Employees in Organisations

the purpose of employees

Employees become an employee by signing a contract with an organisation. Their purpose is to advance the value creation of the organisation by bringing, using and growing their experience and expertise through a defined role. In return, at minimum, they receive the package as agreed in the contract.

the role of employees

Critical to the role of employees is to master followership. Good followership reflects the ability to make contributions without exhausting oneself, to balance speaking up and accepting decisions, to live healthy friction and know when to align, to respect hierarchy without being subservient, to know what one stands for and appreciate other’s point of view. The pitfall of followership is to exhaust oneself or to lose one’s identity and fade out. Either way the follower becomes invisible. When following becomes the norm and sameness the goal, the result is homogenization. Short term, this sounds attractive to leaders: finally all noses are pointing in the same direction and all employees are doing what I want them to do. Long term, the compass gets stuck, the bearings get fixed and the course leads to disaster without anyone able to intervene.

the promise of employees

Only through employees being connected individuals, using together their unique capabilities, can any leader fulfil his role and achieve value creation. Appreciating the uniqueness of employees by providing them with a constructive Framework and allowing them to live their Freedom is both the toughest as well as the most rewarding challenge for leaders. Striking the right balance gives the ultimate results: flowering employees & growing value creation.