I consider the term Human Resources as a misnomer. There!! I have said it and have created angst among many of my esteemed colleagues in the HR fraternity. Let us face it. What does the term “resource” remind us about? Raw materials used in production? Money used in procuring assets? Machines that convert raw materials into finished product? Do we want to be counted similar to those “resources”? Would you be happy if your organisation treated you as one of the “means” to get the results? You get the drift. That is probably why many people are switching to the term Human Capital Management.
Considering employees as “resources” is not more an option in the future of work. I am not getting pedantic about the terminology. The fact is that the future of work has taught employees to value themselves. The future of work has taught employers to value their employees more.
But what does valuing an employee really mean? Let me explain this using VALUE as an acronym.
V is for Vision. Employers need to give the employees a string vision , a vision that is not limited by the day-to-day realities of this pandemic stricken world. Servant Leaders create and communicate a strong Vision for the employees. Servant Leaders also persuade followers to buy into the vision and make it their own. Vision that a Servant Leader creates and communicates is one that I would like to call as Higher Purpose Vision. This gives the employees a greater purpose in life than mere profit. It gives them a cause. This connects them with the organisation in a much stronger way, than when they are a “resource”.
A is for Appreciation. Servant Leaders appreciate the value that each team member brings to the table, irrespective of their position or title or level in the organisation. As Ken Blanchard puts it, they “catch people doing the right things”. They recognize and reward people for their achievements. Even when there are failures, they are able to deal with it without devaluing the individual, appreciating their strengths rather than focusing on their limitations. Servant Leaders believe in the saying “It is not what you don’t have that matters most. What you do with what you have that matters most.”
L is for love. Don’t beat me up on this. This is not mushy soft stuff. And yes, it is a verb. What has leadership got to do with Love; you ask? “Everything” is the answer of a Servant Leader. Servant Leaders love their people. And in a selfless way. It is not about what they can (or have) done for you, but is about what you can do for them.
U is for Uplifting. Servant Leaders truly lift their people up. This is how I define a Servant Leader, “He/she is someone who invests in another person to the extent that the other person becomes better, wiser, richer, healthier, wealthier, more famous that yourselves”. I am reminded of an analogy that a friend of mine narrates to illustrate this. Imagine you have taken your child to a fair/fete. The place is crowded and you are enjoying the sights, there are lights everywhere, there are fireworks going off, people are cheering and smiling. You are enjoying the scene and hope that your child is having a great time. But then you realise that your child is not happy, she is constantly tugging at your hands, your trousers, and trying to get your attention. Finally when you feel pestered enough, you reluctantly lift the child up and put her on your shoulders. Suddenly the child’s face lights up. She starts enjoying the fete/fair as much as you do. Then you realise that when the child was down there, from her point of view, all that she was able to see was a crowd of feet, dirty shoes, jeans, trousers, skirts, whatever came at her eye level. When you lift her up, you enable her to see the world from your point of view. Servant Leaders lift other people up so that they can be better.
E is for Emotional Connect with people. Servant Leaders connect with people not just at a transactional level. They connect at an emotional level. They are empathetic. They can sense the feelings behind actions and words. They listen to the people for what is being said and what is not being said too. They can heal relationships by forgiving themselves as well as others for mistakes (intentional or otherwise). They have the courage to apologise for wrongs that they have committed. (More on this was discussed in another post of mine accessible here (https://leadyne.com/4-personal-habits-2)
So there you have it. VALUE are the five strong pillars of Employee Engagement in the Future of Work. Several organisations spent enormous efforts to measure and improve Employee Engagement. I offer Servant Leadership as the sure shot solution for this problem. My own research that I did for my Doctoral thesis establishes a very strong and significant positive correlation on the Organisational Commitment of employees when Leaders demonstrate Servant Leadership behaviour.
So , do join the Servant Leadership movement and enhance the Employee Engagement in your teams.
Join the discussion below.
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Thank you for this very short and sweet article. Yes, ‘VALUE’ humane!
Rejuvenating human thought.
All the best
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Thanks for the thoughtful article. I would respectfully disagree with the word “Human Capital” too since it still treats Humans as some sort of investment currency.. a much more sensitive treatment by the way of ” Human Contribution” or “Human Services” would ring a better bell, maybe? we are already seeing a plethora ” AI based services, so why leave the Human or “Original” contribution behind. Also as Indians, we may need to introspect the usage of “Dharma” and weave this within our fraternity, which is more powerful than lip-service to what is being currently offered by us all to Business!
Dharma is a powerful concoction, a purpose which may provide a lot many answers, I humbly submit that its time has come.
Thanks Kiran. You raise some intersting counter points about Human Capital. Good chain of thought.
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your writings .when I read it I am so emotional and really want to do for the people as a servant leader. But frankly speaking many times I am not able to connect with people servant and leader, safety and service, vision and goals Vs working more than our goals or achievements look like contradictory. But as a servant leader we are called to do do and do. Very thoughtful Sir. Thank you.
Thanks Jeya. Yes , Servant Leadership is an “Oxymoron”. But that is the beauty of it. What we do in our SLAM workshops is to make it real and practical. Thanks for your interest.
Dear Dr. Madana, thank you for this article as this is not only apt for the present time but this is the ‘ideal’ solution. But in practical terms, how will this be possible when the boss looks only in the profit motive, colleagues work with ‘climb up the ranks anyhow’ motive. When the world (workforce) looks at you as a ‘resource’ and expects you to be squeezed-to-the-max-productive, when the goal post shifts with no solid vision how will Servant Leadership work in that place. If Servant Leadership is a trait for individual character building I think it will work, but if it is an alternative to work culture I don’t see how it will work in reality.
Thanks Kelvin for the questions. These questions are very valid and we address them in our SLAM program. Yes the norms of today’s business world are not particularly favourable for Servant Leadership implementation. But a few who chose to break away from those old norms have proven that Servant Leadership works, and works even in profit-making organisations. So let us be the change and we can change the world.
Thank you Dr Madana Kumar for this post that reaffirms the need for a servant leader to value others. The current scenario in fact provides us time and space to think of others as unique individuals, marvel at the wonder of the others and walk along with them with a collective vision by appreciating them, loving them and uplifting them with an emotional connect. So it is important that the servant leader is experiencing the true inner freedom, for you can give only what you have. Truth should set us free!!!
Mayamma. Great points. Yes the Servant Leader needs to “experience true inner freedom” first.
Thank you very much for this excellent piece of writing! This writing is timely with the timeless truths you have beautifully elucidated. In the present scenario of job losses and salary cuts, valuing the employees, not just for what they do more so for who they are is very important. Yes, they are not a resource that is used as a means to an end. As human beings have an intrinsic value, the leader is required to be more empathetic, especially in the present scenario.
Thanks Sujay. Appreciate your thoughts
This is a apt article breaking VALUE as an acronym. One of my colleague who is the Chief of finance very young, lost his wife 3 days back and the country Nigeria is under lock down which left him completely divested with a 3 year old daugther at the hospital a thousand mile apart from where I live.
Early morning before dawn he called me to inform on the loss of his wife and I really did not know how to react but as his superior I needed to do something therefore, I first had to get an EMOTIONAL connect to know the gravity of the situation he is in which lead me to pour out emotional support since he is a thousand miles apart leading to pouring out LOVE, concern and APPRECIATED him for standing strong on both personal and on work from home issues during the time he cared for his sick wife which gave him a new UPLIFTMENT in his spiritual strength and to accept what lies before him in the days to come. The entire scene ended up so dramatically that a new beginning needed to be made to bring back his strength and thoughts together to move ahead in life with a brand new VISION.
This article was bang on this morning when I was trying to contemplate if my actions were justified and here it comes spot on…I thank Dr Madana for sharing this article which was very insightful and morally a big support to do the right thing by leaders during this stressful time. Thank you so much and God bless and use you to be an instrument in leading professional in right decision making.
Thanks Saul for sharing your touching story. Appreciate it.
Thank you sir for the encouragement. Short and clear. Hope that many more will be encouraged thru this. There are corners of overlooking and indifference in our society. You do well helping us see clearer.
Thanks Khumba.
Excellent! This really helps me to evaluate how I look at the people that work with me and how actually I must.
But, I have a question which you might have already addressed in your other writings or maybe planning to in the future and that is, in these difficult times how should a leader look at himself? How does he lift up himself and what and where should he see by lifting himself that will cheer him first? In other words, how does the acronym VALUE apply to himself first? How does he lead himself as the servant leader? The leader himself is under immense pressure due to so many factors caused by the pandemic.
Excellent question Rajeev. It is common sense that “we cannot take some one to a place where we have not been”. Hence for a Servant Leader to lift himself/herself up is very important. This is what I meant by the habit of “Healing” in the article i wrote earlier. https://leadyne.com/4-personal-habits-2
Emotional Healing includes lifting oneself up first.
A good piece of article in times like these when human resource are not considered resource but as an expense.
Thanks Swathi
Thank you for the wonderful writing, really covid 19,has paved a way to realize the value of servant leadership and it’s feasibility post covid 19 environment. My concern is why only in crisis we appreciate values, ethics and other things which we ignore during our normal walk of life?
An uplifting piece! Thanks for writing. Right now I’m seeing and being challenged with how to fix the E empathy part. How the workplace is slowly diluted by dehumanizing routines when empathy is absent, and emotional intelligence is about being skilled at virtue (what Aristotleans and Greeks call ‘ Arete’) and the key virtue to be fully skilled in is Love as you identify.
But Virtue as Skilled and Trained Character seems to have vanished out of the personality cult of leadership wisdom today.
Refreshing!
Thanks Abel. Yes it is true. dehumanisation of workplaces is a big problem. It is accentuated by the approach “it is business, nothing personal”. That is why in our SLAM workshops we address the Heart (Emotions) part first , before we talk about the skills required. Emotional Healing is a key behaviour that Servant Leaders need to develop. Thanks for your comments.