Leaders should be measured on how they manage the culture of the organisation, Santam’s Norah Sehunoe, Life Healthcare’s Avanthi Parboosing and Famous Brands’ Jabu Mahange revealed during an HR Indaba 2024 panel discussion.
Covid-19, as well as the rapid evolution of technology, have highlighted the importance of leadership that transcends titles because, underneath these disruptions, another pandemic has been spreading: the mental wellness pandemic. “If we don’t get on top of it, it will devastate our organisations,” Santam executive head of human capital Norah Sehunoe said during a panel discussion at the HR Indaba 2024.
She explained that leaders need to be the first response when something isn’t well with an employee. “We need to understand the impact leaders have on individuals daily and make sure we balance performance and compassion.”
The panel joked about how pulse surveys are akin to HR professionals as Excel spreadsheets are to finance professionals. However, they emphasised that it is equally important to listen to people’s lived experiences in the organisation as the numbers.
Norah explained that it is up to CHROs to coach leaders on how they need to show up during these times. “They need to see individuals as humans instead of titles.”
Life Healthcare CPO Avanthi Parboosing agreed with Norah, explaining that, in many South African work environments, humans have to assimilate to their roles instead of bringing their whole selves to work, which often results in imposter syndrome. “When we spoke to nurses of Life Healthcare two years ago, we realised that most of them felt like imposters because some doctors made them feel like they weren’t good enough – when the nurses work harder than anyone else, in fact,” she said.
This meant that the majority of their people were suffering during critical moments of care for patients, which also put their patients’ lives at risk. “We started with our top women in leadership and put them through an imposter syndrome course, then filtered it down through the company to the nurses,” Avanthi explained. “A lot of our imposter syndrome comes from our own insecurities, which leads to a decline in mental and physical health because we keep pushing ourselves harder.”
She referred to the book, My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future, wherein Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi shares how she worried people couldn’t understand her Indian accent when she spoke to them. Or when she wore a sari, she was scared people would judge her. “Her advice is that everyone has to live with imposter syndrome, but at the end of every day, we should throw it away. We deserve to be exactly where we are because we worked for it.”
All for one and one for all
Group HR executive Jabu Mahange used examples from Famous Brands where they are going beyond people’s titles. “Even our CEO has to stand in the queue at our canteen – there are no privileges for anyone,” he said.
Every Monday, the eight executive members of Famous Brands have a meeting and the first thing on their agenda is people. “We want to know who is not well, whose child is in the hospital, what’s happening at home, everything. Based on all of that information, we reach out to people and engage with them to try and understand what we can do to support them,” Jabu explained.
He said that, at the end of the day, leadership comes down to how you inspire other people, regardless of your position in the hierarchy, and creating an environment of trust where they are enabled to act.
“Trust is underpinned by character, credibility, competence and accountability. Leaders have to do the things they promise,” Jabu added, saying these traits are dependent on self-awareness and self-leadership. “If your level of self-awareness and self-esteem is low and you can’t acknowledge your own weaknesses and improve on them, how will you inspire people?”
Measuring leadership
One of the first KPAs on Jabu’s scorecard is thought leadership. “This is how I influence the rest of exco to co-create an ecosystem that drives the right behaviours, and how we hold each other accountable. We don’t get rewarded purely based on our initials. We get rewarded on how we collectively manage the company’s culture and operations,” he said.
Norah pointed out that leaders are taught the technical art of managing performance during business school, but in an era of hybrid working and high-tech environments, people are demanding that leaders trust them. “We need to manage people, not performance.”
