A New Kind of Power: Using Human-Centered Leadership to Drive Innovation, Equity and Belonging in Government Institutions

by Dara Gail Barlin

Overview

Many government agencies still use a traditional model of management which relies on a strong top-down, factory-based approach to motivate employees. This worked well for a while, but research now shows this leadership can easily lead to a slew of human-related problems such as employee disengagement, turf wars, blame-games, bias, poor decision-making, and status quo thinking. These issues can turn into big headaches for managers, undermine policy efforts, and reduce trust in government.

Luckily, Human-Centered Leadership has emerged as a new management method uniquely positioned to counteract these issues by ensuring all employees bring their best selves and their best work to the team. At the same time, Human-Centered Leadership methods provide a cacophony of additional benefits such as improved productivity, quality of work, innovation, collaboration, nimbleness, trust, wellness, inclusiveness, and a deeper sense of belonging. Together, these improvements mean that government institutions become better at attracting and retaining top talent, crafting more effective policies, and implementing new initiatives with much higher rates of success.

The best news is that Human-Centered Leadership is not expensive to implement nor hard to learn. In fact, some early adopters in government positions are already using it to foster high-performing teams and getting great results. This book tells the stories of several of these Human-Centered Leaders and highlights their most successful strategies for creating thriving team culture, fostering more trust with the community, and producing more meaningful outcomes for all.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780578296265
Publisher:	Center for Transforming Culture
Publication date:	04/28/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	236
File size:	713 KB

About the Author

Dara has over two decades of experience facilitating trust-building conversations, conducting research to inform policy, and leading grassroots campaigns for positive change. Dara's research has been featured in the United Nations, U.S. Congress, Institute for Public Policy Research, and Harvard Education Spotlight Series. Her organizing campaigns for policy change have been touted as outstanding models by Human Rights, White House and State Department leaders. In 2012, she led a global campaign that helped to build trust and develop a common blueprint for positive change across 97 countries. More recently, in response to the mental health crisis spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dara initiated a campaign to bring more effective communication skills to households around the world. Dara has a Masters with honors in Public Policy from the London School of Economics, and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Barnard College.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Dedication................................................................................... iii

Acknowledgements & Co-Authors........................................... iv

Introduction................................................................................. 1

 

Chapter One

Designing Systems to Support More Choice and Voice

Let's set the stage......................................................................... 9

Let's unpack the problem............................................................. 11

Let's solve this together .............................................................. 19

Let's wrap it up............................................................................. 34

Reflective questions for team discussion..................................... 37

 

Chapter Two

Building the Infrastructure for Innovation (Through Human-Centered Design)

Let's set the stage........................................................................ 38

Let's unpack the problem............................................................. 39

Let's solve this together .............................................................. 51

Let's wrap it up............................................................................. 62

Reflective questions for team discussion..................................... 64

 

Chapter Three

Creating a Psychologically Safe Environment

Let's set the stage........................................................................ 65

Let's unpack the problem............................................................. 73

Let's solve the problem together.................................................. 78

Let's wrap it up............................................................................. 85

Reflective questions for team discussion..................................... 87

 

Chapter Four

Paving a Human-Centered Path Towards Equity and Inclusion

Let's set the stage ....................................................................... 88

Let's unpack the problem............................................................. 90

Let's solve this together................................................................ 93

Let's wrap it up............................................................................ 115

Reflective questions for team discussion.................................... 116

 

Chapter Five

Hiring Leaders with Emotional Intelligence (Using an Equity Lens)

Let's set the stage....................................................................... 117

Let's unpack the problem............................................................ 122

Let's solve this together............................................................... 130

Let's wrap it up............................................................................ 138

Reflective questions for team discussion.................................... 140

 

Conclusion................................................................................. 141

End Notes................................................................................... 154

About the Author....................................................................... 159

Editorial Reviews

A great toolbox of techniques for any manager -Alex Strazzanti

The tone of this book is refreshingly approachable. Dara immediately invites you in with her humor, humility and honesty. She is able to connect with the reader through humanity in ways that few others achieve. Her techniques and tools are straight-forward and easily implemented. By the end, not only do you feel the desire to make this shift as a leader, but you know it's the right thing to do. And most empowering of all, you have dozens of tangible ways to implement your new methods.

Making Human-Centered Leadership a reality in state government -Ana Lasso

I found this book to be a powerful tool in my role as the Director of the California Department of General Services. I asked my executive team to read it together as a team-building activity, and it's already led to a lot of positive change... including elements of the book in our training sessions, improving hiring practices, and initiating human-centered projects to make our department more equitable and effective.

Refreshingly new leadership approach designed to foster culture change in government agencies -Kathleen Buzad

A New Kind of Power is the right book at the right time for leaders and workers at government agencies, faced with challenging workplace issues and pressure to produce good results for their communities. The author's energy, passion and hands-on expertise with the work is palpable. The author keeps it honest and real, with a steadfast focus on effective transformational change. Barlin's handbook is the roadmap for better workplaces and more effective delivery of public services.

Motivating and insightful -Kevin Crenshaw

Dara is an empowering leadership thinker and change agent after my own heart! With interesting stories and interviews, she identifies the crucial problems government leaders face-and their root causes. Then she makes a brilliant case for human-centered leadership in government, with practical tools and insights to make it happen. If you work at any level of government, you need this book.

From the Publisher