Why human experience in the workplace is critical to organizational success by Jamie Pajoel

Many people, who are otherwise gifted and brilliant, often stumble over the threshold of a new workplace leadership role. Even experienced leaders’ trip upon their entrance – often forgetting that starting as a leader is its own unique dynamic.

I got a call from someone one day and she said, “Jamie I just became a leader today in my Organization, and I said no, you just got a leadership position. The positional level of leadership is where we all start from in workplace leadership. However, having a leadership position, doesn’t make you a leader. What makes you a leader is your ability to demonstrate leadership qualities through your position.

Workplace Leadership has two component parts, Structural Leadership Approach and Human Experience Leadership Approach.

The Structural Leadership Approach is relative positional authority which a person possesses due his or her assigned role in the Organization. For example, a Corporate president, is expected to enjoy more “Leadership” than the vice president.

Structural Leadership Approach has many components such as coercive power, control of rewards and sanctions, legal-traditional superiority and technical supremacy.

In workplace Structural Leadership Approach, people follow you because they HAVE to, not because they WANT to. They follow because you are the Boss, Supervisor and because they get a pay cheque from you.

They follow you because you have coercive power, control of rewards and sanctions, legal-traditional superiority and technical supremacy. What you get from people at this level, is 100% compliance and never commitment.

In Structural Leadership Approach, people work for you and not with you.  Because of your position, you can get people to do what is most important to you, but the downside is that when people follow you because they have to, they will give you less of their creativity, effort and commitment.

The second part in Workplace Leadership, is the Human Experience Leadership Approach. Now that you are the CEO, MD, Manager or Head of department, have coercive power, control of rewards and sanctions, legal-traditional superiority and technical supremacy, congratulations!

However, 85% of your Leadership success within the workplace will be centered around Human Experience Leadership Approach. and not the Structural Leadership Approach.

In workplace Human Experience Leadership Approach, you give yourself personal permission to recognize and value what is important to other people unlike in position level were your focus is in getting people to do what is most important to you and the Organization.

At this level you must begin to understand that the most appreciable asset you have in your Organization is the people. In workplace Human Experience Leadership Approach, people follow you because they WANT to and not because they HAVE to. People follow you at this level because they are connected to you. They work with you and not for you. There is a deep human experience.

In slower moving and less complex business environments the old hierarchical model that depended mostly on only a few people at the top for leadership simply doesn’t work anymore.

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