authenticity and realness. Yet, I still did not overcome all the dilemmas especially, when humanity and performance can’t find a match or when directiveness would have a more immediate impact. Moreover, as far as I nurture even more acceptance and empathy out of myself, the real impact on the workplace would be way lower compared to a non-empathetic person being at least a bit more caring. We need to heal the soul of our companies and encourage humanity to be rooted in all of us and all we do. And maybe we should not end there. Perhaps we should start healing the world.
