I be­lieve that be­yond cre­at­ing and cu­rat­ing the state of play in a busi­ness, lead­ers are re­spon­si­ble for ex­e­cut­ing an­oth­er com­pelling man­date. They must un­lock per­son­hood in in­di­vid­u­als. Guid­ing some­one to­ward per­son­hood is one of the most no­ble and sat­is­fy­ing acts a leader can ac­com­plish. Have you no­ticed how many in­di­vid­u­als re­main locked with­in them­selves? Have you no­ticed, as well, how many of these same in­di­vid­u­als flour­ish when the right leader ar­rives and pro­vides the psy­cho­log­i­cal and en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pe­tus that awak­ens dor­mant po­ten­tial?

Per­son­hood oc­curs when an in­di­vid­ual el­e­vates him­self/her­self to one of the high­est lev­els of ac­tu­al­i­sa­tion pos­si­ble. It is the mo­ment when val­ues be­come un­shak­able, ser­vice to oth­ers be­comes in­te­grat­ed in­to pur­pose and the call to per­fect­ed hu­man­i­ty is ev­i­dent in words aligned with ac­tions. When a leader mas­ters the art of un­lock­ing per­son­hood, any­one for­tu­nate enough to en­ter his/her or­bit ex­pe­ri­ences an anoint­ing for great­ness.

This great­ness be­gins with a re­newed men­tal­i­ty on the part of the in­di­vid­ual. He or she be­gins to think ex­pan­sive­ly and trans­lates this con­scious­ness in­to an ac­cep­tance that liv­ing the most ex­pan­sive life is pos­si­ble. Two of the most po­tent dri­vers of this process of men­tal re­new­al are the re­jec­tion of lim­it­ing be­liefs and an el­e­vat­ed aware­ness of per­son­al pat­terns that shape thought and be­hav­iour.

Lead­ers who un­der­stand how per­son­hood evolves nev­er claim cred­it for “build­ing peo­ple.” In­stead, they cel­e­brate the priv­i­lege to cre­ate con­di­tions that fa­cil­i­tate in­ner change, which, in turn, leads to mean­ing­ful in­di­vid­ual trans­for­ma­tion. Of­ten, lead­ers de­clare that they take their mis­sion to “build peo­ple” se­ri­ous­ly. A more ac­cu­rate as­ser­tion would be that they fa­cil­i­tate the alche­my re­quired for in­di­vid­u­als to build them­selves. Psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly lib­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ments, com­fort zone dis­rup­tion, skill stretch­ing and a re­newed ac­cep­tance of the pow­er of pos­si­bil­i­ty should be in­clud­ed in this alche­my.

It is time for a brand of lead­er­ship that en­cour­ages in­di­vid­u­als to ask them­selves, “Who do I want to be­come?” and for lead­ers to pro­vide the where­with­al to sup­port the en­su­ing re­spons­es to this ques­tion. Lead­ers must in­spire those un­der their charge to forge a new frame of ex­is­tence that re­jects the tra­di­tion­al pletho­ra of pos­si­bil­i­ties.

The pur­suit of per­son­hood should em­pow­er in­di­vid­u­als to cre­ate lives that make their ex­is­tence mean­ing­ful. Life must be seen as more than a rou­tine of mov­ing be­tween work and home. This re­al­i­ty has dom­i­nat­ed the life-man­age­ment play­book for too long, leav­ing many in­di­vid­u­als un­able to cre­ate lives be­yond the of­fice. As a re­sult, ur­gency to­ward life and liv­ing of­ten gives way to an ap­a­thet­ic com­fort zone, which caus­es rou­tine to suf­fo­cate en­thu­si­asm.

Lead­ers who grasp the ur­gency of life prompt in­di­vid­u­als to take charge of the tra­jec­to­ry of their own lives, rather than ab­di­cate this im­por­tant re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ex­ter­nal forces. It’s a far more au­then­tic out­come when an in­di­vid­ual as­sumes the de­sign rights for their life.

Un­lock­ing per­son­hood sits at the heart of hu­man-cen­tred lead­er­ship. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we have yet to reach the sweet spot where lead­ers, en masse, recog­nise the unique­ness of each in­di­vid­ual. Too many re­main trans­ac­tion­al and root­ed in view­ing em­ploy­ees as “role fillers.” While the phrase “Peo­ple are our most valu­able as­set” is wide­ly ref­er­enced, em­ploy­ees are still viewed pri­mar­i­ly through their work per­sonas. Their to­tal iden­ti­ty is not af­firmed and they do not al­ways feel safe enough to bring their whole selves for­ward.

In busi­ness­es where lead­er­ship prac­tice in­cludes un­lock­ing per­son­hood as a key mea­sure of suc­cess, cul­tur­al vi­tal­i­ty soars. Em­ploy­ees feel that their val­ue goes be­yond just “role-fill­ing,” to be­ing val­ued for their “whole per­son” con­tri­bu­tion. The em­ploy­ee com­mu­ni­ty be­comes a col­lec­tive, where a high­ly charged sense of be­long­ing flour­ish­es.

When a busi­ness makes space for per­son­hood to sit at its val­ues ta­ble, it’s say­ing to its em­ploy­ees, “You mat­ter be­yond your func­tion.” This cre­ates a rip­ple ef­fect of good­will that flows in­to and nour­ish­es cus­tomer re­la­tion­ships.

The ef­fect? Cus­tomers in­ter­act­ing with the “soul” of the busi­ness, even as they com­plete their busi­ness jour­ney ex­pe­ri­ence.