Management: How to reconcile requirement and benevolence?

During our professional career, we often have managers, mentors, people who have accompanied us during our career, who have marked us more than others. They are usually people who touched us, who made us grow, who pushed us beyond what we thought we were capable of. This way of managing, and it is very important to keep it in mind, is based on the ability to reconcile the concept of requirement and benevolence.

Recently, and especially during the COVID crisis that we have been through, a lot of themes around caring have been developed: kindness, well-being, happiness at work, et cetera. We saw teams and employees say quite clearly that they lacked a challenge, that they lacked feedback, that they lacked vision, meaning, but also the ability to feel challenged and supported. Our point here is to say as a manager, it is very good to be vigilant about being caring, but how can we ensure that the notion of caring and demanding is balanced?

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The three dimensions of the requirement

So let's start with the requirement. What does that mean? The requirement is made up of several things.

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1. Set specific goals

It consists of the desire to support the person in the success of their goals. And so, it is first of all to give objectives that are very clear, very specific, that are accompanied by measurable indicators. In short: Set specific and measurable goals that are specific to the individual's success. That is, you manage to set the objective well in such a way that it is the responsibility of the person.

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2. Give feedback

Second, the requirement is to give feedback. It's telling the person you're seeing that they're succeeding, but it's also challenging the person about what they're not doing well, what they're not doing as well. It means pushing her out of her comfort zones so that she goes into territories where it is less comfortable for her, but where she is learning. It is the positive requirement of a manager, of a leader who says to the person: “The more demanding I am with you, the more it means that I am interested in you! ”. Because at the end of the day, someone who never pays attention, who is not demanding, is considered to be just nice.

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3. The “suitcases for bad reasons”

In number three, the requirement is also to be careful not to accept what we will call here “suitcases for bad reasons”. Today, there are a lot of them and the most frequent one is often: “I didn't have time.” The requirement is also to know how to say to yourself: “Ok, how can I help my collaborator to prioritize? ”, but you must not give up on the first “suitcase of good reasons” by saying: “Yes, poor man, you didn't have time, so you're not going to do it.” etc. It's a mindset, it's a posture, it's about supporting the person in the success of their objective, it's about supporting the person in achieving their goal, not giving up, giving them the tools and skills they need, training, supporting... But above all, don't give up on what is expected of the person.

It also means transmitting to the person the concept of co-responsibility. Each of us in the team is jointly responsible for the success of the entire team and therefore, if you are demanding of your collaborator, it means that you strongly want them to contribute to the team and not only to their own success.

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What do we mean by benevolence?

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When we talk about kindness, we can also simplify by the concept of respect. It doesn't have to mean sympathy, but in any case, it can mean empathy. So what does that mean? Simply because I am sensitive to the energy in which the person is, I listen to them, I am sensitive to these needs, their motivations. I check that we are in a constructive dialogue and I check that I am on par with my collaborator and not in a kind of boss or small boss management.

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How to reconcile requirement and benevolence?

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So, what can be interesting is to tell yourself that on the matrix, too much demand and not enough kindness generally results in a lot of stress, a lot of tension, a lot of tension, a lot of tension. Too much kindness and not enough standards give a bit of a cocoon, nice, kind side, but people say to themselves: “Yeah, it's super nice, but I don't develop too much.” So the whole point is really going to be to say to yourself: “How do I make sure that I really balance the two? ”, and to achieve this, you will have to associate with each moment of interaction with your employees a concept of requirement and a notion of benevolence.

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We all have a natural tendency to be more demanding, or rather caring, and therefore we all spend our professional careers as managers, trying to balance the pillar on which we are perhaps the least comfortable. But in both cases, what is important is to keep these concepts in mind. If you want to revise the concept of feedback, which is an integral part of kindness and rigor, do not hesitate to read our article on the art of feedback.

Read the feedback article