Author: Dr Jopie de Beer, CEO of JvR Africa Group For many, the title of manager or leader means that you earn a significant salary and have absolute control, while delegating the work to others. But, this is not a sustainable form of leadership, particularly not in the modern workplace. Leaders must be facilitators, people who can empower others, yet manage to maintain focus, discipline and respect. Successful leaders work harder and for longer hours than others in the company. They carry the ultimate responsibility for the success of the business. Real leadership is therefore not about the title, it is an incredibly important position of responsibility. Much of a leader’s responsibility comes down to how employees are managed. This is possibly the most crucial test for the quality of leadership in a company. Leader responsibilities in terms of managing people: 1. Acknowledge the impact your behaviour has on others in the workplace The behaviour of a leader serves as an example to others. If the leader procrastinates, is lazy, abusive, absent, arrogant, or corrupt, it will provide a model of behaviour that others will follow. The best leaders tend to show humility, productivity, fairness, respect and ethical behaviour, and they understand that they need to create a work environment where people can flourish. To be a good leader therefore requires so much more than technical skills. 2. Create an environment of care, fairness and respect Leaders who care about their people and who are as even-handed and fair as is humanly possible, more easily earn the respect of employees. Douglas McGregor’s Theory Y leaders believe that their employees are talented and have much to offer the workplace. These leaders create a much more positive work environment. Such a positive environment has a direct impact on productivity, creativity, and even interpersonal relationships. 3. Create an environment where people can learn This can be formalised learning such as internships, or being sponsored for training courses or qualifications. Valuable learning could however also result from practical and onsite learning, or articles made available on a company intranet, to mention just a few. In many workplaces there are ample opportunities to learn, particularly when employees use some of their own initiative to learn about the job, the company, the industry or projects. Good leaders are often good at storytelling and teaching. They play the role of coach, sometimes connecting their employees with others who can best teach desired skills. 4. Create an environment where people can innovate Innovation does not only refer to technological or disruptive innovation. Smaller innovations can also have immense value to the organisation. By creating an environment where employees can suggest changes and innovations to existing ways of doing work, can be of immense value. For employees to do so, they must feel confident that they will be “heard”. Their ideas need not always be accepted, but it at least needs to be acknowledged, respected, and considered. You know you’re doing a good job as leader when your employees feel safe enough to share new, untested ideas, even if there might be a risk of failure or rejection. 5. Create an environment of integrity and trust Trust cannot be demanded - it must be earned! Trust takes a long time to be established and it can be broken in a single irresponsible, angry or impulsive moment. Leaders cannot be successful if employees do not trust him/her. It takes consistent trustworthy decisions and actions from a leader to be trusted by employees. For people to trust the leader he/she must be honest, “keep their promises” and “do the right thing”. Once the leader is branded as unreliable, it becomes nearly impossible for a leader to earn trust from employees again. 6. Create an environment where consequences and discipline can be accepted The workplace is not always a positive and happy environment. Contracts may be lost; the economy may make doing business very difficult; or there may be corruption or sabotage. It is the responsibility of the leader to implement corrective actions when something in the business goes wrong.. Good leaders are able to fairly deal with consequences, hold others accountable, and through it all remain positive about the future. A leader is the person that must keep “everything together” whether it is the people, the product, the client needs, the need for governance, and of course the finances. The character of the leader and the quality of the decision he/she makes, creates the atmosphere within which people work. Leaders therefore have complex responsibilities, and how they conduct themselves has a big influence on the nature of the workplace. It is a big job! Are you still sure that you want that promotion? ENDS ABOUT JvR Africa Group: JvR Africa Group of companies consists of JvR Psychometrics, JvR Consulting Psychologists, JvR Academy, and JvR Safety. With its head office situated in Johannesburg, the group conducts business nationally and across Sub-Saharan Africa. They work with test developers, consultants and academic institutions all over the world, and support a range of development opportunities and host events around.
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Author: Jacob de Coning, Senior Consultant at JvR Safety
What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of safety in the workplace? If you work in an industrial environment you probably thought of signs, rules and paperwork…lots of paperwork. In the service sector, you may have thought of the dangers of incorrect posture, staring at a screen for too many hours or sitting at your desk. Sitting is the new smoking you know. Regardless of the industry, this is not a topic that typically gets people excited. Considering the recent listeriosis outbreak in South Africa, workplace safety is a topic that can become very important, very quickly. Admittedly, many companies do take safety seriously and this focus has indeed paid off. From mining to manufacturing, fatalities have mostly been dropping since 1994(1). However, many companies lament the fact that they are seeing a diminishing return from their safety efforts. This leaves us with a fundamental question. If companies are investing so heavily in this area, why are incidents still happening? This is a surely a question worth answering and most of us can agree that companies should be able to pursue their goal without harming people. Yet the curious case remains that people are often disengaged and, quite frankly, annoyed with the topic… Somewhere, through all the efforts to improve safety, we have forgotten about the very thing we are trying to protect…the person. We attempt to engineer and regulate every possible interaction a person may have with risks in their environment. While important, this approach has had an unintended consequence in that people have become so used to risks they are lulled into a false sense of security. Reducing the need to think Through our over-emphasis on engineering and regulatory approaches to safety, we have reduced the need for a person to think about what they are doing. More frightening still, some companies seem to prefer it this way. We have heard from employees across different industries, that they are not involved in planning their work or making work-related decisions. As some employees may put it, “We get paid to work, not to think”. However, once an incident happens you are almost guaranteed to hear the ubiquitous “Why didn’t you think?!!” response. Possibly… because that is exactly what we are training people to do. It makes sense to control and remove risks where possible - hence the critical role of safety engineering. It also makes sense to learn from best practice and entrench these as guidelines that different companies can follow. On top of this, it REALLY makes sense not to disregard a tool, that has been refined over several million years to efficiently handle input, adjust to its surroundings and which conveniently has a self-preservation drive built right in. Hint: It’s the brain… It is quite ironic that at the time when we are placing ever more sensors and learning algorithms into machines to better enable them to deal with their environments, we are suppressing those same qualities in human beings. Granted, humans are not always the easiest things to work with, but the same goes for microwaves and we have learnt to work effectively with them. Here are a few simple ways to promote safe behaviour among your team: 1. Allow people to think and make decisions. We have found that employees understand that they cannot be involved in every minute part of the business, however, they do want to have an input into the work they are doing. This notion is backed up by research supporting the idea that employees are more engaged when they have a sense of autonomy and agency, which contributes to a sense of ownership(2)(3). 2. Involve individuals in planning their tasks. Individuals like to know that what they are doing contributes to a larger whole. Involving a team in planning their work greatly improves the odds of them being committed to the goal(4). On a practical note, proper planning can assist workers to complete their tasks in a more efficient manner 3. Use questions more than “telling”. Most safety conversations involve telling adults how to do their work, or what not to do. Moving from a “telling” mindset to using questions not only involves the person more, but ties into the structure of their brain to keep their attention. Through using questions employees are immediately more engaged and it improves the chances of them thinking through their tasks, rather than just listening passively. People want to do great work, to perform well on difficult challenges(5). Perhaps it is time to involve them in one of the most difficult challenges faced by the industrial world. Reaching our goals, continuing the march of progress. Without losing people along the way. References: 1. Mckay, D. SA mining laments rise in number of employee fatalities in 2017. Miningmx.com. [Online] 2017. 2. Freaks, D. Motivating Employees Has Everything To Do With Giving Them Feelings Of Ownership. Forbes.com. [Online] 2014. 3. Schawbel, D. How Companies Can Benefit From Inclusion. Forbes.com. [Online] 2012. 4. Newport, C. Professor. How to love your Job. s.l. : Tiny Leaps, 1 March 2018. 5. Whitehurst, J. Decisions Are More Effective when More People Are Involved from the Start. Harvard Business Review. [Online] 2016. ENDS MEDIA CONTACT: Idéle Prinsloo, 082 573 9219, idele@thatpoint.co.za, www.atthatpoint.co.za ABOUT JvR Africa Group: JvR Africa Group of companies consists of JvR Psychometrics, JvR Consulting Psychologists, JvR Academy, and JvR Safety. With it’s head office is situated in Johannesburg; the group conducts business nationally and across Sub-Saharan Africa. They work with test developers, consultants and academic institutions all over the world and supports a range of development opportunities and hosts events around People Development in Africa, a cause they feel is extremely important to the future of our continent. For more information on JvR Africa Group please visit: Website: https://jvrafricagroup.co.za/ LinkedIn: JvR Africa Group Facebook: The JvR Africa Group - People Development in Africa Twitter: JvR Africa Group YouTube: The JvR Africa Group Author: Dr Jopie de Beer, CEO of JvR Africa Group People in leadership positions often behave badly, which may be the reason why up to 75% of employees internationally report that their manager/leader is the worst part of their job. In fact, all over the world trust in leadership is also reported as being at an all-time low. Bad leaders often create circumstances where everyone around them "drink from the poison cup" to experience turmoil, risk, fragmentation and despair. In circumstances like these it becomes exceptionally important to use ways of strengthening our own- and other's resilience and to jealously guard our personal experience of wellbeing or happiness. This is why it is important to put forward that leadership is much more than "being in charge", those occupying such positions have the responsibility to create an environment where people want to live, work and play, where they feel that they contribute and where they are treated with respect. In addition, it is crucial that relationships in the workplace be managed in such a way that the necessary discipline including trust, respect, loyalty and hope co- exists. From within Each person’s experience of wellbeing (happiness) is impacted on by our hard wiring and mental habits. Happiness or the lack there-of comes from within ourselves and the way we think can drive us to despair and helplessness or to positive problem solving. With regard to our resilience our personal thinking habits may make life intolerable or filled with opportunities. We know those with a lighter mood find interpersonal relationships easier and tend to be generally more resilient. Without underestimating the harsh realities people live in and how it could impact on their sense of wellbeing and happiness. We should all consider using our well-known South African sense of humor as often as possible. Let's laugh at ourselves and those we live with. Such laughter has very valuable physiological and emotional benefit but it also has an invaluable social benefit when we are able to laugh together. The belief of being helpless and/or the victim of circumstances and blaming others have no value in building your resilience or sense of well-being- particularly if used as an excuse for poor behaviour or non-action. By re-framing experiences to highlight opportunities rather than catastrophes will already make life easier for all. Try to see events as a "blip on the graph" that will pass and if a situation is not of your doing stop blaming yourself for it. Celebrate the fact that there are many more good than bad people in our country and how much we enjoy living and shopping together. Don’t just survive, thrive There are, of course, many types of happiness or wellbeing. It is much more complex than it seems. For some, happiness may come from everyday possessions and experiences, but even more sustainable happiness comes from finding satisfaction in what you do every day and making sure that there is meaning and purpose of your life. Well-being /happiness may at first seem to be related to survival but also has much to do with being able to thrive. In a country where the unemployment levels are higher than ever before, where poverty and poor education are regularly reported in the media, where political murders are taking place and crime seems to be out of control, it is not difficult to understand that it affects the mood and resilience of the citizens. Maslow's theory illustrates that it is very difficult for people to have a sense of wellbeing if their basic needs for survival, safety, security and belonging are not met. These are prerequisites for being proud and self-actualised. Although there are circumstance or realities ordinary citizens cannot do much about, we are however empowered to work on our own beliefs and habits in seeking well-being and happiness even in chaotic contexts. Bad leaders have a limited shelf-life and should they do not survive - let’s make sure we do! ENDS MEDIA CONTACT: Idéle Prinsloo, 082 573 9219, idele@thatpoint.co.za, www.atthatpoint.co.za ABOUT JvR Africa Group: JvR Africa Group of companies consists of JvR Psychometrics, JvR Consulting Psychologists, JvR Academy, and JvR Safety. With its head office situated in Johannesburg; the group conducts business nationally and across Sub-Saharan Africa. They work with test developers, consultants and research institutions all over the world. They support a range of development opportunities and hosts a biannual conference on People Development in Africa, a cause they feel is extremely important to the future of our continent. For more information on JvR Africa Group please visit: Website: https://jvrafricagroup.co.za/ LinkedIn: JvR Africa Group Facebook: The JvR Africa Group - People Development in Africa Twitter: JvR Africa Group YouTube: The JvR Africa Group |
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