OTHER PEOPLE’S WANTS
One sure way of getting along with people is to satisfy some of their wants. We can be alert to notice and remember their wishes and preferences. Every executive knows that it is not enough to give a person good wages, stable employment, and comfortable working space; more personal needs must be met for the person to be a contented, harmonious, and efficient team member.
1.Important techniques for the one who wishes to work with people are to build a feeling of self-respect, and give them the feeling that they are respected.
2.We can be of greater service to people by detecting their emotional disturbances, quietly learning the cause, and instilling confidence while helping toward good adjustment.
▪When you help others to be right, you are satisfying one of their greatest needs.
3.Look favorably on people’s motives. The unhappiest people are the ones who go through life suspecting everyone of trying to do them some wrong.
▪Friendships do not grow out of suspicion, nor is loyalty in a working organization built up of distrust.
4.There are times to concede and conciliate. A wise leader lets people win a little in discussion of some plan being proposed as long as the main issue remains clear and unspoiled.
5.Sometimes it is wise to retreat and wait for a more favorable time. When deciding to yield, do so with good grace.
PERSONAL RECOGNITION
To enjoy good human relations it is important to recognize the craving of people for personal recognition; they desire and need prestige. By giving them a sense of importance they become attracted to us, arouse their interest in our ideas, and make them eager to help us bring our plans to completion.
1.A true leader does not hog the limelight, but draws fellow workers into it, thus inspiring them with enthusiasm and loyalty.
▪Supervisors who satisfy other people’s need for recognition as individuals will hold them in the palm of their hand.
2.A compliment, particularly on points where a person excels, is an effective way to gain their goodwill.
▪To praise good actions heartily is in some measure to take part in them.
3.If we take the gentle, the favorable, the indulgent side of most questions, we retain our poise under difficult circumstances. Even though we do not win in an argument, we keep our self-respect, our feeling of being on top, and we win the respect of our opponents.
4.When a mistake is made, take the wind out of the opposition’s sails by admitting it quickly and forcefully.
▪Do not leave yourself open to a possible argument; thank the person who brought it to your attention.
Fig. 1-3-5 The four virtues of working with people. (Kelmar Associates)
FOUR VIRTUES
There are many virtues, but four are of them are very important to the person who wishes to live and work successfully with people. They are consistency, sincerity, courtesy, and friendliness, Fig. 1-3-5.
1.We feel more secure in a relationship with consistent people, even though they may be always unreasonably demanding, than we do with those who are reasonable part of the time and unreasonable at other times.
▪We can learn how to deal with people who are consistent, even if they are consistently wrong, but it is very difficult to develop a strategy for the one guided by whims and notions.
2.Sincerity is important, because it deserves friends. It is not possible to talk your way into friendship in a social or business life. In order to win friends, people must recognize you as worthy of their friendship.
▪It is not necessary to agree with people on every detail, or that either party should admit that the other is perfect in wisdom or justice, but each should be sure of the other’s sincerity, so that they feel free to work out the problem for the common good.
3.One who wishes to get along well with people cannot afford to ignore courtesy; that means being considerate of others in little things.
▪To refuse a request gracefully, to show respect for what others revere, to treat even bores with consideration, to be eager to do a favor, to be calm and pleasant under pressure: these are evidences of courtesy.
▪Courtesy is the easiest quality to lift one above the crowd and it wins friends.
▪It is more interesting to out-think an opponent to an idea than to win by using your position as a leader.
4.Friendliness with a person means that you have some particular meaning to that person. It means that even if you are not in a position to benefit people materially, you take steps to oblige them and show your friendly spirit.
SUMMARY
Leadership has been written about for thousands of years, and many books are published every year giving advice on how to become and remain an executive. Yet after all these years no substitute has been found for the four virtues: consistency, sincerity, courtesy, and friendliness.
Some Principles
▪A person who is more interested in the question “Who is right”? than in the question “What is right”? should not be appointed to a supervisory position.
▪The manager, supervisor, foreman, or other person in a position of command over people needs to be careful not to allow personalities to corrupt principles. Sometimes the executive is right; sometimes the worker is right; sometimes both are partly right: but both need to work together in harmony.
▪The person who gets along with people focuses on their strengths and not on their weaknesses. Everyone has problems, the thing is to do something positive to help solve and overcome them.
▪Great people are not quick to take offence and they attribute annoying acts and sayings of others to defective knowledge. They know that many criticisms are made because making them gives the critic a feeling of importance.
▪Self-control is necessary to succeed in working with people. Losing self-control tends to make enemies instead of friends, replaces intellect, and puts a person at a disadvantage. When one person is furious and the other cool, onlookers assume the person keeping their cool is right.
▪People who wish to work in harmony with other others are modest and moderate. They do not exceed what is necessary in discipline or in praise, in strife or in entertainment; there is a certain dignity attached to modesty.
▪Successful human relations are a combination of these virtues and principles, but all must play the game within their own environment and according to their own personal qualities and ideals.
Working and getting along with people consists of using fundamental ideas of kindliness and seeking understanding. It reminds us to allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character they have, whatever it turns out to be. It leads us to conform where we cannot alter, and to maintain our serenity when friends and fellow workers seem difficult.
LEADERSHIP
If management is a science, then leadership is an art. Leadership is of spirit and is all about human relationships. It is about people as people, rather than human resources – a terrible management expression. Leadership is an extension of personality and is all about vision, inspiration, encouragement, and motivation.
The need for good management speaks for itself, but why is good leadership so important in this day and age? Management cannot achieve its full potential without good and effective leadership. It is leadership that motivates people to work to be leaders. That is important, because any organization led only at the top and not at