All new leaders must realize that for people to truly follow your lead, they first must believe that you, as their leader have their very best interests at heart. This belief is grounded in a positive emotional connection between the leader and the followers. This connection is created in the daily experience of the leader’s behaviour. This connection is sustained in the consistent daily experience of matching the leader’s words to the leader’s behaviour.
Kristen Aldridge and Seth Mattison, cofounders of the new platform Luminate, share their mission for this new platform, to connect, support, empower and inspire leaders and entrepreneurs to create work experiences that fill people up, rather than run them dry. Aldridge is an Emmy-winning journalist and Mattison is an internationally renowned author and expert on the future of work and leadership. In a 2018 article Mattison describes what he believes about leadership in today’s world.
Mattison says that if you want to be a leader today, it’s not about whether or not you like people. If you want to be a leader today, you have to love people. Period. And when it comes to building organizations that will totally re-imagine what the world will be like in the future, we have to pour love into people, and create a new kind of culture that’s based around that, because love is what influences communities. And it influences our country and our world.
Mattison offers a couple of suggestions:
First, find something truly good and lovable in everyone you work with. No matter how difficult, there
are universal human needs and desires in everyone, and when we can embrace the commonality among us, we stop judging and rejecting, and we start to let our love out. It’s exactly that love, compassion and care that paves the way for people to grow.
And second, find a way to lead from service, not from power. It is proven that when you come from a deep desire to be of service – to others, to their organizations and to their communities – you lead very differently, and in a much more effective and influential way. While traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the “top of the pyramid,” servant leadership is different. The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible.”
It is through this positive and caring connection that engaged employees have a sense of ownership and personal connection to their work that results in higher levels of productivity and organizational performance.
Catherine is the President and CEO of CORPORATE HARMONY, providing virtual solutions for leadership development and organizational culture change. Her leadership and coaching experience as a Project Manager in an ever-changing, fast moving technological organization with unrelenting demands drove her to the realization that a positive mindset and strength-building behaviors are essential for today’s complex and chaotic organizational systems. CORPORATE HARMONY’s virtual platform of programs, coaching and performance measurement, is an innovative online technology of tested proprietary content. The world-class content of CORPORATE HARMONY’s Positive Presence Program develops the skill of ‘Positive Presence’ and the necessary ‘Positive Presence Behaviour Competencies’ for maintaining a positive and energized mindset and increased performance in today’s complex work environment, and leading to a culture of collaboration and connection. Catherine’s vision for Corporate Harmony is to bring the skill of “Positive Presence” to the corporate world as it becomes more complex, ambiguous and chaotic. Catherine is uniquely positioned to impact organizations’ productivity and long term success, with her powerful vision of eliminating bad stress from every workplace around the globe, bringing purpose into the people equation to promote healthy, productive and meaningful work cultures and turn the tide on the neglect of mental health on a global scale. Catherine is author of the book: “CORPORATE HARMONY – The Performance Link for Today’s Modern Organization” Catherine can be reached at: Catherine.Osborne@corporateharmony.ca or go to ‘contact us’ on our website www.corporateharmony.ca. Catherine is available for consultation, and can be reached by 519-695-3407.