Human-Centered Leadership

Human-centered leadership is the antidote to low employee morale, high turnover rates, weak team dynamics, and negative organizational culture. On this episode of The Forward Thinking Podcast, FCCS VP of Marketing and Communications Stephanie Barton sits down with Karin Hurt, Founder and CEO of Let's Grow Leaders and instructor in the Leading Leaders, FCCS Leadership Journey program for a conversation about the four dimensions of collaboration that create connection and clarity in human-centered leadership. She highlights what it means to be on a dream team, strategies for leading a team that you didn’t hand-pick, and the importance of crafting daily habits that keep a team moving forward together.

 

Episode Insights Include:

 

Dream (and nightmare) leadership teams

• The best team Karin has ever been a part of was the Strategic Partnership Channel.

• This team was filled with human-centered leaders and it showed in the care that everyone showed for each other.

• Teams like this are filled with people who are aligned by a unifying mission, a shared goal, and trust for each other.

• The worst team Karin was part of was filled with conflicts that were caused by systems problems.

• Teams that are pitted against each other will continue to struggle to accomplish anything.

 

The four dimensions of collaboration

• Connection- do we know one another as human beings?

• Connection needs to be in place before difficult conversations have to happen.

• Use connecting words when communicating with others.

• Clarity- do we have a shared understanding of success?

• Is your team aligned on the habits that lead to success?

• Curiosity- are we genuinely interested in one another and in different perspectives?

• Commitment- do conversations culminate in accountability?

• Accountability is everyone’s job, not just the boss.

 

The importance of daily habits

• Detailed, informative directives are far more valuable than generic feedback.

• Daily habits can help improve connections and performance.

• Specific, measurable habits will lead to greater results.

• Daily habits can help align a team and move everyone in the same direction.

• Check for understanding by assigning a number of hours to a task before starting it.

• Communicate an assignment five times in five different ways.

• Restate expectations of the next steps before the meeting is over.

 

Successful team-building activities

• Start by creating a unified team vision.

• Visualize or draw how you see the team today and what the future could look like.

• Determine what needs to happen to get from where you are to where you need to be.

 

Advice for leaders who didn’t pick their team

• A team can only be built one person at a time.

• Start with curiosity and connection - let your team see who you are as a human being with thoughts and feelings.

• Create clarity about where your team is headed in the future.

• Empower your team to hold each other accountable, share best practices, and even meet without you.

 

This podcast is powered by FCCS.

Resources

 

Connect with Karin Hurt — Karin Hurt

Get in touch

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