From demonisation to humanisation: Two steps for better leadership

When someone messes up at work, is your first thought “what an a***hole”?

Next time, try these two things before making any snap judgements.

First, reflect on the question “why would a reasonable, rational and decent person do this?”.

We usually assume that others behave badly, because they are bad.

But this question – which comes from the book Crucial Conversations – challenges us to consider other reasons why someone might be behaving poorly. For example, because of their circumstances, misunderstanding, insecurities etc.

Sometimes their behaviour might genuinely reflect their values, but it often doesn’t and – in any case – it’s impossible to judge from a single event. We need to see the pattern persist over time and a range of circumstances before we can read too much into who someone is at their core.

Second, go and speak to the person. Get to know them a little.

Because a common issue amongst senior managers is that they’re completely isolated and out of touch from the lived experience of frontline staff. And when we’re out of touch, it becomes too easy to think of others as being intrinsically different from ourselves. And the more different we think they are, the easier it becomes to demonise them.

The simplest antidote to this is to go and chat with people, and get to know them.

Because, when we do, we discover that they’re invariably normal human beings with full and complicated lives. Who – just like us – struggle with entirely normal human shit, like overwhelm, insecurity, misunderstandings, everyday incompetence etc.

This has the effect of humanising them – of dissolving any sense of difference between us. Which makes it easier to accurately understand their circumstances and the reasons behind their bad behaviour.

And to be clear – bad behaviour is bad. And needs to be dealt with.

But bad behaviour is best approached with high accountability AND high compassion.

There is simply no need to write people off and demonise them in the process.

We just don’t need to get into it. All we need to do is deal with the unacceptable behaviours. And the best way to resolve that at the root cause is to have an accurate understanding of why it took place in the first place.

High standards don’t require harsh judgement. They just need us to tackle bad behaviour without making villains of our people.