Treating Your Employees like Adults
When leaders do not treat their employees as competent, independent adults, they create some of the greatest obstacles to an organisation’s success. How can leaders break free from that need for control and instead create a win-win situation?
C OVER
STORY
By Melanie Cook
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he idea of treating employees like adults should hardly be a novel one, even less so a topic that garners extensive articles. And yet. You hear this everywhere, in every corner of the world, in every industry. A tale as old as time: the overbearing boss. The condescending project leader. The patronising micromanager. Adlerian psychology calls this a vertical relationship, in which one person has power over another. A horizontal relationship, adversely, is where both are treated as equals. It is important to note that it does not mean equality of abilities or knowledge, but equality in power dynamics. One can have a horizontal relationship with someone much older or younger, in | July 2022
various stages of their lives. So why is it that leaders refuse to treat their employees like adults, and instead, choose to breathe down their necks? Why is it that almost all employer-employee dynamics are of a vertical nature?
Untrust begets untrust
The fact is that employees are adults, and should be treated with trust and respect. Ranking and rating systems, for instance, say that at best, employees need juvenile encouragement and at worst, should be pit
against one another. Same as attendance policies or strict dress codes, all of which displays a leader’s lack of trust in their employees. Rather than allowing employees the autonomy to be accountable for their own time and decisions, many organisations still practice top-down, sometimes military-esque management styles where employees are constantly monitored, berated or given patronising criticism. The problem with treating adults like children is that they are, in fact, adults, and will know
When leaders treat their employees like adults, it’s a win-win situation: people treat each other as equals so that everyone progresses in parallel, without detriment to either party
