Leadership isn’t about choosing between people and performance. It’s about aligning them
Sustainably high performance is only possible where the needs of both the organisation and its workers are consistently met over the long term.
It’s not a zero sum game – the better an organisation does, the better it can meet it’s people’s needs.
And the more engaged people are in their work, the better they can impact the organisation’s goals.
But of course there’s a tension here that needs to be navigated thoughtfully.
This is the true job of leadership, to balance the short term trade offs between organisational and individual needs, to create long term harmony between the two. This is where sustainably high performance flourishes.
One the one hand, there is a lower limit of experience that workers will tolerate before they’ll quit, tune out (i.e. quiet quit), become cynical and/or generally disengaged (i.e. unproductive). People need to have their basic needs (e.g. for fair pay, safety and time off) and higher order needs (e.g. purpose, respect, autonomy etc.) met, above which they will experience sufficiently high levels of engagement in their work.
On the other hand, organisations have limits as to how much time and money they can invest in creating great work environments (e.g. by providing tangible benefits like pay and time off, and by investing in leadership capacity and capability to provide an engaging work environment).
I was inspired to conceptualise the attached model, after reading Kate Raworth’s fantastic work on Doughnut Economics.
In our Doughnut Leadership model, we can imagine an inner limit of what employees will tolerate (i.e. the lower limit of working conditions that people can sustain without quitting, one way or another) and an outer limit of what an organisation can afford (i.e. the upper limit of organisational investment in its people that it can sustain without becoming unviable).
This leaves a central zone of sustained organisational success, where performance, wellbeing and viability align.
This is where the organisation does its best over the long term. And so do its people.
This is an Impact Society model that we’ll be fleshing out over the coming weeks and months.
How can we help you?
If you’re an aspiring or established leader, we’d love to support your development.
Here are three ways:
- Subscribe to our free newsletter – we offer weekly actionable insights, expert strategies and inspiring content on leadership, management and personal development
- Connect with us on LinkedIn – we post practical advice on management and leadership every day
- Check out our range of practical tools, most of which are free to download
We’re Impact Society – join more than 10,000 aspiring and established leaders
from 50+ countries who are changing the world, one team at a time.
Read our story