How to be a People-First Leader
The Why, What, & How of People-First Leadership
Hello, it’s Ethan & Jason. Welcome to a paid member-only edition of Level Up: Your source for executive insights, high performance habits, and specific career growth actions. Many subscribers expense this newsletter to their Learning & Development budget, here’s an email template to send to your manager.
We are thrilled to bring you a guest post by Diana Stepner, Co-Founder of Product Gold. Diana believes in the power of putting people first - whether as an organization, leader, or in a cross-functional team. In this article, Diana shares what people-first leadership is, why people-first leadership is critical (especially right now), and how to start your journey to people-first leadership.
And, Diana answers 6 FAQs on people-first leadership including how do you prioritize it when the C-Suite pressure is to drive the bottom line, if you can over-index on being people-first, Diana’s top challenge when driving a people-first approach, and how to lead a 100+ person org and get to know everyone.
Diana is a Silicon Valley native with 20+ years of international product leadership experience running diverse global digital teams. The central question Diana explores through her work is, "How can ambitious product people unlock their full potential?"
Diana coaches, writes, and teaches about this topic, and her journey has led her to discover that launching people can be even more rewarding than launching products.
Diana's background includes leading teams in startups (E.piphany, Cheapflights - bought by Kayak, and SimplePractice), enterprise organizations (Salesforce, Monster, Pearson), digital agencies (Razorfish, part of Publicis), and software consulting (Epsilon, E.piphany). She also has an MIMS from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Boston University.
Apply to be featured as a guest post: If you are an expert and want to share actionable career advice with our readers, get in touch.
In this article, Ethan presents an unpleasant truth: the majority of bosses do not think about their team.
Neither Ethan nor I believe this is the right way to lead. We both believe that a boss - at any level - should care and be thinking about their team. Not only do we believe it is the right thing to do, research shows putting people first enhances trust, fosters innovation, and improves both team productivity and employee retention, ultimately driving long-term business success.
I appreciate having the opportunity to expand on why leaders should be thinking about their team members, especially in today’s uncertain environment.
You look vaguely familiar. Do you work for me?
To set the stage, Ethan’s article provides three main themes:
Self-focus: Bosses, like most of “us,” primarily think about themselves and how they're perceived.
Image reflection: When bosses think about their employees, it's often in terms of how the employee's actions reflect on their own image or reputation.
Catering to this perspective: Employees can worry less about being judged, and instead focus on performance and how to best approach their boss when needing support or recognition.
Basically, leaders can't help but worry about themselves, just like we all do.
Employee well-being and development, if considered at all, are gathering dust down at the bottom of the priority list. No wonder we are seeing a rise in employee burnout as bosses constantly push for ‘do more, with less’ without acknowledging the impact.
Consider the chart below. Even if the numbers on this chart change, the top factors for employee burnout will always point back to a lack of support from their manager.
A question you are likely wondering is, ”Why do employees not reach out to their managers seeking help or advocating for a new approach?”
A contributing factor could be a lack of psychological safety. Forty percent of respondents in one poll said they don’t feel confident sharing their ideas at work. Another poll by OnePoll noted “six in 10 respondents said they would feel too intimidated to go to their boss or manager with an issue they were having”.
My recommendation is to change the paradigm. Instead of never thinking about their employees, I coach leaders to put their people first. Doing so benefits themselves, their organization, and their employees. And, guess what - if the organization benefits, so does the boss. I am proposing a people-first alternative that enables all parties to thrive.
Here’s how:
A people-first leadership approach creates a workplace built on collaboration (not competition), as team members feel connected to something bigger than themselves. A people-first leader encourages learning and discussion through the sharing of information across their team, so a web develops with knowledge flowing in every direction. As a result, employees are more engaged, more productive, and more profitable with absenteeism dropping in comparison to disengaged teams.
Power of People-First Leadership
Pre-COVID, even if your boss was not thinking of you, there was a chance you would run into them in the hallway and be able to reintroduce yourself. Now, the water cooler and cafeteria conversations are happening less frequently or have been replaced by Zoom calls, Google docs and Slack updates. Missing consecutive 1:1s means the employee is left treading water and wasting valuable mental energy trying to interpret their boss’s latest directive without the opportunity to clarify.
I am not going to pretend that taking the time to get to know your employees is easy. I never said it was. However, what I believe - and have seen first hand - is that the juice is worth the squeeze, especially in a hybrid environment. Harvard Business Review shares that emotional proximity increased employees’ connectedness to their workplace culture by 27%, while physical proximity had no impact.
Throughout my career, I have been the leader who showed up and supported my team. At Monster, I joined testing during the night and over weekends. At Cheapflights (bought by Kayak), I applied the knowledge I gained from Razorfish to coach team members on how to create a social media and mobile strategy. At Pearson, I created the Future Technologies team which was spread across Asia, Europe, and the US. Instead of aligning resources by geography, I learned which areas of growth each team member sought and brought them together based on opportunities to stretch beyond their comfort zone. In each case, I was able to mobilize my team because I knew each person, effectively encouraging them to tackle tough challenges and thrive.
By adopting a people-first leadership approach, leaders move beyond “surface level knowledge” (picture the details in your Slack profile - name, title, location, one line bio) to “real knowledge”, specifically familiarity with individual strengths, weaknesses, motivations and opportunities for growth. People-first leaders at all levels of the business - from ICs leading cross-functional teams to directors and beyond - seek to know the people in their team as all these human characteristics impact performance and well-being.
By understanding their team, leaders can adapt their approach, provide meaningful guidance, and create an environment where team members feel valued.
Examples include:
Creating a Psychologically Safe Space: People-first leadership focuses on creating an environment where employees feel safe to speak up and have a voice in all settings—online, in person, and everywhere in between.
When Covid hit, my team started something new in our weekly calls - we'd share our worries and also the moments of ‘good’ happening in our lives. Things were pretty crazy and no one really knew what was going on. Instead of acting like we had it all figured out, we got real. We connected and helped each other navigate a really tough time together.
Practicing Active Listening: Instead of the loudest voice getting all the attention, a people-first leader actively listens and encourages open and reflective communication. They engage with employees authentically to learn from diverse values, perspectives, and working styles.
I am a fan of interactive exercises either in person or over Zoom. For example, when identifying shared components across my product portfolio, my entire team came together with strings, sticky notes and lots of colored pens to create a roadmap. We determined which components would be required by multiple products and by what date. This approach provided the opportunity for all to contribute equally while seeing our plan taking shape right in front of us.
Encouraging Collaboration and Innovation: By bringing together ideas and expertise from the entire team, a people-first approach drives rapid problem-solving, creativity, and innovation. Collaboration productively leverages the diverse skills and contributions of all team members.
At Pearson, I created the Future Technologies Champions community, which brought together 150 diverse professionals from across the globe. By fostering an environment of open collaboration, we accelerated Pearson's digital transformation, identified emerging trends, and shared innovative concepts. This initiative not only made Pearson more receptive to innovation but also demonstrated the power of collaborative efforts. An example is a digital credentials idea that was incubated with the Champions spun out into its own business and merged with Credly, which was subsequently (re)acquired by Pearson.
Like a skilled gardener, a people-first leader cannot command growth, but they can create the conditions for it. This approach builds a culture where employees feel valued, are able to develop resilience and skill, and become more capable of adapting to the ever changing tech scene because they know you, their boss, has their back.
Practicing people-first leadership not only enhances efficiency but also builds a culture where people and ideas prosper - and bosses too!
Taking Your First Steps
As we've explored, people-first leadership is crucial in today's rapidly evolving, diverse, and dispersed work environment. Sounds brilliant, but you may be wondering, “How do I put this into practice, especially when my team is remote?”
First, acknowledge that you're human too. You will have to be vulnerable and learn alongside your team.
Then, follow these three activities to begin your people-first leadership journey:
Get to know your team.
Have conversations beyond work tasks.
Introduce a celebration of Goofs and Glory.
They can be explored with direct reports as well as rolled out to cross functional teams.
1. Get to know your team
Ask everyone to create a ReadMe (also known as a “user manual”).
The ReadMe puts everyone’s needs, behaviors, and personalities out in the open, and creating a ReadMe is a great opportunity for self-reflection and open and honest expression. This way, your team will know how to better help each other, and when fears, uncertainties, and doubts might arise. I've found creating a ReadMe to be a brilliant exercise with remote teams as a ReadMe makes what is usually implicit and unknown, explicit and known. You’ll find a template here.
For example, aspects from my Work Style include the following:
I like to brainstorm and collaborate with people. The best ideas can come from anywhere and anyone!
Information is like air to me- I’m always seeking to learn and grow
Sharing and connecting are things I do instinctively. I strive to be as transparent as possible
If you contact me, I will read what you’ve said and respond. I will try to do so as quickly as possible, even just as an acknowledgmentI expect the same from others
To ensure I don’t sit at my desk all day, I take exercise breaks every few hours to clear my mind.
2. Have conversations beyond work tasks
Set aside time during the work week, for example before noon on a Friday, to have fun, create shared meaning and promote belonging through informal “campfire conversations.” These qualities are often lost in remote settings, and it’s helpful to give everyone a chance to share without judgment.
To make time for such opportunities, I’ve involved team members in a meeting audit. We removed meetings that could be done async, eliminated others that had run their course, and scaled back attendees when sessions had expanded too far. If you’ve done all these steps already, consider when your team already comes together and weave in opportunities to unwind.
I recommend rotating the facilitator and topics of these “campfire conversations” to tap into diverse ideas. Doing so encourages developing speaking skills and demonstrating trust. For example, I introduced an “Hour of Learning,” covering topics, such as those below. We’ve also shared bad sweaters, baby photos, and favorites (artists, movies, prompts, etc).
3. Introduce a celebration of Goofs and Glory
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