The Human Edge Advantage: Master the Art of Being All In
Lisa Danels
Human Edge Insights (October 2023)
Channeling Henry Ford: “Whether you think you can lead or think you can’t, you’re probably right.”
The last time I checked, Amazon offers more than 70,000 titles in the business leadership category. Here’s another, written by Lisa Danels. She rigorously explores “the necessity of developing a new type of leader: one who uses empathy as a key ingredient and views interactive processes and co-creation as the new employee experience.” According to new research by the Gartner firm, “human-centered leadership, as it is known, is comprised of three key factors: authentic. empathetic, and adaptive.”
In this context, I am again reminded of an essay published by Robert Greenleaf in 1970. In it, he introduces the concept of servant leadership: “The servant-leader is servant first…It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”
It is no coincidence that companies annually ranked among those most highly admired and the best to work for are also annually ranked among those most profitable and have the greatest cap value in their industry segment. However different they may be in most other respects, all of the high-impact companies have a healthy workplace culture ulture within which personal growth and professional development are most likely to thrive. They create employee evangelists who in turn create customer evangelists. Long ago, Southwest Airlines’ then chairman and CEO — Herb Kelleher — was asked to explain why his company had more profits and greater cap value than all of its primary competitors…COMBINED. His answer? “We take great care of our people. They take great care of our customers. And our customers take great care of our shareholders.”
Danels makes brilliant use of several reader-friendly devices that include dozens of “Reflection” exercises that challenge her reader to interact with specific issues, dozens of “Action Framework” insights that stress especially important points (what I call “business nuggets”), and end-of-chapter takeaways whose primary purpose is self-evident.
These are among the other passages of greatest interest and values to me, also listed to indícate the scope and nature of Danels’ coverage:
o New Ways of Leading (Pages 2-12, 51-54, and `131-142)
o “Dream” Organizations Are All-In (8-19 and 249-250)
o Leaps of Courage (22-26 and 120-127)
o Leadership that cares and collaborates (28-30 and 143-157)
o How the head works for us (32-39)
o The leadership functions of the heart (43-55)
o The gut as “the highest form of intelligence” (57-71)
o “What is personal power and why do we give it away?” (75-89 and 91-105)
o Personal Power and Mental Mastery (83-84 and 96-100)
o Rules of thumb in directing/allocating resources (144-147)
o Manage Collective Creativity (155-157 and 229-233)
o “Invite them to the party and ask them to dance” (159-174)
o Two dimensions of trust (175-180)
o Getting People to Truly Care (195-205)
o Optimistically Hopeful (207-220)
o Generating and Catching Insights (221-235)
o Setting the Table for Collective Insight (223-226)
o Integration, Sustainability, and Renewal (237-253)
o Two dimensions of trust (175-180)
o It’s about experimenting and expanding — not perfection” (255-2158)
In the final chapter, Lisa Danels extends her personal rapport with the reader through effective use of direct address: “Moving forward, you can continually build the practice of integrating your head, heart, and gut by asking these five reflective questions:
1. What do I think about this situation or person?
2. What assumptions am I making?
3. How do I feel about this situation?
4. What values do I want to honor or imbue?
5. What does this situation tell me about the situation and how can I better trust my gut?
“When you embrace this process, you become a role model to others and give them permission to be [or become] their most authentic selves. The balance between self-acceptance and leaving time for expansion and personal growth requires that you always walk with grace.”
While reading The Human Edge Advantage, highlight key passages, and, record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references, and lessons you have learned as well as your responses to the aforentioned “Reflection” exercises and to other questions posed within the narrative. These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.