How to handle people in Workplace?

When it comes to handling people in work place the total leadership personality of a person-comes into play. Some famous research reports have quantified the importance of understanding people and handling them appropriately to be 88 per cent of effective management strategy. Managerial effectiveness is the management terminology for leadership. This truth is applicable at all the levels of management-Junior, Middle and Senior. Although there have been some minor changes in the original design, it clearly shows that Human Relation Skill is consistently the biggest component at all the levels of management.

A leader in any organisation has to handle people in the following three different directions:
a) the first-is downwards-his own team which’ he has to build as an effective and cohesive group motivated to achieve the goals of the organisation.
b) The second-is lateral, which involves winning the support and cooperation of colleagues over whom the leader has no control, but who have an important functional relationship with the group /organisation headed by the leader.
c) The third-is a purposeful, constructive and harmonious relation with the higher authority under whom a leader functions-the boss.
In order to handle people effectively it is useful for a leader to understand human nature. There are a large number of theories about it. For developing leadership potential it is useful to focus our attention on two concepts which have a lasting and practical value for leaders.
Maslow suggests that individual needs are arranged as in the strong one at the first and weaker but more motivating ones at the top. In his later years Maslow also focused on spiritual needs which have been the basis of the some eastern culture, ethos and their civilisations for five thousand years; these needs motivate a man to act, of great dedication, self-sacrifice and service to lofty causes.
The second concept is that the nature of every individual is a mixture of the following three characteristics
• Dull, lazy and inert quality;
• The active, passionate aspect of nature;
• Pure and ethical aspect of nature aiming at harmony and balance.
Leader V/s Mother:
No one knows the nature of a group of people better than a mother knows her children. She has a full intuitive feel of their needs. She knows their weaknesses and their strengths. Her main concern, and very often the only concern, is to bring them up in a manner that they are. Clearer and higher the vision of a mother, the loftier is her effort to groom her children to excellence. With the intimate knowledge of their total personality she knows as to who will do the right thing merely by watching her example: who will need a pat on the back or perhaps a quiet chat; and, which one, now and then, may well need the rod. The most pronounced factor which makes the children amenable to the guiding hand of the mother is the fact that she cares and that they implicitly trust her.

The same has to be the approach us an effective leader towards his people. Once the people are convinced that he is 4 people who know them; well and he truly cares for, them then they would do anything for the leader. However, it requires a very major effort to know people and know them better than even their own mothers-effort in terms of time, attention and genuine interest in people.
The difference between `indulgence' and `caring' should be clearly understood. Indulgence means excessive gratification-giving material things-money, conveniences and so on. Indulgence, by and. large, spoils the recipients. Caring, on the other hand, is a matter of attitude-it is a quality based on unselfish love. Consequently, caring is a matter of heart and not related to material resources. A skill that often helps a leader to know and care for his people is the skill of communication.