2021 Keynote: Leading with Heart: Introduction

I’m going to tell you about two types of leaders. 

1. Ego based: What’s best for me? What’s going to make me look good? What can others do for me? It’s all about them. They lead selfishly, and with their own interests in mind. 

2. Heart-based: What’s best for my employees? What can we do to work better as a team? It’s all about others. They lead with purpose, empathy, and humility.

Ego based leaders are a dying breed. They are disappearing because their method of leadership is becoming obsolete. Their command and control, “do this because I said so” management style is no longer acceptable. As organizations have become a global matrix, diverse technologically advanced and competitive millennials make up more than half of the workforce.

Millennial job satisfaction is directly linked to how emotionally connected they feel to not only the work but the manager. With social media acting as a bullhorn to call out problematic management, every employee and customer have their own personal platform. Today’s successful leaders must lead through influence, not the power of their position.

The leaders that have the most influence lead with a sense of purpose, show empathy, and remain humble. They lead with heart. It’s easy to spot someone who leads with heart because they stand out. They are mission driven, genuinely care about the welfare of others and put the organization’s needs above their own.

Unfortunately, many of the leaders that we know fall short when it comes to leading with heart. The good news is that ego-based learning leaders can learn to be moral, and heart-based leaders. I know this, because as an executive coach and consultant, I’ve been helping all kinds of leaders be more effective for the last 25 years.

Today, you’ll hear stories about some of the leaders I’ve coached. Some had no idea how to lead with heart. Some are on the verge of embracing this new leadership style and others have achieved a new level of success and have graciously allowed me to share their stories with you here today.

You’ll leave here with new ideas that will help you become heart based leaders with easy to use techniques that I’ve developed. Most of all, you’ll understand the value of cultivating leadership, based on purpose, empathy, and humility. I’ve told you I’m an executive coach, but when I was five years old, my eyes of becoming a successful coach, let alone even holding down a full-time job, didn’t look good.

I failed kindergarten. Who fails kindergarten? You would think failing kindergarten would be difficult. Not for me. It was easy for me. I was highly disruptive in the classroom, and I couldn’t sit still. By first grade, I was diagnosed with attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder or ADHD.

You most likely know people with ADHD. We fidget. We talk too much. We interrupt others, are impatient and easily distracted. Oh yeah. And we tend to be disorganized and misplace things. Anyone, you know, coming to mind? Recently, I had lunch with a good friend and colleague Ryan, or as his clients call him, ADHD Dude.

Ryan is an international expert on ADHD and they understands how ADHD affects the brain. Ryan told me that ADHD is not a mental health issue, but that it’s a learning issue. Viewing it as a learning issue instead made total sense to me and gave me hope. Having ADHD didn’t have to mean that I was destined to a life of failure. Success was possible. I could learn new ways of thinking, speaking, and behaving. 

After Ryan and I finished lunch, we walked on the beach. We were talking about how he teaches social skills to his clients, and then it hit me. I turned to him. I said, “oh my gosh. That’s exactly what I do as an executive coach”. Well, I’m sharing this story with you today because as HR professionals, you also teach leaders how to think, speak and act differently.

I would bet that you teach many leaders how to lead with heart. Let me give you an example of what I mean. There’s a leader I worked with almost 20 years ago. Let’s call him Bob. Bob was a micromanager. He climbed the ranks because of his technical expertise and problem-solving skills, but he got so focused on the task and metrics that he lost sight of other’s humanity.

He came across as insensitive, demanding and arrogant. How many of, you know, at least one person like Bob in your organization? We all have a Bob, but what do we do with these Bobs? 

Imagine this scenario: you’re your boss. Bob reaches out to you one day because he believes one of his direct reports is broken. Of course, Bob doesn’t say his employee is broken. He says “I have an employee who was incompetent and not carrying his weight”. Bob doesn’t say, “can you help me transition this employee?” He says, “Get rid of him”. 

You’re having this conversation with Bob and you’re thinking “this is the fifth employee this year that isn’t working out for Bob, maybe the problem isn’t the employee. Maybe the problem is Bob.” 

This is a tough situation though, right? Because he is your internal client. Your role is to support Bob, not tell him he’s wrong. So, what do you do with the truth that Bob’s employee isn’t broken? If your mom is like my boss, he just hasn’t figured it out.

How do you motivate Bob to work with people who are different from him? Bob could be more successful if he learned how to lead with more purpose, empathy, and humility. This brings us to the first tenet of Leading with Heart like I’d like to share purpose!

Be on the lookout for next blog that expands on our first tenet. “Purpose.”