CHAD ELLSWORTH
TO BE A BETTER LEADER BECOME A BETTER HUMAN The future of work has become a hot topic in response to the accelerating rate of change in the way work gets done in today’s world. This rapid change is coupled with the reality that inflation-adjusted wages have declined while the cost of living continues to rise.1 As a result, the ways employees and organizations operate must also change. However, an overwhelming amount of evidence suggests strategies for maximizing performance and productivity have not evolved much since the industrial revolution. Henry Ford, a pioneer of assembly line production, once said, “Why is it every time I ask for a pair of hands, they come with a brain attached?” In the past, the gold standard of management success was to maximize workers’ physical efforts. Today, particularly in a knowledge and service-oriented field such as higher education, the goal has become to leverage workers’ emotional, intellectual, and relational talents. In its Global Human Capital Trends survey this year, Deloitte, one of the largest management consultancies in the world, reported 80 percent of respondents identified leadership as a high priority for their organizations, while only 41 percent said their organizations were ready to meet current needs.2 1
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Clifton, J. & Harter, J. (2019). It’s the Manager: Gallup finds the quality of managers and team leaders is the single biggest factor in your organization’s long-term success. Gallup. Kaji, J., Hurley, B., Gangopadhyay, N., Bhat, R., & Khan, A. (2019). Leading the social enterprise: Reinvent with a human focus 2019 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends. Ibid.
