I believe the primary role of management is to create stability, not to exert control. Stability is created by supporting employees, making sure they have the right tools to do the job, and ensuring that goals are clearly defined and communicated. Good management is never about protecting power and playing political games. I also feel that it is management’s role to encourage and develop leadership at all levels and I strive to help my peers learn, grow and meet their personal and professional goals.

I also think it’s a myth that happy employees perform better. In my experience, employees take the most satisfaction from doing their jobs well. This is why it’s essential to help people acquire the knowledge, skills and abilities they need to perform and grow as individuals.

An area where management consistently fails to focus its attention is on the importance of communication. Preventing asymmetric information is a frequent topic but there is little discussion about how this is actually accomplished. The foundation of communication starts at the interpersonal level, and is necessary to develop an environment that encourages and permits individual voices to be heard. As a manger, it is essential to help employees develop the requisite active listening skills, conflict resolution techniques, and emotional intelligence to understand themselves and effectively engage others.

Solid leadership and management are especially critical in an organization that relies on team based architectures. In an interdisciplinary environment, my experience as a member and leader of high performance teams allows me to maximize the value of human, physical and capital resources within the company.

The foundation of leadership is stakeholder engagement and communication.

This is true whether the context is internal or external to the organization. Gone are the days of operating behind closed doors and massively hierarchical management.

Okay, those days are not entirely gone, but they are on the way out. We are entering an age where people demand corporate transparency and accountability. An age where the organization itself is not at the center of the stakeholder map, but where the stakeholders are oriented around a shared vision.

Business is fundamentally changing. Business, like design, is becoming more human centered.

Employees are an organization's most important strategic resource, and it's time to start treating people like humans and stop treating them like machines.

Why? Because it drives innovation and revenue.