{"id":3663,"date":"2018-12-28T11:06:28","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T19:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/markccrowley.com\/?p=3663"},"modified":"2019-05-03T16:22:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T23:22:08","slug":"a-quote-from-maya-angelou-predicted-the-future-of-workplace-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-wmplo.xyz\/mark-c-divi5\/a-quote-from-maya-angelou-predicted-the-future-of-workplace-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quote From Maya Angelou Predicted The Future Of Workplace Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Late poet, Maya Angelou famously observed that \u201cpeople will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>Her great kernel of truth here is that human beings are far more influenced by feelings than by rational thinking \u2013 not at all what most of us have ever believed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When it comes to motivating employee performance in the workplace, little of Maya Angelou\u2019s wisdom has ever seeped into our leadership practices. We\u2019ve traditionally assumed that workers made up their\u00a0minds<\/em>\u00a0on whether to be loyal, committed and engaged in their jobs, so leaders have intentionally steered clear of their hearts.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But over the course of a long leadership career, my direct experience repeatedly proved this understanding was wrong. Ultimately, I came to this realization:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

How I made people\u00a0<\/em>feel<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0proved to have the greatest impact on employee decisions to be dedicated, hardworking, and willing to put in discretionary effort to help achieve our goals.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

When I intentionally made employees \u2013 of every age, education level and job family \u2013\u00a0<\/em>feel<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0valued, supported, growing and appreciated, they routinely and instinctively scaled mountains for me.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Ever since this epiphany, I\u2019ve been calling for a reinvention of workplace leadership. In an era where absurdly low employee engagement and job satisfaction scores prove our traditional methods are failing, I believe the greatest responsibility a manager has today is to ensure employees routinely experience the positive feelings and emotions now known to inspire extraordinary performance. I call this leading from the heart.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Now I\u2019d like to tell you that leaders everywhere have been quick to embrace this new thinking, and immediately trusted it to drive greater productivity. But, as you might have guessed, that\u2019s not what happened. Upon hearing words like \u201cfeelings\u201d and \u201cheart,\u201d alarms were triggered. \u201cThis could never work in the real world,\u201d is what many managers have instinctively assumed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

But I came from that real world \u2013 the sharp-edged financial services industry \u2013 and proved at all levels that caring about employees and supporting their emotional needs is the surest way to driving sales, productivity and profit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

Nonetheless, as a realist who fully accepts that some people will always need more convincing than others, I\u2019ve continued to seek more compelling proof.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

To that end, I\u2019ve discovered the work of four extraordinary thought leaders \u2013 best selling authors, scientists, researchers and psychologists amongst them. Coming from entirely different disciplines \u2013 and working independently \u2013 each has made the same remarkable conclusions:<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n