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Introducing Handshake leadership practices (HSL practices)

Sunday 07 February 2021 | Yves Poullet

Handshake leadership practices is an approach which combines – in today’s terminology: inclusivity, collective intelligence, a feedback culture, authentic communication, psychological safety, empowerment, and many more. It is also about a number of shared beliefs, management practices and norms to create a supportive and learning environment.

 

Why “Handshake” ? Because a handshake connects people; refers to mutual trust and respect; implies agreeing eg. on objectives, norms, values; and signals that we treat each other as adults – irrespective of functions. But a handshake is also about pulling someone upwards or giving a hand when someone needs help.

Calling it leadership has the benefit of focusing on what is in your control as a leader, ie. what you can decide to do, to change, to put in place, to stop, including about yourself. As a leader, you have an important role in taking such initiatives.

Finally, I refer to practices to insist on the idea that it only works when you put them in practice, ie. these are actions and behaviors that must be repeated and adapted over time. Not just concepts, not just one-offs.

 

You’ll probably note that Handshake leadership practices are highly people-centered. Actually, when summarizing my core belief at a recent testimonial, I stated the following:

I believe in people !

Their background, talents, skills and experiences. Their capacity to understand, change, develop, create, take ownership. Their good intentions towards colleagues, managers and clients.

For me, leadership is about creating an environment
in which people can express, learn and develop freely and smoothly their talents
(as much as possible – trusting without being naive)

 

From a business perspective, my experience is that such type of leadership leads to superior performance, sustainable changes and higher resilience – I’ll come back on why later.

But above and beyond these business imperatives, such leadership approach has been fulfilling my own needs for meaning and purpose in exercising leadership: helping my fellow colleagues to have a fulfilling professional life and creating an environment where they can express their talents, as well as learn and develop.

Handshake leadership practices are my leadership beliefs, formed over almost 30 years of professional experience, including many learnings from failures and from multiple feedbacks. It has zero ambition to be a general truth, nor to claim to be better than other leadership approaches. It works for me, with my background, personality and values, and in the contexts I have been evolving so far. It’s certainly neither perfect nor static, I continue to learn a lot – both about myself as well as about how to lead differently depending on the context.

Still, I hope they can be a source of inspiration for several of you. If that’s the case, I’ll be grateful.