Becoming a Humanity Practitioner at Work
The meeting was supposed to last 30 minutes. Instead, it stretched past an hour — not because of the agenda, but because someone finally named the elephant in the room. The team had been running on fumes for months, carrying invisible stress while trying to deliver. When one colleague said, “I’m not okay, and I think others aren’t either,” the air shifted.
Instead of brushing past it, the group slowed down. People shared what they’d been holding in silence. What emerged wasn’t weakness — it was trust.
That moment didn’t belong to HR or to a senior leader. It happened because one person chose to practice humanity at work.
The Tension: Culture Is Everyone’s Job
We often talk about workplace culture as though it lives in policies, perks, or leadership initiatives. But culture isn’t a handbook. It’s built in the choices people make every day: to speak up or stay silent, to include or overlook, to connect or keep distance.
Too often, the burden of “fixing” culture falls on HR, DEI, or a few “culture champions.” Meanwhile, everyone else assumes it’s not their role. The result? A gap between what companies say they value and how people actually experience work.
What Is a Humanity Practitioner?
A Humanity Practitioner isn’t a title — it’s an identity.
It’s anyone, at any level, who chooses daily actions that make work more human, more connected, and more high-performing.
This identity comes to life through a set of core competencies — practical behaviors that move culture from aspiration to practice. These competencies aren’t reserved for leaders or HR. They are the building blocks of how trust, respect, and performance actually get created at work.
Humanity at work isn’t a job title — it’s a choice we make every day.
Core Competencies of a Humanity Practitioner
- Emotional Intelligence — Understand yourself, understand others, respond with intention.
- Courageous Conversations — Speak up, lean in, and hold space for what’s hard and human.
- Navigating Power & Politics — See the system, work the levers, build power that includes.
- Inclusive Decision-Making — Ask: Who’s at the table? Who’s affected? Who gets a voice?
- Relationship & Trust Building — Real connection is the foundation of real results.
- Conflict Navigation — Not all tension is bad. Learn to stay, not avoid.
- Adaptive Leadership — Lead with flexibility. Influence without a title.
- Collective Responsibility — Culture is shaped every single day, by every person.
Practical Moves: How to Begin
Here are five ways to practice humanity at work this week:
- Name what you notice. If morale feels low, don’t ignore it. Use language like, “I sense some heaviness in the room — is that true for others?”
- Share credit deliberately. In your next meeting, name someone’s contribution that may have been overlooked.
- Widen the table. Before making a decision, ask, “Who else should be part of this conversation?”
- Try a micro-pilot. Pick one practice (like opening team meetings with a check-in question) and run it for two weeks. Measure with a simple pulse survey (“Did this help us connect?”).
- Model staying in tension. When disagreement arises, resist rushing to resolution. Instead, say, “Let’s sit with this a bit longer — what else needs to be said?”
Reflection Exercise
Pause and consider:
- What’s one way you can practice humanity at work this week?
- Which Humanity Practitioner competency feels like a strength for you?
- Which one do you want to grow next?
Becoming a Humanity Practitioner is not about adding another role to your plate. It’s about recognizing the influence you already have — in conversations, in decisions, in how you show up. When you choose humanity, you shape culture.
This is also the foundation of our upcoming book, The Humanity Practice: Build Trust, Respect, and Performance — One Story, One Conversation, One Action at a Time. It’s a guide for anyone ready to move from intention to practice, and from invisible effort to collective impact.
At Humanity Practice, we believe the future of work depends on more people claiming this identity — not waiting for a title, but practicing it daily.
👉 Next week: why this moment calls for humanity more than ever.
