From Metrics to Humans: Rethinking Leadership Priorities
Learn what it takes to drive both individual and organizational success.
On Christmas Day 2022, I wrote my first People-First Product Leadership newsletter post. As with anything in the product world, I keep iterating and refining. Readers noted the people-first style applies to all types of leadership, not just product. In the coming months, you’ll see People-First Leadership branding.
Even though I continue adjusting people-first leadership as tech evolves, the focus remains on keeping people at the heart of every decision and creating a culture of trust, empathy, and innovation.
To expand, instead of focusing solely on metrics, features, or profits, people-first leadership emphasizes:
Empowering Teams: Fostering psychological safety for team members to feel comfortable sharing ideas, take risks, and contribute fully.
Human-Centric: Ensuring each team member feels valued and heard by understanding and supporting their challenges, aspirations, and strengths.
Continuous Learning: Providing ongoing team development through opportunities to step outside their comfort zone and explore new challenges.
Cultivating Success: Fostering a culture where organization and employee success are seen as complementary, not competing, priorities.
In today’s environment, some leaders prioritize revenue growth for survival. As we learned from the prior newsletter, prioritizing profits over people negatively impacts your team and yourself. Remember, Daniel Goleman highlights that emotional intelligence (EQ) accounts for 76% of effective leaders.
My experience aligns with Daniel Goleman. While leading the Innovative Learning Solutions team at Pearson, I grew the portfolio from three products to one driving $86 million in annual revenue. Supporting team wellbeing and increasing profits aren't mutually exclusive - they complement each other.
In his book Beyond High Performance, Jason Jaggard notes, “This is the power of meta-performing cultures. What was previously thought to be impossible becomes possible.” In other words, if team members feel safe to push beyond their comfort zone without fear of punishment, they can achieve magic.
What could you achieve at work if you let possibility guide you, not fear?
Creating engaging work environments
This quote stood out to me as it applies to many facets of life, especially leadership.
"It's tough to be good at something you're not interested in. It's nearly impossible to be great at something you're not obsessed with."
Don Norman shares a similar view in The Design of Everyday Things. The best products are not a random mix of features. Instead, they function intuitively, reflecting and shaping how we think and engage with them. You could say well-designed products aim to create amazing experiences. Similarly, great leaders focus on their team’s success and individual growth.
Not a fan of “obsessed”? Swap in the word “fun,” and imagine what it would be like having “fun” at work.
A family friend tells a story of my father showing up at work wearing two different shoes. As an intimidating CEO, no one told him. Yep, cringe. Even though I’ve inherited some of my dad’s qualities, on leadership, I favor the work environments I created at Monster and SimplePractice where brainstorming, sharing insights, and getting to know each other better were common occurrences.
When leaders create their team’s environment with the same level of focus and care put into the best products, we’re setting the stage for something truly amazing to happen. And remember what we learned from the first section, the company will benefit as a result.
Simon Sinek recommends asking, “Do you like working here?” to determine an organization’s actual environment. You can tell from a pause, body language or other unconscious hints if the answer is true or false.
What would your team say if asked? How could you make their answer an empathetic, immediate “yes”?
You had me at “yes”
Part of creating a “yes” environment - not just today but for the future too - is providing opportunities for team members to make decisions which push them out of their comfort zone. Similar concepts apply in coaching too, as one of clients highlights in her Reels.
Rita McGrath, one of the World’s Top Experts on Strategy and Innovation by Thinkers 50, reminded us during a Coaching.com session that work life isn’t great. 40-60% of the workforce is disengaged. Why? Leaders treating people like robots - dehumanizing them - failing to acknowledge the human qualities that enable employees to progress and work to scale. Focusing on control ignores that humans are messy - like creativity.
Neuroscientists found that our brains react differently when told what to do vs. having flexibility to decide how to proceed. When making our own decisions, more brain parts are engaged, helping us manage emotions better. Other benefits include:
Improved learning: Decision-making enables us to learn and adjust future behavior, crucial for continuous improvement.
Broader context: Having the opportunity to draw from our own background and experiences results in more diverse thinking and approaches.
Increased ownership: Leading to greater commitment and motivation.
Greater flexibility: Allowing us to adjust to new information or changing circumstances more readily than rigid instructions.
Not convinced that including your team in decision making will benefit the bottom line? Your organization’s ability to adapt will determine its survival. If decision making is concentrated among a few leaders, the ability to rapidly sense, act, and improve is restricted. Instead, in today’s era of instant everything, organizations must make decisions quickly and fluidly. As ‘be radical’ describes:
The challenge for leaders is to create structures that are as dynamic and responsive as the world around them.
Are you the leader Peloton’s Tunde Oyeneyin describes - “I will always push you, I will never let you fall”? Or do you make all the decisions, limiting your team’s input and their ability to adapt?
Finding your lighthouse
Visualize your leadership style as a lighthouse. Your actions inform the sailboats around you. If you’re unreachable or distant, their sails won’t be ready for a storm. If your light shines brightly, the boats will be safe and acknowledged. What type of leader do you want to be?
Despite being cute, I recommend a different leadership style than Lancaster’s approach of barking first and thinking later.
P.S. Interested in exploring leadership coaching? Book a FREE discovery call.