Leading with Empathy

If there’s one common skill required to achieve success, it’s empathy. Empathy is the critical skill for taking the lead, connecting, and opening our minds to the opinions and perspectives of others.

A recent study from Catalyst shows that employees with highly empathic senior leaders report higher levels of creativity (61%) and engagement (76%) than those with less empathic senior leaders (13% and 32%, respectively).

What is Empathy?

Empathy is the skill of connecting with others to identify and understand their thoughts, perspectives, and emotions; and demonstrating that understanding with intention, care, and concern.

An empathic leader is a leader who demonstrates care, concern, and understanding for employees’ life circumstances. Empathy helps bond colleagues together and forms the foundation of a resilient and inclusive workplace.

Researchers Daniel Goleman and Paul Ekman have identified three types of empathy:

• Cognitive Empathy (understanding)

• Emotional Empathy (heart/feeling), and

• Compassionate Empathy (action/doing).

The Impact of Empathy

It is hard for employees to feel a sense of belonging at work and bring their authentic selves to work if they don’t feel that their life circumstances are valued and respected by their company.

Demonstrating empathy signals to employees that their perspectives and experiences matter. Empathy is a skill that allows managers and leaders to understand better and provide support for employees.

According to Catalyst's survey:

• 61% of people with highly empathic senior leaders often report or always being innovative at work, compared to only 13% of people with less empathic senior leaders.

• 76% of people with highly empathic senior leaders often report or always being engaged, compared to only 32% of people with less empathic senior leaders.

How to put Empathy into practice:

• Have check-in meetings regularly

• Start your meetings expressing gratitude

• Celebrate milestones and recognize progress

• Show genuine interest and caring

• Express concern for the well-being of people

• Practice active listening

• Ask: how are you doing?

• Ask your team about loved ones and try to know your team as persons with a life outside of work.

• Ask what's one thing you could do differently to be a better leader for them.

• Invite others to share their perspective

Keep these in mind

Leading with empathy is a feature, not a bug. 
Leading with empathy is the contemporary way to lead, and
Leading with empathy is a courageous decision.

When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection – or compassionate action.
— Daniel Goleman

What you measure is what you get

“To a man with a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
— Proverb

The dark side of metrics is when you achieve the target but not the ultimate goal.

Have you thought about how to avoid the Man with Hammer Syndrome? “Man with a Hammer” syndrome is the idea that if you only have one or two mental models in your head, you’ll try to solve all problems with the same approach.

Usually, in projects, we start by defining what success looks like. However, we must be careful about what we measure because it will be what we get.  When I design a plan or a new project, I like to have in mind Charlie Munger's words:  

A special version of this man-with-a-hammer syndrome is terrible, not only in economics but practically everywhere else, including business. It's really terrible in business. You've got a complex system, and it spews out a lot of wonderful numbers that enable you to measure some factors. But there are other factors that are terribly important, [yet] there's no precise numbering you can put to these factors. You know they're important, but you don't have the numbers. Well, practically everybody (1) overweighs the stuff that can be numbered because it yields to the statistical techniques they're taught in academia, and (2) doesn't mix in the hard-to-measure stuff that may be more important. That is a mistake I've tried all my life to avoid, and I have no regrets for having done that.

Although we have some numbers, like engagement in culture plans, other factors cannot be reduced to a number. For example, the energy and commitment of the leaders to the program, the self-learning habits that people are building, and the community of sharing across areas we are creating.  And even if we don't have the perfect number, we know the skills we build are critical.

Consider also the perspectives of these other leaders:

• "What gets measured gets managed – even when it’s pointless to measure and manage it, and even if it harms the purpose of the organization to do so."
  — Peter Drucker

• "Perhaps what you measure is what you get. More likely, what you measure is all you’ll get. What you don’t (or can’t) measure is lost."
  — H. Thomas Johnson

• "Tell me how you measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave. If you measure me in an illogical way…do not complain about illogical behavior..."
  — Eliyahu Moshe Goldratt

Measurement is a great tool, but we must be aware that we need to measure and reward what is really important.

What do you need to make a plan successful?

A committed decision is a good start, and it makes all the difference.
It doesn't mean that there are no risks or challenges. You will find a way to overcome them.
It doesn't mean that it is the correct decision. But a committed decision is more powerful.
A committed decision can transform an ordinary experience and make it remarkable.

It doesn't mean that it does predict the success of a long-term strategy. Except when it does, and you can make it happen.

Stay Conversations: A great way to improve employee retention

Turnover is one of the most crucial talent metrics. While it can be good or bad depending on the organizational context, it has high costs.  One of the best ways to get around turnover and ensure the development of the relationship between manager and employees is to start with a stay conversation.

Stay conversations are discussions between a manager and their direct reports. The main purpose is connecting and learning more about the employee, including well-being, career expectations, development goals other factors that could influence the retention drivers and willingness to stay.

Key Recommendations:

1. Frequency: Stay conversations are most effective when repeated periodically, with follow-up and next steps to build an ongoing dialogue with purpose and meaning.

2. Duration: They should take up to 15 minutes.

3. Prepare: Schedule it in advance so the meeting can focus on the employee, not day-to-day work. Indicate the purpose of the meeting to eliminate any fears and allow the person to think about the topics you want to discuss.

4. Questions: A stay conversation works better if you use a semi-structured, one-on-one conversation. Personalize this form to understand the most relevant topics according to the moment. 

5. Agreements and actions: Discuss the next steps to achieving the goal of greater job satisfaction. It's important that the employee takes ownership of their job satisfaction and that you agree on how the leader can help.

6. Follow up: Schedule the next conversation right away.  Keep track of the agreements for better accountability at the next meeting.

Question Types:

Building Rapport & Trust

• How are you? How is life outside of work?

• How do you feel your work/life balance is right now?

• What’s one thing we could change about work for you that would improve your personal life?

• What drives you? What motivates you to come to work each day?

Growth and development:

• What is most exciting about your work? Least interesting?

• What do you want to learn? What do you want to teach others?

• What are your career interests? (professional preferences, areas, or businesses)

• Do you identify any obstacles to achieving your goals?

• What are three things can I do as your manager to help your professional growth?

• What are three things you can do to advance your professional growth?

Checking on their General Happiness:

• Are you happy with your recent work? Why or why not?

• What worries you? What’s on your mind?

• What would make you leave for another job?

• Is there anything else you want to talk about that I can help with?

The best leaders don't wait for signs of trouble. They take preventive action to keep their talented people. Stay conversations provide an excellent opportunity to understand what engages people and connect them to their main priorities and motives. Most importantly, through stay conversations, we create solid foundations for a culture of trust and connection that can make all the difference between retaining the people you need and watching them walk out the door.

***

For more Stay Conversations questions, download this free template.

Gratitude can transform your days

Gratitude can transform your days from complaints to joy.
Gratitude changes your view of ordinary things into blessings.
Gratitude is the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.
Gratitude makes us happier, brings us closer to others, and opens the door to possibility.

It's not something we're forced into, it's something we choose. It's worth it.

When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.
― Marcus Aurelius

Challenge Your Belief

If you are reading the same books, the same news, participating in the same events that everyone else, or surrounded by people who only think like you, you could be missing a significant opportunity to grow,  amplify your perspective, and increase your understanding and knowledge.

Great leaders dare to be different. Great leaders understand that it is important to learn and try to understand another point of view. To be surrounded by people whose ideas are not always aligned with yours. People who challenge your opinion and help you to reflect and uncover your blind spots.

Listening

Listening is more than hearing what is said.
Listening happens when we put in the effort to understand what the person is trying to convey.
Listening implies avoiding immediate judgment, prejudice, assumptions, rebuttal, or criticism.
Listening avoids interrupting, evaluating, solving the problem, or jumping to an answer.

Listening is difficult, and it requires more than focus. It's a skill that requires practice, persistence, effort, and, most important, the intention to acknowledge what isn't said.

How do you measure success

Never before have expectations been so high about what people can achieve with their life. We're told that we can achieve anything. So, most people spend much time of their life working really hard to be successful.

Success is defined as the attainment of fame, wealth, or social status and is mainly characterized by external measures – how much money you make, your rank in the company, and your social status. Being successful seemingly always involves being measured against others.

However, when we talk about success vs. failure, we have to ask ourselves what characteristics they have in common: they are not everlasting, it doesn't depend one hundred percent on us, they are fortuitous, and it is statistical. They are circumstantial facts that have nothing to do with virtues.

As Alain de Botton said: The idea that we will make a society where literally everybody is graded, the good at the top, bad at the bottom, exactly done as it should be, is impossible. There are simply too many random factors: accidents, accidents of birth, accidents of things dropping on people's heads, illnesses, etc. We will never get to grade them, never get to grade people as they should.

Viktor Frankl proposed a wholly separate dimension, commonly not considered, but one that is critical for our well-being and the happiness of human beings. He called it the emptiness-fulfillment line.

There are plenty of people who are incredibly successful yet remain unhappy, despairing, or empty. It’s like they don’t know how to feel fulfilled at all. But life doesn’t have to stay that way.  We choose fulfillment or emptiness. We can choose success, but success does not depend on us.

Where would you like your son or your daughter to be? Would you want him/her to be good or for him/her to be a rich wretch?

It is in the fulfillment line where ethics and integrity lie. To create virtues, we have to judge the consequences of our decisions.  If we choose fulfillment, we choose virtue.

Where do you want to be in your life: success or fulfillment?

True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods.
— Aristotle

What can we improve about Inclusive Education?

Inclusive Education means that all children in a community learn together, regardless of their physical, mental, social, or cultural conditions. It is normal for students to be different.

As Sir Ken Robinson presented in his incredible TED Talk about education:

There are hundreds of initiatives every year to try and improve education. The trouble is, it’s all going in the wrong direction.

There are three principles on which human life flourishes, and they are contradicted by the culture of education under which most teachers have to labor, and most students have to endure.

The first is this, that human beings are naturally different and diverse. (...) I will make you a bet, and I am confident that I will win the bet. If you’ve got two children or more, I bet you they are completely different from each other. Aren’t they? (...) Kids prosper best with a broad curriculum that celebrates their various talents, not just a small range of them. (...)

The second principle that drives human life flourishing is curiosity.

If you can light the spark of curiosity in a child, they will learn without any further assistance very often. Children are natural learners. It’s a real achievement to put that particular ability out or to stifle it. Curiosity is the engine of achievement. (...)

And the third principle is this: that human life is inherently creative. It’s why we all have different résumés. We create our lives, and we can recreate them as we go through them. It’s the common currency of being a human being. It’s why human culture is so interesting and diverse, and dynamic. (...)

We all create our own lives through this restless process of imagining alternatives and possibilities, and one of the roles of education is to awaken and develop these powers of creativity. Instead, what we have is a culture of standardization. Now, it doesn’t have to be that way. It really doesn’t.

It is normal for people to be different. Why are we pushing them to fit in? Inclusive education is a challenge and not a “problem.” It is not about achieving homogeneous groups (to reduce or eliminate differences); it is better to teach students with different interests, abilities, and learning rhythms together.

Inclusive education is not about offering special support for students that we consider “different.” An inclusive center does not take the student out of the classroom to give reinforcements or “therapies.”

Responding to diversity is breaking with the traditional scheme, in which everyone does the same thing, at the same time, in the same way, and with the same materials.

We need to embrace a different perspective. We have to recognize that we are not talking about processes, we are talking about humans, and there are conditions under which people thrive and under which they don't.

"Only when diverse perspectives are included, respected, and valued can we start to get a full picture of the world: who we serve, what they need, and how to successfully meet people where they are.”  — Brené Brown.

What are we doing to create an environment of possibility, a broader range of opportunities, cherishing and valuing the uniqueness of every person?

Encouraging Others

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.
— William Arthur Ward

We can decide to become someone who is actively looking to encourage others. When we look for the good in others — and then express it to them — it helps us to think less often about ourselves and more often about others.

Michelangelo is often quoted as having said that inside every block of stone or marble dwells a beautiful statue; one need only remove the excess material to reveal the work of art within. If we apply this concept to how we see and treat people, we start to see, listen and accept people as they are. It's appreciating their differences and wanting to help them grow and become what they are capable of being.

Encouraging others is a way to give someone support, confidence, and hope. It's an act to make people notice that they have been seen and heard. It’s something you want from others, and the best way to get it is to give it. 

What better way to provide value to others than to put their needs front and center?

If not now, when?

Has there ever been a better time to learn what you don’t know? It is easier, faster, and cheaper than ever.
It takes curiosity and motivation to learn. It takes humility to unlearn. Learning requires perseverance, effort, and the right mindset.

How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?
― Epictetus

What Does “Earned” Mean to You?

Every once in a while, a book comes along that becomes an instant, inexplicable necessity in the life of any leader who wants to make a positive impact. This year, it’s The Earned Life by Marshall Goldsmith.

"I’ve learned it’s never too late to reflect because as long as you’re breathing, you have more time. But it’s never too early either—and early is better. (...) Reflect on the life you’re shaping for yourself and make choices based on that reflection."
— Marshall Goldsmith

Marshall Goldsmith shared his key learnings for living an earned life. Some demands that this will require are:

• Live your own life, not someone else's version of it.

• Commit yourself to "earning" every day. Make it a habit.

• Attach your earning moments to something greater than mere personal ambition.

What does "Earned" mean to you?

Here are some highlights that I made from this book:

• We are living an earned life when the choices, risks, and efforts we make in each moment align with an overarching purpose in our lives, regardless of the eventual outcome.

• The only iteration of you that matters is the present you who has just taken a breath.

• Recapturing a sense of fulfillment cannot be accomplished by wallowing in memories of who we were and what we accomplished. It can be earned only by the person we are in the moment at hand.

• We don't feel regret because we tried and failed; we regret not trying.

• Even when we know what we want, we don't always know how to follow our dreams.

• Our default response in life is not to experience meaning or happiness. Our default response is to experience inertia.

• The most reliable predictor of what you'll be doing five minutes from now is what you're doing now. (...) This short-term principle also applies in the long term. The most reliable predictor of who you'll be five years from now is who you are now.

• As the great journalist Herbert Bayard Swope (winner of the first Pulitzer Prize for Reporting in 1917) said, “I can’t give you a surefire formula for success. But I can give you a formula for failure: Try to please everybody all the time.”

• To live any life, you have to make choices. To achieve an earned life, you have to make choices with an expanded sense of scale, discipline, and sacrifice.

This is a book that is worth reading from start to end.

What Nobody Told You About Your Job Description

Here are a few things that probably nobody told you about what you should be doing at work:

• Add positive energy to every interaction

• Be authentic

• Treat customers beyond expectations

• Offer help to others before they ask

• Leave things better than you found them

• Recognize the work of others

• Lead challenging projects

• Foster curiosity

• Have fun, but never at other people's expense

• Reduce costs

• Ask why

• Change what's not working

• Ask what it's for. Ask what's the problem that you are trying to solve

• Find how you can use your platform to do the most good

• Don't tolerate gossip, criticism, judgment, or cynical asides

• Start a community. Start a tribe

• Look for opportunities, and find solutions. Ask what you can do

• Simplify processes (even if you don't work in operations)

• Advocate for others

• Help invent a new product or service that people really want

• Get more competent at your job through learning every day

• Have difficult conversations

• Take ownership of your career

• Show your work. Just working hard is not enough

• Understand what drives different people

• Never make assumptions

• Figure out interesting problems

• Smile

Now more than ever, we need people who want to lead the change. People who want to make a difference and create a positive impact. It is not about titles. It is far beyond your job description. It is never too late to reflect and define how you want to perform.
What would you add to this list?

PS. This post is inspired by Seth Godin's post Missing from your Job Description.

Lessons about Leadership from Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour is one of those leaders whose leadership style has raised many comments. You could find books and movies based on it.

Regardless of what you heard or your perception about her leadership style, she's a person that is always leading the change. Anna Wintour owns her decisions.  She's been the reigning editor at Vogue for over 30 years, she is responsible for the success of the Met Gala (one of the most well-known annual charity events in the world), and she has helped launch the careers of hundreds of designers, photographers, models, and writers. 

In her Masterclass about Creativity and Leadership, Anna Wintour speaks about the deeper meaning of her work and why it’s always important to lead with a strong point of view, to be always open and interested in the world around you and not to be afraid of making the "wrong" decision from time to time.

Some of the learnings she shared about getting results are:

1. Hire and build a great team. A good team is everything.

   • You are nothing without a good team. Always try to so-round yourself with people you enjoy, whose opinions and minds are respected, that it’s not always aligned with yours.

   • Your team should be as diverse as possible—different backgrounds, experiences, ages, and opinions. Hire with the goal of covering your blind spots: Surround yourself with people who will inform the judgment calls you to make and the content you put out.

   • Find a team you trust. Have a team that could be a good ambassador for you and your business. Groom them to be collaborators by empowering them to make leadership decisions on their own.  People that is positive, who are straight talkers but positive. 

2. Build a system for keeping track of your work.

3. Don’t micromanage. Micromanaging will suffocate everyone.

   • Empower your team. Have them make leadership decisions on their own. 

   • If you trust your team, you can avoid micro-managing. 

4. Be thoughtful about how to run meetings and why. Discourage “settling in."

   • 1 to 1 meeting or with 2 or 3 persons (small teams).

   • Weekly meetings with all the team about anything they have on the table on that particular week.

5. Feedback: Make it clear, fast, and direct.

"I'm much more of believer in finding a great team of people and trusting them to follow their instincts. They work better when they feel they have freedom and they are trusted."
— Anna Wintour

Recognizing Your Progress

We all want to create more meaningful work. We want to break our ties to the urgent and spend our time working on things that matter. Something larger than ourselves.

By making a habit of defining the one or two most important things to do each day, you could have the clarity that:

1. You are making progress; and

2. Important work matters.

Defining the most important things each day will help us realize that we are in control. That our actions and choices affect our life. When we see that we are making progress — even small victories — it strengthens our emotional and motivational state. We are happier and more motivated at work and, therefore, more likely to be productive and creative.

Do not despise the small steps and moments of routine, diligence, and commitment. Because those are the steps that lead us to the great things we are striving for. The best choices compound.

Transitioning into a Leadership Role

Stepping into a leadership role is a great challenge. A good start as an effective leader is understanding your motivations, strengths, and opportunities.

Learning how to be a great leader will impact the success of your organization, your team, and yourself. Becoming a leader is a journey where it's good advice to put a strategy to work. Research shows that having a 90-day plan will increase your chances of success.

However, statistics about failure or inadequate success experienced by executives in new leadership positions are now well known. Estimates of outright failure in the first 18 months range from 38% to over 50%. Many more executives fail to be as successful as was predicted in the hiring or promotion phase.

What should you know?

• You are responsible to lead the change.

• It’s part of your role to understand where the market is going and the environment you are in and connect it with the company strategy and your stakeholders (customers, your leaders, other areas, and your team).

• This journey is not more about you. It is about how you help your team to do the job that is required.

• It is about how you help and serve your team to work at their best individually and as a team and what you do for your team to help them succeed.

• How you challenge your team to explore and go deep into new ways to do the work.

• Help your team understand their stakeholders and how they can add value.

• Being a leader is a service role, not a status role.

How to start?

Be sure to cover the baselines with your leader, stakeholders, and your team.

• Align expectations: What is the job that has to be done, and what is the timing.

• Validate if everyone in your team has the tools and resources to perform and do their work.

• Validate work preferences. How much support does the person need, and how often should you meet.

• Know your people’s strengths and how they can add more value using those strengths.

• Know how every person in your team is unique. Try to understand how this person sees themself, the background, the family, the challenges, hobbies, and dreams.

• Validate people’s development and career interests and how you can help them to reach their goals.

• Ask how the person wants to be recognized and their motivations.

• Ask for feedback and recommendations: What things are working well, what things should be different or what things they should stop doing.

• Spend time identifying how you can support them. Identify what people need from you that they may not want to ask for.

As you start this new journey in your career, you have an excellent opportunity to create a positive impact. There will be moments when you feel discomfort, but it's needed if you want to lead.  Don’t be afraid to show others who you are and what you bring to the table. Be humble to admit that you don’t know everything. Listen. Ask questions. Never stop learning. Remember that you have to decide to lead.

“Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what you do is who you become.”
― Heraclitus

Learning is a Choice

Now more than ever, you need to own your career. Identify what skills you need or want to develop for the journey you wish to pursue. Reflect on the experiences and learnings that you want to have.
One of the most fundamental skills for our development is intentional learning.

Everyday experiences and interactions offer tremendous learning opportunities, but only if you intentionally treat every moment as a learning opportunity.

"Learning is not done to you, it is  something that you choose to do."
— Seth Godin

Women in the workplace

The 2022 annual #WomenInTheWorkplace report from Lean In & McKinsey & Company was released on October 18th. According to the report, women are demanding more from work, and they’re leaving their companies in unprecedented numbers to get it.

Women are already significantly underrepresented in leadership: only 1 in 4 C-suite leaders is a woman, and only 1 in 20 is a woman of color. Now, companies are struggling to hold on to the relatively few women leaders they have.

Three primary factors are driving their decisions to leave:

1. Women leaders are ambitious, but they experience microaggressions that signal that it will be harder for them to advance.

• Women leaders are 2x as likely as men leaders to be mistaken for someone more junior.

• 37% of women leaders have had a coworker get credit for their idea, compared to 27% of men leaders.

2. Women leaders are overworked and under-recognized—they're doing more to support employees and foster inclusion, but this important work is going mostly unrewarded.

• Women leaders are 2x as likely as men leaders to spend substantial time on DEI work.

• 40% of women leaders say their DEI work isn’t acknowledged at all in performance reviews.

• 43% of women leaders are burned out, compared to only 31% of men at their level.

3. Women leaders want to work for companies that are committed to flexibility, employee well-being, and DEI.

• 49% of women leaders say flexibility is one of the top three things they consider when deciding whether to join or stay with a company, compared to 34% of men leaders.

• Women leaders are more than 1.5x as men at their level to have left a previous job because they wanted to work for a company that was more committed to DEI.

The factors that drive women leaders to leave their companies are even more important to young women. Young women care deeply about the opportunity to advance. Young women are also more likely than women leaders to say they’re increasingly prioritizing flexibility and company commitment to the well-being and DEI. Two-thirds of women under 30 say they would be more interested in advancing if they saw senior leaders with the work-life balance they want.

Companies that don’t take action are at risk of losing women leaders, which will have serious implications.

The report gives new priorities to our need to redefine how we live and work. Women are still under-represented in leadership and are demanding more, and they're willing to walk away if they don't get it. What are they looking for? A culture of flexibility, diversity, and inclusion, and role models who practice what they preach when it comes to work-life balance.

We need more women at every table where decisions are made. We need to paid fairly, treated with respect, and given equal opportunities to learn, grow, and lead. Inclusive workplaces bring out the best in everyone. We can advocate to make the world a better place for women.

Make your schedule before you start

If you don't plan your time, someone else will help you waste it.
— Zig Ziglar

Time is your most valuable resource; protect it.

We live in an era of span. Every day it's a little harder to avoid distraction. Your phone, your email, notifications apps, and work social chats. We live in constant interruption.

However, if you want to do deep work, work that matters, you will need to acquire the habit of making that decision in advance.

You are probably now so used to interruptions that you will need to quiet your internal voice not to get distracted. You will be tempted by your inner voice inviting you to stop, check your email, or get a coffee.

You will be tempted to resolve the daily problems and postpone the long-term work.

Doing work that matters is hard. Making a difference is hard. And it's a decision that you need to make in advance.

Your worth is not defined by what other people think

Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

If you define yourself by what everyone thinks, it will be very difficult to be authentic and courageous.

It's in your conviction to do good that you agree not to seek convenience.

It's your conviction to strengthen your character, be generous, care about others, and be courageous that will define who you are.

You can be as unconventional, authentic, and unique as you want.

Are you willing to take risks?

Your worth is not defined by what other people think. You're worthy because, as a person, you deserve love and respect. As a person, you are unique, and your life is valuable.

You don't need to be perfect.

It is through your imperfection that you can learn, grow, and define who you want to become.

You are worthy not despite your imperfections but because of them.