What is FELT leadership? Everything You Need To Know

Businesses without actual leadership frequently struggle to establish a safety culture, which usually influences the possibility of sustainability.

Safety is the cornerstone of sustainability; thus, if a firm with a bad safety record is not “put down” by the government, it will either struggle to attract and keep personnel or customers will not buy from the company.

Establishing what people refer to as “Felt Leadership,” a distinct manner of being with employees and a model for leading them, is the biggest obstacle in building a sustainable organization.

Such leaders put a lot of effort into getting their followers to commit to acting and thinking in a way that supports their safety and the company’s success.

Since they genuinely feel and believe in what they do, these leaders lead by example.

What is FELT leadership?

A zero-incidence workplace can only be achieved through felt leadership. Employee engagement through felt leadership encourages them to proactively approach their jobs to prevent incidents rather than be safe.

Leaders need to view safety leadership as a privilege rather than just another duty if they want to take the first step toward a workplace with zero incidents.

It’s essential to develop operational discipline and intrinsic motivation so employees obey the rules voluntarily rather than out of necessity.

Nature of FELT Leadership

The foundation of trust and genuine connections between workers, clients, shareholders, and communities is felt leadership.

Felt leadership entails the following leadership nature and qualities.

  • The leadership is easily observable.
  • It creates a positive impression on the spectators.
  • The leadership helps in demonstrating personal commitment.
  • It helps in pervading the organization.
  • This kind of leadership will affect and involve all levels, including the contractors and the employees.

How can FELT Leadership Engage?

Felt leaders successfully engage their workforce by being persistent with their time with staff members and being purposefully visible in the workplace.

Good-feeling leaders leave a good impression on those they contact, focus intensely on their safety at all times, and show their dedication to workplaces free of incidents.

Leaders must ensure that all of their staff members, including contractors, know the organization’s commitment to safety. An organization that just experienced an event and opted to alter one of its procedures can serve as an example.

A company without a strong safety culture might believe that explaining the new procedure to employees at a meeting and having them sign off on it is sufficient.

What are the Benefits of FELT Leadership?

The concept of FELT leadership is highly workable. You can use the same at the workplace for greater ease and safety. Here are some of the plausible benefits of FELT leadership.

  • It aids in removing obstacles separating Us from Them.
  • Setting a good example for others encourages everyone to adopt the culture. This makes it easy to work together in the same place.
  • It increases credibility and shows that you value and are committed to your staff.
  • It fosters productive dialogue and two-way communication, which raises employee engagement.
  • It is a fantastic method to learn about the industry.
  • The motivation and productivity of employees are significantly and favorably impacted when leaders communicate company information.

How to Practise FELT Leadership?

There are various ways one can practice the art of FELT leadership. You can follow the details to get to the depth of the concept.

Many of you have probably watched TV shows when managers go back to the work floor in disguise to learn more about what occurs within the company.

  • We don’t advocate using complex masks or deception. Go there and spend the day working with your workers. Embrace the center of activity. Do this in different departments.
  • Don’t just observe; participate, even briefly, to demonstrate that your employees are professionals and can perform the task better than you.
  • Pay attention to how satisfying it is to succeed in the boss occasionally.
  • Spend the remaining time conversing with your workers, learning about how the company operates, and understanding how each employee contributes to the company’s overall success.
  • Plan a combination of pre-planned and impromptu walkabouts. People are usually at their best when they are planning, but it gives them time to consider what they want to say. However, you could discover that unannounced visits provide more truthful criticism.

How to Converse in FELT Leadership

  • Make time for sincere talks with individuals at all organizational levels. Talk to them rather than at them. Ask them for their thoughts and opinions, and most importantly, pay attention to their responses.
  • Please encourage others to express their opinions and ensure they are at ease regardless of who they are. Most folks would adore sharing their most recent insight and pointing out what is incorrect.
  • If you follow up on these interactions, it will be worthwhile to do this. Make sure to put them in a file. Consider all ideas, and then implement the best ones.
  • Then, comment on what is being done, who is doing it, and what will happen. Be careful to acknowledge the efforts that your staff members have made.

Both formal and informal sessions should be included. Talk to various people; sometimes, speak to different ones.

Instead of meetings, have breakfast gatherings, not in a boardroom, but in the canteen. Let them see that their leaders are cordial, enthusiastic, and effective.

Getting the Human Touch in FELT Leadership

The main goal of visible-felt leadership is to make things more personal. Leaders must show concern for more than just the bottom line and their team members.


The most crucial component of every organization is its workforce, so you must appreciate them and gain its trust.

Ways of Demonstrating the Leadership

  • To receive respect
  • To be regarded as a human being in the organization means having one’s work acknowledged.
  • To be treated with respect through verbal and nonverbal cues from your superiors.
  • To receive compassion, encouragement, and a two-way conversation.
  • The staff members must be aware of their performance in connection to the resource constraints and system challenges they face on the job.
  • Recognition is about awareness and appreciation of the specifics of resourcefulness, invention, and determination it takes to get the task done, not about praise or awards.
  • A meaningful performance talk with their supervisor is a key “mechanism” for exhibiting “felt leadership” to individuals.
  • The performance dialogue offers the fundamental building block for satisfying a person’s basic requirements and enhancing personal employee engagement.

Critical Elements of FELT Leadership

  • Be available and present at work.
  • Start genuine “give and take” interactions with subordinates;
  • Offer constructive, unfavorable, and neutral feedback;
  • Use the three-step approach of outlining expectations, asking how performance is going, and giving feedback on performance;
  • Concentrate on performance-related conversations rather than just work-related ones;
  • Use “open questions”; Ask rather than tell to determine any “roadblocks” to performance and eliminate them.

FELT Leadership and Commitment

It is showing your folks what you believe regarding safety. Although it is a cliché that “actions speak louder than words,” there are several examples of how this effect has influenced organizational change.

Commitment is a word that frequently appears in our conversations, much like quality and excellence do.

But the word’s combination of ingredients for vision formation and action focus gives it its actual power. J.F.T. Bugental stated that the words “this I am; this I believe; this I do” best captures the core of a leader’s dedication to a goal.

The leadership that personifies devotion and gives the vision life, enabling it to become a reality, provides the vision with life.

Conclusion

This is more abstract. It involves inspiring others by appealing to their emotions and gaining their hearts and minds.

Felt leaders have a compelling vision that makes everyone’s contribution to accomplishing it very evident.

They inspire everyone around them to succeed with their contagious zeal. Instead of issuing one-sided orders, they promote two-way dialogue.

This way, you can come closer to the employees and have the maximum positive interaction.
These are the leaders who acknowledge effort and success and provide fair credit.

A felt leader understands their team members’ struggles and offers assistance in their professional and personal lives.

FELT Leadership

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