Managers and Executives can follow the ABC plan in promoting wellbeing: addressing the issues that pertain to stress, health and work-life balance, being exemplary and creating a happy work culture. In this post we will focus on the B aspect - being exemplary. In the last post, we focused on the A aspect - addressing the issues.
How can managers and executives be exemplary in promoting wellbeing? "[They should] be more gracious", writes Kevin Daum a columnist for Inc.com and Smart Business Magazine. How much do you agree with that statement? Popular opinion is that they should be assertive and agressive. But more and more focus is placed on organizational ethics and innovating the hiring process for leaders because of the increase in narcissism and hectormania or bullying in the workplace. Let us see how we can apply these modern concepts of exemplary leadership in the ATC environment.
To promote wellbeing, our ATC units should be looking for exemplary leaders and not bosses. An exemplary leader is hired by a process defined by organizational strategy. It involves more than simply hiring someone because a vacancy exists. What is the organizational strategy of your ATC unit? Because it is not part of the ICAO Annex does not mean that organizational strategy is not important in ATC. Strategies help us to define the objectives, identify problems and challenges, determine what might be needed to solve problems and how to allocate financial and other resources such as time and skills. If organizational strategy exists then the exemplary leader will be someone who is capable of promoting wellbeing. Can you describe the hiring process for managers and executives at your ATC unit?
Everyone should be aware of the integrative aspects of organizational strategy at the ATC unit including the hiring process. It is all part of promoting wellbeing. Knowing that the ATC unit has specific objectives and needs, will help the ATCO to feel secure and to develop her potential to suit the needs of her organization. From a psychological perspective, this engenders a sense of loyalty. From an economic perspective, the gains to utility or returns to the employee and the organization will increase. Whether the utility is individualistic, altruistic (others), synergistic (team) or collective as an organization, it will yield an increase in benefits. As a result, wellbeing improves as well as safety performance.
The columnist mentioned at the beginning showed that the exemplary leader is "confident yet empathetic, bold yet discreet and proud yet humble" among other qualities of graciousness. The exemplary leader who is gracious will not have a problem to exhibit these qualities. The rest of the staff will see beyond any doubt that the gracious ATC manager has leadership qualities and is exemplary. She will have earned a reputation of having accomplishments and will encourage others to grow and to have accomplishments also. The gracious ATC executive will not feel threatened by the advancement of their staff because they recognize that this is part of fulfilling the strategic aims of the modus operandi of the unit. The gracious ATC manager will take positive steps to promote wellbeing which we will look at in the next post, the C aspect - creating a happy work culture.
For more information on being gracious, you can click here to read Kevin Daum's column.
revised 03/02/2013
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