How Leaders Lead Impacts How People Feel, Behave & Relate

“Real power has to do with one’s ability to influence the hearts and minds of others.” The 14th Dalai Lama

An organization's culture is determined by how leaders lead and measured by how employees feel, behave and relate with others. The way employees feel, behave and relate impacts their performance and productivity. Humans are driven by how they feel. Even the mind’s functions are impacted by how people feel.

Truly Human Leaders are one of the most important foundations of a Truly Human Company. More than a personal physician, a leader impacts the health of his workers. The way people feel at work has a tremendous influence over their motivation, health, and performance.

Companies that understand the relationship between how their people feel at work and their performance will ensure that they develop their leaders to be those who draw out positive energy from their people. Emotional energy is the real driver of human behavior. It is the force that makes employees deliver value at work.

When leaders care for their people, they draw out positive emotional energy. Positive emotional energy creates positive actions that enable people to become limitless in their performance. The only limitation people have from performing at a higher level is how they feel.

The way people feel has a tremendous impact and influence over their motivation, performance, and health. Leaders who care for their people build a workplace that heals people. Mark C. Crowley wrote in his phenomenal book, Lead From The Heart: Transformational Leadership For The 21st Century, “Actions emanating from the heart (e.g kindness, love, and care) hold miraculous power throughout all living organisms.”

People can endure anything and go to any length, inclusive of the extra mile, when they feel happy at work. When your people are not doing all they can and more, then you must audit how you are making them feel. Until they experience positive emotional energies at work, they will never reach their true human potential. Emotions are the doorway to their potential.

In the book, Truly Human Culture Playbook, we address the different ways leaders lead to trigger the right, positive emotional energy and behavior in their people. People can’t grow and seek to self-actualize when they continually have negative emotional energies at work. Leaders need to learn how they can go about triggering the right emotions in their people. It doesn’t happen by chance but by being intentional.

When leaders operate from their minds, they connect with people through their reasoning. However, when they lead from their emotions, they connect with people’s emotions. Emotional connections are more potent than mental connections. It bypasses reasoning. It stirs up passion and unleashes potential.

Truly Human Leaders lead with their hearts. They love, care, and are kind, and patient with their people. When people work in an environment where their leaders care for and dignify them, they become more human. We flourish in an environment of care and love. Our humanity blossoms when we feel love. Just as plants need nutrients, carbon dioxide, and sunshine to grow, so humans need care, trust, and kindness to become all they can be, do all they can do, and earn all they can earn.