Who has responsibility for how people are treated?
In our recent poll, 68% voted that leaders and managers SHOULD own responsibility for how people are treated. How do you think people would have voted if the question asked who DOES own that responsibility?
How does this play out for you, in reality? In my work as a coach and in workshops, I learn that this is still a fundamental challenge at every level in HR.
It’s a privilege to coach HR heads, yet sad to hear that sometimes their core issue is their relationship with a difficult CEO and/or other senior leaders, because of their behaviour.
This is a double whammy that affects HRBPs too: a) the leader’s own behaviour and its impact on those around them, and also b) that this indicates that they don’t ‘get’ this intellectually.
The link between leaders’ behaviour and business performance really isn’t obvious to everyone. But we have to work with what we’ve got – start from where the leader is, not from where we think they should be.
Therefore, this requires a dual response:
- skilled behavioural feedback to help leaders understand what they actually did, how to shift their intent and choose more effective options for how they deal with situations;
- data that proves the impact of behaviour across the organisation on business results.
We’ve worked hard to understand how to truly support HR leaders, managers and HRBPs in the day-to-day realities of challenging work, and have developed some powerful tools and workshops.
