Personal leadership is a term that only really gains substance and value when you make it personal. Michiel de Haan is convinced of that. From 2015 to 2023, he was CEO of plant exporter Royal Lemkes. nlgroeit BP Nieuws As a people person, he encouraged his colleagues to discover their talent and develop their personal leadership qualities. What does that involve? He is happy to tell you all about it, in vivid detail.

A down-to-earth man with a sense of humour, that is Michiel de Haan. That doesn't mean he has no big ambitions, on the contrary. "I live for sustainable growth. Of our people, the company, our partners' business and the environment."

People make the difference

Royal Lemkes is a family business that believes its company culture contributes greatly to its success. "That is why we invest in sustainable development, with a lot of attention for personal growth, vitality and diversity. You get every opportunity to steer your own career, and we do everything we can to support you in it. With attention for who you are, what you do and what you can do. Our starting point is: if you grow and flourish, so do we!"

Heart and soul

Michiel gets energy from working with people. "I have a very hard job in which I have to drink coffee with people all day," he laughs. "As far as I'm concerned, heart and soul is the magic word for engaged teamwork. So it pays to find out what drives people. Only by asking follow-up questions do you find out where their passion lies. And their worries!"

Core values in the spotlight

An introduction meeting with new employees makes him very enthusiastic. Connection is, after all, one of Royal Lemkes' five core values. Besides reliability, customer focus and craftsmanship, personal leadership is also on that list. "Every year we put two core values in the spotlight. We discuss them with employees in the planning, development and evaluation conversations, so that they make concrete plans to improve themselves within those themes."

Life wisdom

Michiel knows that terms remain just terms if you don't make them concrete. "Personal leadership is another potentially hollow phrase," he says. "We already gave it substance during onboarding. New employees took a personality test and were given Stephen Covey's book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In my eyes, that is not a management book, but a book full of life wisdom. It helps enormously to get your private life in order too. At a previous employer, a colleague once came up to thank me warmly. He was on the verge of a divorce, but thanks to this book everything had come right again between him and his wife."

Make it concrete

Besides training sessions with pizza and Covey, at which Michiel himself got on his soapbox to get colleagues enthusiastic about taking a proactive approach to life, he and his HR colleagues regularly talked with employees. "Personal leadership is a many-headed term and not all its aspects are equally relevant to everyone. Together we looked at what applies to each employee, and taught him or her how to enlarge your circle of influence by showing personal leadership. You can do that by discussing things openly, talking with people instead of about them, and not making assumptions, but checking."

Michiel also believes in the power of vulnerability. "Employees sometimes see me in tears. If you dare to share what is going on at home or at work, you create connection." Also read more effective teams through psychological safety.

Encouraging personal leadership

At Royal Lemkes, personal leadership was encouraged in three ways:

  1. Through the offering. In an in-house academy, employees could keep developing in leadership and professional knowledge, or with a tailor-made course. There were also inspiration afternoons with speakers and a company bookcase to encourage reading.
  2. Through the manager. "They have the fine task of motivating their employees as much as possible and supporting them in their personal growth."
  3. Through the employee themselves. "It's not called personal leadership for nothing. If you know how you want to develop, we can offer the right coaching for it."

Business as a force for good

Michiel describes his own way of leading as 'inspired'. "I am strongly convinced of business as a force for good. Ever since Al Gore released his documentary An Inconvenient Truth about climate change, I have been a self-declared sustainability freak. I see it as my task to help the horticultural sector become more sustainable, because our industry has an inconvenient truth too. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to make the world more social and greener. If you are in a position to make an impact on that, you have to make the most of that privilege."

Also read engaging leadership and leadership: what forms are there?.

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