Four Steps To Expanding Servant Leadership To Promote An Economy That Serves All

Corporate personhood is the concept that a corporation can exercise certain constitutional rights that a person has. This concept was established in 1886 as a result of the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road case.

While corporations can’t exercise all rights that a person can, they are able to sue in a court of law, enter into a contract with other parties and, as of 2010, financially support political campaigns.

Essentially, corporations can operate as humans in certain aspects. This topic, specifically to what extent corporations should be able to exercise their personhood, is widely debated. This article isn’t intended to favor either side of the argument, but simply to introduce a different perspective.

It’s not hard to see how many corporations have used the idea of corporate personhood to their own advantage—using it to protect themselves from legal trouble or to support certain policies that benefit their bottom line—but few corporations have leveraged it otherwise. Now think: What if we expanded our idea of what corporate personhood can mean? What if companies started to use their personhood to make business more human, focusing not on the rights it possesses but the impact it can make?

In 2019, 181 CEOs made this concept a reality for their organizations by signing a new Business Roundtable statement that redefined the purpose of a corporation—“to promote an economy that serves all Americans.” Their goal officially shifted from simply promoting a thriving organization to “creating long-term value” and “better serving everyone—investors, employees, communities, suppliers and customers” as Bill McNabb, former CEO of Vanguard put it.

This kind of paradigm shift has started to gain traction, but as corporations have possessed personhood for over 100 years now, it’s time that every company takes a look at how they view their purpose and measure their success.

Use corporate personhood to serve and impact others.

We’ve all heard the term servant-leadership, coined by Robert Greenleaf, and most of us have pushed for it in the workplace. Putting the needs of others and the community first is the distinguishing factor between this type of altruistic leadership and more traditional, leader-first types.

If we can expand our understanding of servant leadership to involve an entire corporation, not just its leaders, then through whole company servanthood, we can start to make business more human. By expanding our company’s purpose through serving, we will be able to have a greater impact on our communities and their futures. Here are four ways to make an impact.

Serve the environment.

Corporate social responsibility doesn’t always need to be strategic for your business. In fact, CSR initiatives should be chosen simply based on which would make the most impact, and any benefit to the company should be just a bonus. Caring for the environment is every person’s responsibility, and a corporation can use their sense of personhood to be better stewards of the resources they have.

Whether it’s a commuter benefits program to decrease cars on the road, replacing disposable cups with mugs or donating to causes that champion a better environment, choosing to take part in the larger environmental picture can align your teams and create a greater sense of purpose in the work they do while serving the environment around them.

Serve your community.

The next layer is to serve the community your business operates in. It’s innate as individuals to desire positive change in our communities. So, why can’t we further involve our organizations in the same goals beyond an annual community service day? Whether it’s monthly food drives, regular volunteer work, partnering with local nonprofits or internship programs for students in underserved communities, there are many ways your organization can support its local community.

Community is “the social glue that binds us together for the greater good,” and as companies work together to build up communities around them, they gain a deeper sense of their own community. The main point is, serving those outside of the organization has to be ingrained in the way a company operates if they want to expand their purpose and permanently make their business more human.

Serve your employees.

Serving those outside your organization should be a priority, but serving a broader, more human-centric purpose through your organization must start internally. Servant leaders will be the ones paving the way for whole company servanthood to take place. They are the ones that set the expectations that the needs and well-being of others come before their own. The key role of a servant leader is “serving employees as they explore and grow, providing tangible and emotional support as they do so.”

This includes supporting your employees’ career goals, giving them opportunities to shine above yourself and intentionally supporting them in what they need to be successful as people, not just as employees. This communicates their value and increases the sense of unity and purpose within the organization. A culture of servanthood must be present internally if companies intend to turn this servanthood outward toward their communities and beyond.

Track the change.

This paradigm shift has to take shape in real form rather than just words on our company’s values or mission statement. One very tangible way to do this is to start reporting on more than just financials. Organizations can begin to implement and track their progress by annually reporting on how they performed on environmental, social and governance issues. The only way that corporations will successfully implement change over the long run is to monitor it and set goals to be achieved.

Serving the greater good through your organization makes business more human and creates a better work culture and a brighter future for your company overall. Care for others can extend to the way you do business and ultimately have a long-lasting impact on your employees, stakeholders, suppliers, communities and the rest of the world around you—and that’s something your whole company will be proud to stand behind.

How to Handle Negative Self-Talk in the Workplace

Most humans have an internal dialog going on, and it’s rather easy for negative self-talk to creep its way in. We tend to be harder on ourselves internally than we would be to anyone else, and we can easily become burdened and sandbagged by this kind of negativity.

Many studies have shown how self-talk can affect our feelings and our actions, and in turn, psychologists have started to emphasize how important it is to train the brain to improve the tone in which our internal voice speaks to us. The national bestseller Chatter by Ethan Kross dissects why the voice in our head matters and how best to harness it to work for us instead of against us.

A consistent stream of negative, unproductive thinking can begin to influence our emotions, how we feel about ourselves and our efforts, our confidence, and eventually, it can affect the way we act. Essentially, our self-talk matters and can change outcomes in our tangible world. Simply put by Brian Pennie, author, speaker, and recovering addict, who attributes his own negative self-talk to pushing him toward his drug addiction, “When my self-talk shifted, so did my willingness to act.”

Negative Self-Talk in the Workplace

Our own self-talk is important to pay attention to and to deal with, but what about when we see it in other people? If negative self-talk is playing in the background of everyone’s operating system, it no doubt finds its way into the workplace, affecting your team’s performance, morale, and overall culture.

So, how do you identify when this is happening for others? And is there anything you can do about it? Here are a few key things to look out for in those around you to indicate the presence of the unfriendly inner companion of self-sabotaging self-talk.

Self-Limiting Speech. Examples may include comments such as, “That’s too complicated for me to figure out”; or, “I don’t have the capacity to deal with that.”
Jumping to Conclusions. This could sound like someone saying “I just botched that presentation” right after walking out of a meeting; or, “Jim didn’t say hi to me today, he’s upset with me for something.”
Ruminating on the Negative. For example, someone who can’t let small mistakes go or can’t stop talking about how disappointing their recent review was.
Over-apologizing or Over-compensating for Mistakes. This shows that someone may be ruminating on their mistake and, internally, that they’re likely beating themselves up about it.
Self-Deprecating Humor. This probably shouldn’t always be laughed off. If someone is always throwing punches at themselves, it could be an indicator that their inner dialog is looking for validation of a negative perception they hold of themselves.
Catastrophizing. Someone who always jumps to the worst possible outcome may have more negativity swimming around internally than they even realize.

What to Do About It

While, as a leader, your role is not to be a therapist to your team, if you notice that someone’s negative self-talk starts to affect their performance or bring the morale of your team down, it may be appropriate to play a part in combating it.

Below are five key ways you, as a leader, can help shed light on and work against the negative self-talk of your team.

1. Normalize Mistakes as a Part of Growth

It’s easy for people to be hard on themselves when they’ve made an obvious mistake at work. When you recognize someone being particularly negative about their mistake, you can bring an element of psychological safety to your team by reminding them that mistakes are a part of the learning process and by being transparent about mistakes you’ve made and how you have overcome them. Being honest about your professional struggles can normalize the feelings of your employee.

Use yourself as an example: “When I was at your tenure I would get so down on myself when I couldn’t solve the problem quickly … until I researched other ways of dealing with self-doubt.”

2. Limit Expressions of Worry

It’s also helpful to limit expressions of worry about what may happen as a result of an employee’s mistake and keep the focus on solutions and actionable steps to solve for them. Encourage them to talk through their thinking about the problem, and point them toward a solution if they need guidance. This will help shift the focus in a positive direction and hopefully away from their negative self-talk.

3. Make Encouragement a Regular Practice

It’s easy to pick out ways your employees can improve, but to help keep their negative self-talk at a minimum, you can regularly find ways to encourage specific actions or qualities in people that you sense they may be struggling with. If they are feeling poorly about a recent project, you can pick a handful of things you saw them do well and sensitively address any areas that may have gone wrong.

When you do give feedback, the 3:1 rule is helpful– three positive points of feedback to one negative. However, make sure your feedback is always honest, because people have a way of knowing when you use fluff to prime them for a harsher critique.

4. Show Your Trust in Them

You can also encourage your employees by showing you trust them. Avoid micromanaging them in areas they are insecure about and empower them to step up and make decisions where you see fit. You can selectively give them opportunities to

make decisions in these areas to help them see their negative self-talk isn’t right about everything.

5. Bring a New Perspective

When your employees are overly negative about a mistake, ask them: “How would you talk to your colleague who you like and respect if they made a similar mistake? Probably a lot more gently and with more encouragement than you speak to yourself.”

You can also suggest that they do a thought experiment over the course of the challenging project where they speak to themselves as they would someone they cared about and wanted to genuinely motivate.

When you sense negative self-talk in the workplace that begins to take root, seeping into an employee’s actions or demeanor, it can be easy to ignore it or deem it “their problem.” However, if we want to see business become more human for everyone, it’s important to treat our employees as humans who deal with the same inner-dialog many of us have before.

5 Tips to Help You Successfully Lead With Empathy in the New Year

As this year kicks off, many corporations are planning and strategizing about what it looks like for employees to come back to the office either part time or full time. There is a sense of excitement around moving forward even amidst the uncertainty of the ongoing pandemic. While this can be exciting and invigorating for leaders– having employees around again, socializing, collaborating in person– we can’t forget that the events of the past year and a half have had a lasting impact on each employee and the way they work.

Employee’s personal and professional lives have involuntarily fused as they’ve learned to work from home, juggling their personal and family needs in between Zoom meetings. While this started as a challenge for many, people have adapted. Employees have settled into a new way of work, a more flexible one, and coming back to the office can feel threatening to that flexibility. Between financial stress (like rent and mortgages unpausing), childcare concerns, health concerns, and more, many people are emotionally tapped.

To help our employees come back to the office, even if just part-time, successfully and productively, it’s important to lead with empathy – to rethink the way we do things to include the human factor.

5 tips to help you lead with empathy as employees return to the office

Start with self-reflection:

The key to leading with empathy is putting yourself in other people’s shoes. Starting with self-reflection can help you understand how your employees may be feeling as the new year and new way of working approaches. This requires slowing down and being honest with yourself. What things did you endure over the past year and a half and how did they interact with your work? How have they affected your mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing?

Consider how your personal life has merged with your work life, and then take a look at your team and consider the same aspect on their behalf. Gaining empathy and understanding for others personal experiences will give you a human-centric perspective and help you lead better as you step into the new year.

Acknowledge Grief:

The pandemic and social unrest that ensued in 2020 has caused us all to come face to face with grief in ways we haven’t had to in a long time, if ever. There is a sense of broader grief for the nation and for the world, and there is personal grief as people have lost loved ones, jobs, financial security, and more. This emotional weight doesn’t disappear when we return to the office. Grief is a new risk to our employees’ wellbeing that can’t go without being addressed in the workplace.

First, it should be acknowledged. Let your teams know that it’s not getting swept under the rug, and make sure any mental health resources your HR team provides are readily available. Second, leaders should model holding the tension of grief well, while still looking forward to a better future. Pressing forward is necessary, but it shouldn’t feel like a bulldozer to those who are still dealing with grief.

Over Communicate:

There is still a lot of uncertainty in the world today, and when it comes to their jobs, employees crave clarity and direction. During the transition of stepping back into the office this year, communication will be key.

Sending weekly updates, whole company announcements, and keeping an open flow of communication will help your direct reports transition and feel a greater sense of trust and security. It’s also important to clarify goals and expectations regularly to decrease stress and create a stronger sense of direction and purpose through the change.

Consider Personal Responsibilities:

Most people’s personal responsibilities look a lot different now than they did before remote work. They have had to figure out childcare, setting up a home office, juggling family responsibilities, appointments, etc. To help soften the blow of managing these responsibilities when returning to the office, consider how you can accommodate or help support them through these things in an effort to make business more human.

Giving employees autonomy and still allowing them flexibility can help make the adjustment easier for employees and increase their sense of psychological safety. Ask which days and hours work best for them to be in the office and accommodate if possible. If you don’t have a commuter program or a childcare allowance, consider how these types of programs can help your employees feel supported as they navigate in-office work.

Be patient with socialization:

After being home alone for so long, socializing with coworkers can be exhausting, especially for introverts. People will need time to readjust to in-person relationship building. There may be a sense of awkwardness or hesitation in getting back to a culture where employees share personal details about their lives.

As much as you may have tried to simulate this over video conferencing, the actuality of hallway conversations and water cooler talk could feel daunting to those who have been isolated for a long period of time. Be patient, and don’t expect everyone to get there all at once. Offer opportunities for team bonding and getting reacquainted with each other but, understand that this may take longer than you think.

Leading with empathy, as you step into 2022, will help sustain your employees and avoid them feeling burnt out from the stress of reentering the workplace. It’s important to adjust, to be flexible, to integrate feedback, and to hold your excitement about progression with the tension of how hard the past year or so has been. If you can start by acknowledging the human element, then your vision for the future along with your new-year strategies will be embraced and more readily adopted.

Work-Life Harmony Ideas To Help Slow The Great Resignation: Part 2

This is a two-part blog post originally written for and published by Forbes.com. This first part can be found here.

As written in the first part of this miniseries, the Great Resignation is solvable if we take a human-centered approach to business. Until now, most businesses have almost exclusively focused on external stakeholders and their bottom line. Today’s workforce is demanding a seat at the table. They, too, want to feel valued, respected and included. Below please find the remaining four actionable suggestions that can help to slow the Great Resignation.

Provide the necessary support.

Even when we provide employees more autonomy or flexibility, we are still responsible for ensuring that they have what they need to get their work done. This may look different from person to person, and that’s why it’s important to keep an open line of communication with each employee regarding their needs.

We can all agree that, at the very least, those who are remote need the basic home equipment to set up their own workspace. But what if we took it a step further and asked what would help them perform at their absolute best? For some, it may look like providing a childcare allowance. For others, it may look like commuter benefits. Of course, not all personal needs can be accommodated, but when we see our employees as individuals who have unique circumstances and commit to supporting them in any way we can, then we grant them a level of human-centric care that can go a long way in promoting work-life harmony.

Establish great boundaries that promote productivity.

Work inevitably takes up a large portion of most of our lives, and many are starting to push back on this notion. France, for example, has implemented a law where companies of a certain size cannot send emails outside of working hours. Certainly, the rationale for this law is beyond the scope of this blog, but it’s a great example of how boundaries can give more control and predictability to employees so they can more effectively manage their lives.

Some companies are trying shorter workdays, acting on the understanding of Parkinson’s law, that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” The eight-hour workday isn’t necessarily the most productive across the board. So, shorter hours with more focused work time could be a beneficial shift for some companies to try. This can help draw stricter boundaries around the time that work takes up in our lives and, in turn, can allow for work to be a part of our lives, rather than our entire lives.

Set realistic work expectations/workloads.

Employees feel a sense of overwhelm when too much is expected of them at work, or when they don’t know what is expected of them. Recent studies have shown that in 2020, more than half of employees were stressed at work on a day-to-day basis.

It’s easy to overlook this when it appears that everyone has too much on their plates. Overwhelm has become the norm. This constant sense of pressure encroaches on our employees’ sense of well-being and can quickly lead to burnout. It’s important as leaders to monitor our employees’ stress levels and identify if their workload or what has been communicated (or not communicated) as expectations are the cause of overwhelm. Get really clear on deadlines and performance goals and identify roadblocks that may be out of the employees’ control. Open communication with our employees about what is on their plates and agreement about what is realistic for them to accomplish is key in creating a healthier environment that promotes their overall work-life harmony.

Cross-train.

The ability for employees to take on tasks for one another when needed can add to the collective sense of teamwork and flexibility within the workplace. It creates a dynamic system in which team members are each valued for their expertise but also expected to hold up the company as a team. Imagine a world where an employee could go on vacation and not have to check their email once or answer a single incoming “emergency” work text. Imagine returning to work and not having to play catch-up.

Is that possible? With intentional cross-training, yes. When employees are cross-trained well enough, it gives your company “the flexibility to respond to fluctuating workflows,” as Chris Cancialosi writes.

This means that when someone needs to take time off or step out for an appointment, they get to step away without the stress or worry of tasks falling through the cracks. This creates an environment where employees get to fully recoup and reset when they need to, promoting their well-being and ensuring a sense of harmony between their work and personal life.

It’s important to mention that not all industries will be able to make these adjustments. For example, the healthcare or food service industries can’t allow workers the same kind of flexibility discussed here. However, employers can still get creative in making business more human. Maybe it’s a 4/40 schedule to provide longer weekends or adjusting shift lengths or start times to accommodate childcare needs. The point is, if an employee’s needs are met, they won’t go looking elsewhere for employment.

There’s no perfect formula across the board, but what’s important is that leaders are willing to try new things and adjust as they figure out what works best for their employees. When we allow employees the freedom to fit work into their life, rather than the other way around, we can help them achieve true work-life harmony. Consequently, we get to keep our good employees and play our part in shifting the paradigm to doing human-centered business that benefits our well-being and our bottom line.

Work-Life Harmony Ideas to Help Slow The Great Resignation: Part 1

This is a two-part blog post originally written for and published by Forbes.com. The second part of the post will be published on Forbes.com and here in January 2022.

The Great Resignation and related labor shortage we are currently experiencing across the country, where employees are leaving their jobs at high rates with no one to backfill, is alarming company leaders who seem at a loss for what to do.

What is causing this shocking phenomenon?

The truth is, there are many factors. Over 750K people have lost their lives due to COVID in the last 16 months and the national birth rate continues to decline. In addition, many people have realized that the way they were living prior to COVID was unsustainable. The forced slow down experienced during the pandemic gave people time to reflect and identify what is important to them. Many have realized they want more time with their families, more time for leisure activities and overall, they want more freedom.

Employees have also learned that they can be more productive outside of the normal work paradigm and so they are demanding more flexibility from their employers. “Work-life Harmony” is no longer just a perk, it’s table stakes. Employees are holding their employers to higher standards whether it be related to health and safety, DEI, or employee treatment (i.e., workload or respect). When they’ve evaluated their companies on these factors, many are simply “refusing to accept the unacceptable.”

Work-Life Balance VS. Work-Life Harmony (Integration)

The problem is the term “work-life balance” creates a false belief that it is possible to keep work and life separate yet equal. The reality, however, is that as a nation, we have now fully embraced technology and the two have not been separate for some time. Technology created a path for work to encroach on personal lives and there was no means to get personal life back. We didn’t adjust. People have been on a hamster wheel – fighting to achieve something that is not achievable – balance. Work-life integration, on the other hand, acknowledges that there is no clean distinction between the two and seeks to help them co-exist in harmony.

The Great Resignation has accelerated technology and as a result, people have realized that work-life balance is a losing proposition. It is very one-sided and work always gets the lion’s share of your time. By necessity, people are now demanding harmony. People want to work in a way that complements their lives. The COVID pandemic has helped them to see that this is possible, and now, they understandably don’t want to go back to a work situation that overtakes their entire lives.

So, how do we, as leaders create a work environment that will attract and retain talent? We need to create environments that promote work-life harmony. In other words, we need to shape business to be more human.

Below please find two ideas that will help you to create better work-life harmony for your employees. I have a total of six actionable ideas, and the other four will appear in a follow-up article that will be published next.

Promote Flexibility & Autonomy

Flexibility allows employees their autonomy. It means they, mostly, can choose when and how they work. This kind of work environment works well with some kind of Management by Objective (MBO) and/or a Management by Exception (MBE) type of leadership.

Coined by Peter Drucker, MBO is management process where goals are agreed upon by both parties. There needs to be some regular cadence to monitoring by the manager to ensure quality and ethical standards.

MBE is mostly attributed to Frederick W. Taylor and is an approach whereby the work is “more self-directed than boss-directed.” The employee is to raise the flag when something deviates outside of the agreed plan.

These approaches give employees a stronger sense of autonomy which allow them to manage the demands of their whole lives or preferences more wholistically.

Hybrid and/or Flexible Work Schedules

Many companies have moved to a hybrid work schedule, however, hybrid and flexible are not the same thing. Hybrid entails the expectation that an employee will work a certain number of weekdays from home and the rest from the office, and its typically still assumes the 9-5, 8-hour workday and includes mandatory anchor days. While this schedule may work for some, many employees are craving more: flexible work schedules.

A flexible work schedule goes hand-in-hand with promoting an employee’s autonomy. Allowing employees the option to work from where they see fit and being flexible with the hours they work can create more harmony between their personal and work lives. If an employee prefers to work from home in the mornings so they can get an earlier start, or work 4, 10-hour days so they can volunteer at their kids’ school or take weekend trips more often, allowing them the flexibility to do so can create an environment in which they can be the most present and productive in their current life state.

As you can see, neither of the options above is easy to implement, and this is compounded by the fact that each speaks to customization, which means complexity will go up. The days of one-size-fits-all are over. While that made managing the masses easier, it forced employees to adapt their lives. Today’s Americans are used to having it their way, and this now extends to how we want work. I have no doubt that those employers who adapt and innovate quickly to offer options that support the way that people want to live will surely win the war for talent.

5 Tips for Organizations to Maintain an Inclusive Culture During the Holiday Season

As we come to the end of 2021, organizations can put their DEI strategy into practice. Holiday parties should be about coming together, celebrating all cultures, and highlighting the successes over the year. Here are 5 tips on how to create an inclusive celebration where no one feels excluded.

The Name of the Event Matters

Be intentional, celebrate the diversity of your team. Have a “holiday celebration” that focuses on time together, laughter, and the celebration of getting through another year in a pandemic.

Decorations Have Meaning

Be mindful of decorations and what they represent. Avoid having a theme that represents only one religious’ practice.

Holidays Are Celebrated Throughout the Year

Be inclusive when planning the day and time of your celebration. Avoid celebrating with food and libations when one or more of your employees’ religious practices require them to fast or stay home on that day.

Food Represents Culture

Be conscientious of food choices for all your employees. Have a potluck so people can bring food that represents their culture.

How to support employees who opt-out of the celebration:

Be thoughtful and don’t put pressure on your employees to participate in the celebration. Given another full year of video conferencing, some employees may want to spend time at home or in nature unplugged!

Happy Holidays!

5 tips to help you lead with empathy as employees return to the office

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