Perhaps Human Agency Has Been Hiding in Plain Sight All Along
Over recent weeks, I have been exploring Human Agency through some of the things organisations care about most.
Leadership.
Performance.
Innovation.
Trust.
Learning.
At first sight, they can appear to be different organisational challenges.
So we create leadership programmes.
Performance frameworks.
Innovation strategies.
Trust initiatives.
Learning cultures.
Each has its place.
But perhaps there is something connecting all of them.
People making choices.
A leader chooses whether to listen.
Someone chooses whether to speak.
A colleague chooses whether to admit a mistake.
A team member chooses whether to challenge an assumption.
Someone chooses whether to share an idea.
And sometimes, without consciously recognising it, we choose silence, avoidance, defensiveness or simply what we have always done before.
Those individual moments can appear insignificant.
But multiply them across hundreds of people, thousands of interactions and many years, and something much larger begins to emerge.
We call it culture.
We call it performance.
We call it leadership.
We call it innovation.
We call it trust.
But underneath them are human beings responding to situations, one moment at a time.
That is why I have become increasingly interested in Human Agency:
the ability of people to make helpful conscious choices and to act upon them.
Perhaps Human Agency isn’t another organisational initiative to place alongside leadership, culture or performance.
Perhaps it sits beneath them.
And perhaps that is why it has been so easy to overlook.
We see the consequences everywhere.
We just haven’t necessarily recognised the common human capacity connecting them.
Which leaves me with a question.
If Human Agency influences so much of what happens within an organisation, why do we spend so little time deliberately developing it?
Perhaps it has been hiding in plain sight all along.
If this perspective has sparked your curiosity, I’ve explored these ideas in much greater depth in my paper, Human Agency.
Related Articles:
Human Agency and Innovation: Why the Best Ideas Are Sometimes Never Spoken
How Human Agency Builds Trust Through Everyday Choices
How Human Agency Strengthens Organisational Learning and Adaptability