The clearest sign of organizational decline is when the leaders ignore the workers and focus on their own needs, work, and goals alone. To ignore the workers is to spell demise.
Lately I heard a story of a worker whose management team had chosen to ignore the worker's rights, needs, talents, and commitment. The management team focused solely on their own egos, and treated the workers as servants rather than the professionals they are. And as you can imagine, when workers are not valued or treated well, their potential and capacity wanes due to worry, unmet needs, and eventually a lack of hard work and commitment. It is crazy that some in management think they can ignore who the workers are or what they need, and still garner success for the organization.
In any organization, the gold is the people who commit to that organization. Good leadership knows that. When leadership tries to manage workers like puppets on a string, they spell disaster for that organization. To truly lead a strong family, organization, community, or nation, means that you have to invest in the people, and to invest in the people means you have to know the people, listen to their needs, respond to who they are/what they need, and then trust them to do the good work possible.
Too many educatinonal organizations don't take teachers seriously, and to me, this is the one greatest reason why so many educational organizations do not reach the capacity possible. Too often educators, who are mostly women, are ignored in the work place, and too often that leads to lost capacity which, in turn, leads to less success when it comes to educating children well.
This can happen in your own families too. If you don't invest in your family members in ways that matter, and if you don't help your family members reach their potential and follow their individual dreams, you won't have as strong or as happy a family as possible. Often weak and dysfunctional families occur because family leaders don't listen to their family members and don't work in earnest to support the individuals that their family members are--individuals with unique vision, goals, challenges, and passions. To dictate who your family members should be is to weaken your family. Instead discover who your family members are and nurture the best of who they are with your time, energy, and attention.
The same is true in classrooms. When educators truly invest in their students and work with a strengths-based mindset, those educators truly empower the best of who their students are, but when educators act as self-serving managers who will to boss or dictate who students are and what they do, they don't meet with success in any way.
The key to any strong family, organization, community, and nation is to invest in the people. I'm happy to hear Joe Biden and Kamala Harris already speaking of their will to invest in the American people--their words are inspiring, hopeful, and filled with proimse. I'm thinking about the ways that I can invest in the people around me to contribute to a strong family and community life. What can I do to help others be the best of who they are? This is a good question to ponder.