People-centered leadership: the man behind the machine

At the end of the day, many companies are all about one thing: achieving strategic goals. This ensures that the organization, at least, continues to exist. This goal may be, for example, a certain amount of sales, a certain growth in number of customers or an expansion of the area of operation. As an employer, you naturally think it is important that these goals are met. But the road to these goals should not be underestimated, as the employee is crucial in this process. It is therefore important for managers to pay attention to this. Achieving goals is often looked at from two points of view: task-oriented leadership and people-oriented leadership. We are happy to tell you more about these two types of leadership.

Task-oriented leadership

In task-oriented leadership, as the name suggests, there is a lot of focus on the tasks an employee must perform. Achieving goals, managing for output and executing tasks are the focus. Less attention is paid to the employee doing the work and everything is "good" as long as the output is good. Pitfalls here are that as a manager you lose sight of the employee and build little or no relationship with the employee. In the long run, this can cause an employee to become jaded and even end up in absenteeism, whereas with good contact you could have seen this coming and perhaps prevented it. The good relationship that causes the employee to raise with the supervisor when something is wrong and in which the supervisor asks how the employee is doing is missing. The employee feels like he or she is a machine. To avoid this, there is also people-centered leadership.

What is people-centered leadership?

People-centered leadership focuses on the employee and the relationship between the manager and employee. By seeing the employee as a person and not as a "production machine," you will find that when someone feels good and is comfortable in their skin, they also perform better at work. Together with a good match in work, this results in more job happiness, higher productivity and even lower absenteeism.

Influence of organizational culture

The kind of leadership an employer or manager adopts is woven into the organizational culture. When this is healthy - employees do meaningful work, experience freedom, receive appreciation and there is room for honest feedback - there is also more room to build a relationship between supervisor and employee. Contributing to this culture is not just a single supervisor; it comes from the entire organization.

Whatever the strategic goals of an organization, employees are an essential component in achieving these goals. It is therefore important to keep them sustainably employable. paraDIGMA groep supports from our various labels in all areas to make not only your employees, but also your organization future-proof. Would you like to get started with this for your organization? For more information, please visit our website and contact us.