Smart includes heart

He saw that the people who push the wheelchairs were practicing medicine. – from the Boston Globe article “A Head with a Heart” by Kevin Cullen

Here’s what is possible when a leader is as focused on people as on “business” — when a leader understands that people are the business, and that we must support both in order to sustain both.

When we lead from values that include seeing how everyone contributes to the mission of the company, when we are willing to stand in front of eight thousand people or the two members of our start-up IT team and say Here’s what I’m thinking. What do you think? What are your ideas?… then what happened at Beth Israel Hospital can happen for us too.

Good management isn’t about leaving your heart at home. It’s about bringing it to work along with your brain, and reaching out with both to the people around you. Is that too fuzzy for you? Well, look at what happened at Beth Israel. Those folks are saving jobs, saving money, maybe saving lives because the person is charge was willing to look at the company with a curious heart as well as financial eyes.

(Thank you to Sarah for this link. If you find stories to share about being human at work, or have some of your own, please email me at keskridge at humansatwork dot com.)