The Human Moment: Why Genuine Connection Is a Leadership Imperative
The Human Moment: Why Genuine Connection Is a Leadership Imperative
You have more ways to reach people than at any point in human history. Slack. Teams. Email. WhatsApp. Text. Voice notes. And yet, true human connection at work is missing. The type of connection that leaves a person feeling seen, heard, and like they matter. Researcher and author Zach Mercurio found that 65% of workers feel underappreciated and undervalued. 30% say they feel invisible or flat-out ignored. His conclusion in The Power of Mattering is clear: we are not in an epidemic of loneliness. We are in an epidemic of meaning and mattering. There are more ways to communicate. More virtual offices. Many channels to reach people - and as a result, fewer genuine human interactions.
What Is the Human Moment at Work?
In 1999, psychiatrist Edward Hallowell wrote a piece for Harvard Business Review called "The Human Moment at Work." At the time, due to the creation of the internet and email, he was worried that we were losing something essential in how leaders connect with the people around them.
Even though this is an older article, he was right. And this has become even more apparent over the last three decades.
Hallowell defined the Human Moment simply: an authentic psychological encounter requiring physical presence and genuine attention.
When people aren't getting enough genuine human interaction, miscommunication accumulates. Silence gets misinterpreted. An unreturned message becomes a story in your head based on how you feel and not the facts.
Hallowell calls this "toxic worry" - anxiety with no basis in reality, but which feels completely real to the person experiencing it.
Without the physical cues of body language, tone, and facial expression, even conscious leaders find themselves reading the worst into an ambiguous email.
When toxic worry takes hold, people stop innovating. They stop raising their hand. They move out of creative, problem-solving mode and into self-protection. The organizational term for this is disengagement. The human term is freeze.
Gallup's 2024 State of the Global Workplace found that 1 in 5 employees worldwide felt lonely at work. This rises to 1 in 4 for fully remote workers. These are not disengaged people. These are capable, committed professionals who are simply not getting enough real contact with the humans they work alongside every day.
High Tech Requires High Touch: Leadership in the Age of Digital Communication
The more communication channels you rely on, the more intentional you have to be about human contact. Presence is irreplaceable. As Hallowell states, you can sit shoulder to shoulder with someone on a six-hour flight and not have a single human moment the entire time. Physical proximity is not the same as genuine attention.
Here is what intentional human connection looks like in practice as a leader:
Pick up the phone. A five-minute call resolves what a ten-message thread cannot. When tone matters, use your voice.
Create agenda-free time. Plan a 30-minute check-in or a working lunch with no defined subject matter. This creates a space where people can talk without an agenda.
Bring remote teams together. Once a year, or quarterly if you can, gather your people for in-person meetings. This is especially crucial for virtual teams. The connection that forms carries into every interaction that follows. Use the time to work strategically on the business, and also build in some fun time for the team to enjoy each other.
Check in on the person, not only the project. Stop by their desk. Get on a quick virtual call. A brief, genuine moment of human connection tells someone they matter in a way no Slack message ever will.
Building Psychological Safety Through Human Connection
The human moment is a strategic concept - not just a leadership nicety. The quality of contact you create with your team directly shapes their capacity to think clearly, take smart risks, and bring their best work forward.
The leaders I work with know their teams are capable. What they need is a structured space to reconnect, realign, and remember what it feels like to actually work well together.
That is exactly the work we do in a Team Alignment Session. We create the conditions for human moments to happen at scale by building the trust, clarity, and connection that make high-performing teams possible.
You and your team are ready. Book a Connection Call to talk through what becomes possible when you all truly connect.