Leading with Heart is a leadership model built on five tenets called Purposeful, Understanding, Empathetic, Engaged, and Humble.
Dr. Jeff Kaplan, MCC, developed it over nearly four decades of coaching senior leaders. Each tenet is defined by behavior that other people can see and rate, which is why the model can be measured with our LwH-360™ assessment.
From Leading with Heart, coaching leaders since 1996.
The short version, for readers in a hurry.
The way a leader behaves in ordinary weekly moments shapes how much effort people give and whether they stay.
Our character Bob shows how this plays out. Bob is a composite of the leader who gets promoted for doing good work and is never taught how to lead people. He means well. When someone asks how he is doing, he answers with a project update. When a direct report hands him a draft, he rewrites it without asking. Nobody tells Bob what these habits cost him, and his team slowly stops bringing him ideas.
A model gives leaders like Bob a clear picture of what good looks like and a way to check how they are doing. For a broader look at the idea behind our work, read our guide to heart-centered leadership. This page covers the specific model we coach to and measure.
Each tenet below includes a short definition, what it looks like at work, and what teams feel when it is missing.
A purposeful leader connects daily decisions to a clear reason the team can repeat back.
Before assigning work, this leader explains why it comes first. When two goals compete, they say which one wins and why, so the team does not have to guess.
When purpose is missing, every request feels equally urgent. People stay busy and still miss the target. Purpose also steadies a leader when the stakes go up, which we cover in how leaders make decisions under pressure.
An understanding leader gets the full context before judging a person or a decision.
When a project slips, this leader asks what got in the way before looking for someone to blame. They look at workload and at the incentives people are working under.
When understanding is missing, leaders start labeling people as difficult. That label ends the conversation too early. If you have wondered how your own style lands, read Am I a Difficult Boss at Work? and our guide to difficult conversations in the workplace.
An empathetic leader notices how people feel and lets that shape how they communicate.
This leader can give hard feedback and leave the other person's dignity intact. They also notice stress on the team early, while it can still be fixed.
When empathy is missing, people get defensive and bad news reaches the leader late. Our article on empathy in leadership goes deeper, and our page on empathy and emotional intelligence covers how we coach it.
An engaged leader is present with people and close enough to the work to know what it takes.
In one-on-ones, this leader asks a follow-up question before offering an answer. On hard problems, they bring in the people closest to the work before they decide.
Bob's habit of answering "how are you" with a status report is a small example of low engagement. The question was an invitation to connect, and he treated it as a meeting. Leaders who want to build this skill can start with our coaching skills for managers program.
A humble leader stays confident and open at the same time.
This leader asks for feedback and acts on it. They give credit to the people who did the work, and they say "I was wrong" out loud when it is true.
Bob rewriting a report's draft without asking is a humility gap. He may improve the document, and he also teaches the author that their thinking is not needed. We share real coaching examples in humility in leadership. When a leader admits mistakes, people feel safer raising their own, which is the core of psychological safety on a team.
The tenets hold each other in balance. Purpose without humility can harden into stubbornness, because the leader stops hearing other views. Empathy without understanding can turn into agreeing with everyone, because the leader feels the emotion and misses the context.
A leader's LwH-360 results often show one or two tenets that come easily and one that needs work. Coaching starts with that gap.
The Leading with Heart 360 (LwH-360™) is an online feedback survey built on the five tenets. Each rater completes it in about 10 to 15 minutes. The report shows how others experience the leader on each tenet, and a 90-minute debrief with a coach turns the results into a plan.
For senior leaders who need more depth, we also run an interview-based 360. A coach speaks with key stakeholders one on one and brings back themes and specific recommendations.
The same five tenets guide every service we offer. You can see all programs on our services page.
The five tenets guide our executive coaching and leadership development work, from first-time managers to the C-suite.
Executive coachingFor teams, we use the same tenets to rebuild trust and team health, starting with shared language everyone can use.
Trust and team healthHR leaders who manage many coaches can use our Enterprise Coaching Governance service to keep coaching consistent across the company.
Enterprise Coaching GovernanceWe train HR professionals and professional coaches to use the model in their own practice through ICF-accredited programs.
Coach training
The book behind the model
Jeff Kaplan, PhD, MBA & Dan Young, PhD, MBA
Dr. Jeff Kaplan is the CEO and founder of Leading with Heart, Inc. A business psychologist, he holds the Master Certified Coach credential from the International Coaching Federation, which requires at least 2,500 hours of coaching experience.
He co-wrote Leading with Heart: The Human Advantage in the Age of Automation with Dr. Dan Young. In September 2026 he gave the TEDxLargo talk "The Future of Leadership Has a Heartbeat."
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Our team of coaches has worked with organizations such as Penn Medicine and Vanguard. See the full client list and what leaders say in our testimonials.
Leading with heart means leading in a way that is Purposeful, Understanding, Empathetic, Engaged, and Humble. In the Leading with Heart model, each of these is a set of behaviors a team can see, which makes it possible to measure and coach.
The five tenets are Purposeful, Understanding, Empathetic, Engaged, and Humble. Dr. Jeff Kaplan, MCC, developed them from his coaching work with senior leaders since 1996.
Leading with Heart holds leaders to clear standards. Each tenet is tied to specific behavior, and the LwH-360 shows leaders where they fall short. Leaders still set high goals and hold people accountable. The model shapes how they do it.
It is measured with the Leading with Heart 360 (LwH-360), an online survey that takes each rater about 10 to 15 minutes. The leader and their raters score behavior on each of the five tenets. A 90-minute coaching debrief is included in the $750 price.
Servant leadership centers on the idea that a leader serves the team first. Leading with Heart names five specific tenets and measures each one with a 360 survey. A leader gets feedback on each tenet and a plan for the one that needs the most work.
Yes, we use the five tenets with leadership teams to build shared language and trust. A common first step is the LwH-360 for each leader, followed by team coaching.
To find out where your leaders stand, start with the LwH-360 or talk with our team about coaching. We will help you pick the right first step.