CHX defines Humanised Leadership as having the confidence and ability to lead by “how we make people feel” and not just through what we say and do. People don’t “think” motivated, “think” trusted or trusting, “think” engaged, we feel all these things, and yet thought has been given primacy in business for decades.

HOW HUMANISING LEADERSHIP WORKS:

Thought doesn’t enjoy the dominance that business psychology has led us to believe over the past few decades. Throughout evolution the human brain has built new wiring but not replaced old wiring. These ancient brain systems communicate with, lobby and derail our executive function, our ability to think - a function that business psychology would have us absolutely believe is in firm control. Moreover, it seems the more senior we are, the more resolute we are in this belief.

Change your mindset? Ignore feelings and you can forget it.

It’s time to upskill our leaders and managers to be able to recognise, interpret and use all areas of our brain, not shut off and ignore the bits we don’t believe are helpful. The opportunity this represents to us as human beings, as leaders, as family members, as friends and as businesses, is immeasurable.

HUMANISED LEADERSHIP - UNLOCKING A PRO-MENTAL HEALTH CULTURE:

Good mental health becomes embedded in leadership/management development and fully integrated in team culture through a shared language, practices and set of behaviours that leadership are comfortable and eager to role model.

For example, five of the focal areas for mastery of humanised leadership are: Attachment, Inclusion, Clarity, Autonomy and Equity. All five are pivotal in good mental health as well as pillars of a modern, high performance culture. For most, this is a challenging minefield to navigate, nevermind feel comfortable leading in. It starts with self-trust, which in turn breeds trust.

Poor mental health is often a normal and predictable response to a pathological environment, not a pathological response to a normal one. For many cultures, “Resilience” has become a cynical euphemism for pushing the responsibility of coping with a poor environment onto the individual. This has to be thrown out and replaced by a shared focus on individual, team and company-wide behaviours, systems and practices - all of which shine the light on opportunities for creating pro-social environments with cultures that support the good mental health of its people.

MENTAL HEALTH MEANS OPPORTUNITY

Mental Health is still largely framed in the negative, because leadership has not yet embraced the potential upside, or how mental health can be used as a lever for higher function, engagement and performance. The wide-held belief that good mental health is the norm has proven to be flawed during the pandemic, so we need to start by seeing mental health as aspirational.

CHX combines the latest research in the fields of cognition and neuroscience - led by CHX co-founder Chris who is professor at both the University of Kent and the University of Oxford - with the expert facilitation and application delivered by CHX’s team of proven and successful business leaders and coaches led by co-founder Damien. Credibility is a key lever in programme success.