In times of uncertainty and changes, managers are the connective tissue of organizations. Yet, due to disruption, scaling and growth companies are undergoing, they are hardly trained to do what they’re supposed to do, which creates friction with their teams and employees.

Paul Tripp, executive coach at the leadership-resource platform AceUp, observed this disconnect in one of his clients. “I recently had a scenario where I brought a coachee and a manager to get alignment,” he said. It seemed that “the manager was aligned with this individual about keeping work life and personal life separate because this woman was trying to raise two kids,” he said. Yet, “lo and behold, three months later, that manager put my coachee on performance plan, even though [the manager] said, ‘I understood your circumstance, and I accept it, let’s work together.’ The coachee was put on a performance plan for missing work due to child issues, which was the exact thing that, you know, broke the initial trust,” he recounted in a From Day One webinar titled, “The Reality of Coaching Human-Centered Leaders.”

In a survey by AceUp, 74% of executives said they believe they’re were providing inspiration, but only 27% of employees say they’re feeling it. Similarly, an AceUp survey indicated that only 33% of respondents thought their manager was ready to lead them into the future. This discrepancy is due to the fact that executives are used to succeeding based on professional skills, not leadership, so they still operate from an outdated metric.

Pamela Larde, PhD, the director of education at the Institute of Coaching and as the founder of the Academy of Creative Coaching, works towards embedding the concept of joy in the people she coaches, she said, defining a leader as someone who has humanity at the core of their modus operandi. “I would say, the human-centered leader is self-aware,” she said. “They’re empathetic. Empathy needs to be rooted in the human experience. Once we can connect, it allows us to connect with others” A leader, Larde continued, also needs adaptability. “We have to be adaptable and willing to change our system,” she said. 

Mostly, though, a leader has to be invigorative, displaying “[the kind of] leadership that invigorates people to find their own purposes, and allow the purpose to be the driving force,” she said, inspiring workers to ask themselves, “‘What am I doing, and how can I impact others like this leader is?’ Those are the things I think contribute to that,” she said.  

Balancing Between Metrics and Leadership 

Managers need to be goal-oriented, and half of the battle is having people on projects that inspire them while meeting metrics. How does one strike a balance? Said Tripp: “For me, as a coach, I think it’s about having dialogue, self-aware dialogue and have honest dialogue with people: ‘Who can deliver?’ Not just talk about the task list,” he said. “‘Who wants to dig in to take this?’ ‘What am I providing you with?’ ‘What do you need that I am not providing?’ Align the team: a team is a community; it’s about aligning them to where they need to go.”

Larde echoed that assertion. “It’s about checking in with where people gravitate to. It’s not always going to be a magical fit, which we expect,” she said. “That’s were adaptability comes in. People still find purpose in tasks they don’t love because they love their team, their organization.” The individual can find purpose, as long as they understand that what they’re  doing contributes to a meaningful output.

Creating a culture of Psychological Safety, via Vulnerability and Trust

Tripp provided four questions that people can take away to create a culture of psychological safety: What can we count on each other for? What is our collective purpose? What is the reputation we aspire to have? What are we doing to achieve that? “Reframing it as ‘we,’” he explained, “shifts to what we’re doing as a community together.” At the root of it is trust. “Trust is going to be essential. When you’re in an environment where you can trust leaders, you’re going be empowered to speak up, because you trust that what you put out there will be honored, even if the answer isn’t yes.” 

By contrast, a psychologically toxic environment reveals itself with lack of engagement. If a leader asks a question and nobody responds, the appearance of consensus indicates that that’s not a psychologically safe environment. Similarly, the anodyne feedback “everything is fine” denotes a similar climate. “The power I found is in group coaching engagements,” Trippe remarked. “Leaders came together and collectively they raised the issue w collective leadership.”

A climate of vulnerability is necessary for this purpose, even though, Larde said, we’re still in the “Ice Age” when it comes to it. “I don’t think vulnerability alone supports psychological safety,” said Tripp. “Honest vulnerability creates psychological safety. It’s about showing up, speaking your truth, and being vulnerable.”

Improving the Employees’ Quality of Life

Whatever the reason of a person seeking employment, they’re not solely there to serve the company or to tangibly improve the company’s offerings. “They’re there because they seek to improve their quality of life,” said Larde. “We’ve gotta tap into that, with an understanding that we’re here to improve their quality of life.”

She uses as an example regarding the need to improve things an employee who, upon getting Covid, took too long to call in sick because they were hospitalized. “He came back to work with a write up. What are we doing? What is it about the system that says I need to write him up? Why are we more punitive than human-centered?” With a human-centric approach, she argued, “People are gonna be more committed.”

Sure, goals are tied to key performance indicators (KPIs). “It’s important for leaders to have a honest dialogue. Nothing should be a surprise at the six-month mark,” said Tripp. “If you put an employee on performance management plan without any other conversation, you might have failed as a leader.”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, AceUp, who sponsored this webinar.

Angelica Frey is a writer and a translator based in Boston and Milan.