Tag: leadership

How to Be More Decisive As a Leader

Posted on by Red Slice

Decisiveness is the fourth of the five pillars in my upcoming book, The Empathy Dilemma: How Success Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries.

What are the Five Pillars of Effective Empathetic Leadership?

These are common traits and behaviors seen over and over again in the successful empathetic leaders I interview, speak to, and advise. Even those who truly are empathetic, but don’t label themselves as such! The 5 pillars are a result of hundreds of podcast interviews, research, and data and are common threads across all those who are empathetic and high performing.

Let’s dig into the fourth one: Decisiveness

What Is Decisiveness? Taking thoughtful but swift action that doesn’t leave people hanging, addressing issues before they fester, synthesizing input and perspectives to make timely choices, and practicing radical and kind honesty.

Why Is Decisiveness Important? Keeping people in limbo is one of the least empathetic things a leader can do. It can feel risky to commit to decisions quickly, but dragging your feet to avoid hurt feelings will only erode trust. Addressing choices, performance issues, action plans, and pending questions as soon as possible is the most compassionate way to operate. Doing this shows your team members that you are paying attention and want them to know what to expect. It helps them fully understand what’s happening around them. Decisiveness helps leaders maintain team momentum, cultivate trust, and build a culture of open and consistent honesty.

Most empathetic leaders strive to hear and implement input from all their people. But sometimes endlessly soliciting everyone’s feedback for unanimous agreement can drive your team mad.

I share a story in the book about a brand story client I had way back when. The team was paralyzed and frustrated because the CEO would simply not make an important decision about distribution priority, which impacted who our brand story needed to primarily speak to and attract. In the name of wanting to solicit all perspectives, the CEO dragged his feet on making the decisions and by this point, the team was like, “Can we just decide and move forward already?!”

There is no one perfect decision that will please everyone. That’s not the goal. The goal is to know when you’ve gathered enough input to then make an informed call – and to communicate why that call was made back to everyone so they can understand how their ideas were considered and ask questions.

Here are six strategies to try to be more decisive and empathetic. 

More details, examples, and tactics to try can be found in The Empathy Dilemma, so don’t forget to snag your copy now!

  1. Revisit Your Goal and Purpose—Often

Much of the time, leaders can get caught up in the drama surrounding important decisions and lose sight of the goal. Ensure everyone is on the same page so when a decision is made, you can put it in context of the goal. This helps people understand that while their input is valuable, if it detracts from the goal, it may not be the right course of action. It also keeps you honest to not get caught up in people-pleasing.

  1. Practice Transparency

There’s no need to make all decisions in a secretive way and unveil them only when they are fully baked. Learn to be clearer quicker, and if possible, talk openly about the choices you’re making and have made. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know, but let’s find out together.” This ensures folks know what you considered and can trust you and the process.

  1. Solicit and Synthesize Input Quickly and Fairly

Become skilled at gathering facts and opinions, giving others a voice so they can point out opportunities or risks you may have missed, sorting through all the inputs, and coming to a conclusion. Be clear that once a decision is made, naysayers will be asked to disagree but commit. At a certain point, we’ve all got to move forward together and still be committed to the mission.

  1. Put a Deadline on Your Thoughts

Decisiveness isn’t only about making good choices; it’s about making good choices in a timely manner. If you tend to ruminate endlessly, you need a mechanism to get your- self unstuck, such as setting aside a block of time to make a decision, which is itself a task. Get in the habit of setting deadlines for decisions that trip you up. If it’s a small decision—say, picking a spot for a business lunch— give yourself a few hours. If it’s weightier—a big investment or strategic pivot—think more in terms of days or weeks.

  1. Build Trust

In an environment where trust has been cultivated and built, people are more willing to trust a leader’s decisions, even if it’s a tough decision for them to swallow. If your people don’t trust you, they’re less likely to think your decisions have been reached fairly, with everyone’s input and overall best interests in mind. This may not link directly to your own ability to make decisions as a leader, but it’s vitally important to ensure those decisions are accepted, instead of questioned and picked apart.

  1. Adopt a Design-Thinking Approach

Design thinking asks us to experiment and try things out to see if they will fly in the real world. If you force yourself to consider every option until you’re sure you’ve selected the

“perfect” one, you may never make a decision for fear of being wrong. Perfection isn’t the goal, even when it comes to high- stakes choices. Don’t succumb to analysis paralysis. Instead, gather input, decide, and move forward with a sense of curiosity and experimentation.

To better understand these deceptively simple strategies in detail, please check out The Empathy Dilemma for stories from leaders, and actionable tactics to put these strategies into practice. 

These 5 pillars of empathetic leadership outlined in the book will transform how your team engages, performs, innovates, delivers for you and your customers.  

Check out more about the book here: www.TheEmpathyDilemma.com.

Photo Credit: Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

How Does Clarity Lead to Empathetic Leadership

Posted on by Red Slice

Clarity is the third of the five pillars in my upcoming book, The Empathy Dilemma: How Success Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries.

What are the Five Pillars of Effective Empathetic Leadership?

These are common traits and behaviors seen over and over again in the successful empathetic leaders I interview, speak to, and advise. Even those who truly are empathetic, but don’t label themselves as such! The 5 pillars are a result of hundreds of podcast interviews, research, and data and are common threads across all those who are empathetic and high-performing.

Let’s dig into the third one: Clarity

What Is Clarity? 

Ensuring everyone is on the exact same page through clear communication, expectations, feedback, and understanding of job roles, all of which roll up to an action- able mission statement and meaningful company values.

Why Is Clarity Important? 

Resentments build where misunderstandings thrive. One of the biggest reasons leaders and workers butt heads is lack of communication on mission, roles, and responsibilities. When people know what’s expected of them—including in emergencies and on an as-needed basis— they are less likely to become disgruntled or even feel entitled. Clarity helps people feel seen, heard, and valued; reduces the likelihood of conflict; and enables everyone to work together more effectively.

Clarity is so underrated. And woefully underused.

Sure, plenty of leaders talk a good game about its importance, but plenty more shy away from actually creating clarity when things get diplomatically dicey. 

Here are five strategies to try to be more clear. More details, examples, and tactics to try can be found in The Empathy Dilemma, so don’t forget to snag your presale copy now!

  1. Revisit Purpose and Values

Clarity on minutiae won’t mean bupkis if your teams don’t have foundational clarity on the company’s purpose and values. And neither leaders nor employees will be able to act compassionately if the shared purpose and values are confusing or vague.

  1. Clarify Roles and Expectations

How many people review their job descriptions after they’ve been hired? The number probably approaches zero, except during annual review periods. Given that, consider what you can do to ensure your team members understand and agree to their roles and responsibilities. Think beyond the job description to how you can clearly articulate the team’s rules of engagement. Have these discussions. Document them. And revisit often.

  1. Link Clarity to Accountability

You can’t hold people accountable if they’re not clear on their expectations and goals. Otherwise, what are they being held accountable to? Everyone on your team should be able to say,

“I clearly understand my contribution, I clearly understand that I’m accountable for this piece of the puzzle, and I’m accountable for how I show up every day.”

  1. Tell People Why

Leaders are busy and overwhelmed, which means they often convey what needs to be done and when but omit the reason why. Lacking a reason why, people feel disrespected or kept in the dark. This amounts to an empathy gap, and one that can be closed quickly and easily with clear explanations. They may not like the answer, but at least they understand why the ask is being made.

  1. Ask Better Questions

Little-known fact: clarity doesn’t come from having the right answer; it comes from asking the right questions. This can include knowing the right prompts when someone approaches you with a concern or problem. 

To better understand these deceptively simple strategies in detail, please check out The Empathy Dilemma for stories from leaders, and tactics to put these strategies into practice. 

These 5 pillars will transform how your team engages, performs, innovates, delivers for you and your customers.  

Enjoy special pre-sale and launch bonuses – click here now to check them out!

Check out more about the book here: www.TheEmpathyDilemma.com.

Photo Credit: David Travis, Unsplash

3 Reasons Why Cutting Your Training Budget Will Cost You Dearly

Posted on by Red Slice

When times get tough, our family knows it’s time to sit down and review the credit card statements to see where our money is going. We think in terms of essentials and nice-to-haves. We must make difficult decisions. We must look at alternate ways to get things done. And we must make sacrifices.

Organizations are going through this process right now. The challenge lies in what to consider essential or a luxury. And it’s not always as easy as we like to think.

The tendency is to cause long-term pain in the name of short-term gain. It might look nice and pretty on the balance sheet to cut things that appear non-revenue generating. But stop for a minute: What about the long-term impact of those decisions?

Consider shoes. Yes, shoes. What I have learned in my life is that a bargain in the short term is foolish in the long term. I can opt for the cheaper pair of trendy shoes because it feels good to my wallet at that point. But after wearing them four times, they are trashed. They come apart. They hurt my feet. Because I scrimped on quality for the short-term cash savings.

Contrast that to investing in a well-made, more expensive pair of shoes. I have shoes in my closet I have had for YEARS. They still look great, they hold together, they don’t hurt my feet so I actually wear them more often than I ever wore those cheaper shoes. In the long run, my investment was smarter.

Can you compare company line items to shoes? Yes, you can, when leaders are making the same short-term sacrifices and not thinking about sustainable, long-term value.

For example, professional development. Training.

To some, it makes total sense to cut out these investments because, really, how will they help us make our numbers this quarter? We need everyone out Selling! Making! Shipping!

Especially after a hard layoff, such programs can feel especially overindulgent. How can we justify cutting those jobs when we are investing in programs like communication, collaboration, empathy, critical thinking, or emotional intelligence, leaders think?

Here are 3 reasons why cutting professional development will cost you:

  1. You won’t be able to expand your leadership capacity to solve problems effectively and get work done.

Investing in leadership capacity will be the smartest long-term investment you can make to ensure everything else you do runs at full power. It’s the lever you can’t overinvest in! When your leaders are strong, they can make magic happen with whatever they are given. Resilient in the face of change. Able to pivot and adapt quickly to whatever the market throws at them. They will inspire and motivate in the tough times. They will be more innovative and resourceful. They will get the job done.

  1. You won’t be able to retain and attract the best talent who is looking for an organization to invest in their development.

You feel like you’ve kept your best people after a round of cost-cutting. Great. What do you think they want? They want to know they are still with a company that is investing in them. Research shows that up-and-coming talent desires flexibility and professional development far above other perks. If they don’t get either, they are gone. Plus, your organization won’t look very attractive to anyone you want to hire to replace them when they leave. You’ll constantly be playing catch up – not to mention the added cost and expense of churn and recruitment, plus the lost learning curve. Do you really want to go there right now?

  1. You won’t maximize the people you have left to give them an edge. To help them innovate, problem-solve, stay motivated.

After a tough layoff, you will have less people left. Doing the same amount, if not more work. If you want to be really analytical about it, you have limited resources left, So don’t you want those resources working at optimal capacity? If you have three cars and you sell two off, don’t you want to invest in the care and maintenance of the one car you have left so it performs at its best?

If you are looking at training and professional development as a “nice to have” you may want to re-evaluate. Is all that extra headache and cost in turnover, low productivity, and lost market opportunities really worth what you think you “saved” in cutting these programs?

Photo credit: Unsplash

Why is Self-Care Important to Empathetic Leadership?

Posted on by Red Slice

Self-care is more than just manis, pedis, and massages. It is vital to helping leaders embrace both empathy while also making tough business decisions, holding people accountable, and setting high performance standards.

Self-care is the second of the five pillars in my upcoming book, The Empathy Dilemma: How Success Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries, coming September 10 (pre-sale offers down below!). 

What are the Five Pillars of Effective Empathetic Leadership?

These are common traits and behaviors seen over and over again in the successful empathetic leaders I interview, speak to, and advise. Even those who truly are empathetic, but don’t label themselves as such! The 5 pillars are a result of hundreds of podcast interviews, research, and data and are common threads across all those who are empathetic and high performing.

Let’s dig into the second one: Self-Care

What is self-care exactly? Taking care of yourself means enforcing strong boundaries, taking time to recharge, delegating, resting, and stewarding one’s own mental health as a leader.

It matters because depleted leaders are ineffective leaders.

 It can be tempting to shoulder additional burdens in the name of empathy, but in the end you are doing yourself and your team a disservice. True empathy means treating yourself as well as you should your employees.

It means getting your own house in order so you have the capacity to meet other perspectives with curiosity, not defensiveness or fear.

When you are running with little in your tank, you know how you get: Short-tempered. Frustrated. Impatient. Maybe hangry. 

None of that provides fertile soil for empathy to take root. You’re too stuck in self-preservation mode to see anyone else’s point of view or actively listen and support them. Everyone’s opinion is annoying. Everyone needs to just leave you alone and do their work. Not the best environment for making sound and collaborative decisions that move the business forward.

Decades ago, I had a manager who was constantly stressed to the point that she isolated herself in her office. Every time I tried to talk about work we needed to do or strategic decisions we had to make, she would sigh with a pained expression on her face. Like I was interrupting her. Even when I had to report progress, needed direction, had ideas to make our work better or  offered to take something off her plate. She didn’t seem to know how to collaborate or delegate. I know she was very skilled at the work, but who knows what was going on in her personal life. I mean, it’s very likely I just rubbed her the wrong way, but she did this with everyone. 

She ended up burning out at that job and abruptly leaving, with all of us holding the bag. It was clear she put everything else before her own needs, but she also didn’t take a break, create connections (part of taking care of yourself) or set boundaries with our unreasonably demanding CEO  (all of which are part of self care) and it showed up in making her whole team miserable.

Based on the first pillar, Self-Awareness, you now know what you best need to operate at full capacity. Use that information to start taking better care of yourself so you have the capacity to look outward and be there for your team.

So how do you get better at self-care? 

  • Honor who you are
  • Seek support and advice
  • Recharge and renew

To better understand these deceptively simple strategies in detail, please check out The Empathy Dilemma for stories from leaders, and tactics to put these strategies into practice. 

These 5 pillars will transform how your team engages, performs, innovates, delivers for you and your customers.  

Enjoy special pre-sale and launch bonuses – click here now to check them out!

Check out more about the book here: www.TheEmpathyDilemma.com.

Photo Credit: Aaron Andrew Ang on Unsplash

How Does Self-Awareness Lead to Empathy?

Posted on by Red Slice

The book is coming! September 10 is the day that The Empathy Dilemma: How Successful Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries hits shelves to help leaders dedicated to people-centered practices to get the best performance possible balance the demands of the business with the needs of their people.

For the next 5 months, I’ll be devoting a monthly blog post and podcast episode on one of the 5 core pillars of EFFECTIVE empathetic leaders, outlined in the book. See, I emphasize EFFECTIVE because it’s not just about being empathetic – you have to actually perform, deliver, and get results, too. You as a leader can and must balance empathy with accountability. And today we’re going to talk about the first step to accomplish that..

This is the hurdle that gets in many a leader’s way. They think they have to CHOOSE between empathy and high performance. Compassion and ambition. Both/And, not Either/Or. Never realizing that empathy is the catalyst – when it’s actually being shown – that leads to engagement, innovation, and results.

How can leaders balance performance, people, and personal boundaries? It’s sometimes a delicate question. My new empathy book offers guidance on the healthy and productive ways leaders can deal with the unique challenges they’re facing in trying to balance it all.

What are the Five Pillars of Effective Empathetic Leadership?

These are common traits and behaviors seen over and over again in the successful empathetic leaders I interview, speak to, and advise. Even those who truly are empathetic, but don’t label themselves as such! The 5 pillars are a result of hundreds of podcast interviews, research, and data and are common threads across all those who are empathetic and high performing.

Let’s dig into the very first one: Self-Awareness.

What do I mean by self-awareness? Understanding your own strengths, blind spots, emotions, leadership style, and triggers. And helping your team members understand theirs. 

Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Hang on, Maria. Isn’t it more important for me to understand my team members? Do I really have to do a bunch of woo-woo self-reflection?”

My answer: both are crucial. And self-reflection is not woo-woo; it’s a smart strategy. You need to cultivate a deep and ever-evolving understanding of your people, as well as of yourself.I t’s not about navel gazing or ego-trips, but having a very honest, clear picture of where you shine and where you fall short. 

Humility goes hand and hand with empathy so you can recognize that someone else may have a different or better perspective. And that means being real about how you show up as well so you can better connect with others. In fact, letting go of your ego and being curious enough to learn and grow is a sure sign that you are truly tapping into your empathy.

Self awareness is an important success skill for leaders because no one leads in a vacuum. 

Your style, preferences, pet peeves, needs, and strengths as a leader will influence every single interaction you have at work. And yet many leaders don’t take the time to understand themselves fully and completely. Self-awareness helps you to understand complaints and constructive feedback, know when you might need help navigating a situation, and take accountability for your actions.

So how do you become more self-aware? 

  • Request input from teammates and colleagues
  • Leverage self-assessment tools, such as the Enneagram, DISC, or Myers Briggs
  • Learn to listen deeply, 

Simple, right? Not! To better understand these strategies and become more self-aware, please check out The Empathy Dilemma for stories from leaders, and tactics to put these strategies into practice. 

These 5 pillars will transform how your team engages, performs, innovates, delivers for you and your customers.  

Enjoy special pre-sale and launch bonuses – click here now to check them out!

Check out more about the book here: www.TheEmpathyDilemma.com.

Photo Credit: Thom Holmes, Unsplash

3 Ways You Can Make Empathy a Habit

Posted on by Red Slice

As science has proven to us, empathy is innate to human beings. It’s just that sometimes, barring specific psychological disorders, that muscle atrophies. Whether it’s because of how you were raised, or your current workplace, or who you surround yourself with, the muscle can lose its tone when empathy is not celebrated, rewarded, or modeled.

And like starting a new fitness routine, we need to tweak our surroundings in order to support this new habit we want to develop. It’s like stocking the fridge with healthy food so you can easily make better choices about your nutrition!

I’ve been listening to Atomic Habits by James Clear, which is amazing. In it, he talks about needing to change your environment and context in order to create habits that stick.

So how does this apply to building a habit of empathy?

Well, we can’t always easily replace our colleagues, managers, family, or friends! But we can develop an awareness of how they may or may not be showing up with empathy that supports our own desire for transformation. And we can make our own small changes to increase our chances for success.

If you’re falling back on negative, old, outdated leadership models, what can you do to physically, psychologically, and emotionally change your context to cultivate more empathy?

Try these ideas:

  1. Make a commitment to bring empathy to all your interactions as best you can: You can only control yourself. Be the model in the conversation so you “train “people you work with that this is how you want the interactions to go. For example, ask more questions. Reflect back what someone says before you launch into your perspective to make sure you’re on the same page and you heard them right. Ask about how people are doing and really listen before diving into business right away. These subtle cues will get noticed and people will start to recognize that when they interact with you, they need to take a pause, see the other person, and engage in active listening.
  1. Share your empathy-building goals – out loud:  Clarity is one of the five pillars to being an effective empathic leader that I talk about in my forthcoming book, The Empathy Dilemma: How Successful Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries. Don’t make assumptions. If you have a goal to be more empathetic, share it with your team and colleagues  Something like, “To help this team feel more engaged and be more successful, I’m setting a new habit for myself and I would so appreciate your support. I’m working on strengthening my empathy so that I can be a more connected leader for you. So if you feel that I’m not seeing or hearing you in our interactions, please call me out on it. Maybe you’ll all join me in this effort to bring more empathy into our team dynamic.”
  1. Change your routine, context, or environment: You can get creative on this one. It could be something as simple as a sticky note on your laptop that reminds you to “Ask 3 questions before starting anything in a one-to-one meeting.” Or revamping meetings to make space for not just on-the-fly brainstorming that benefits extroverts, but journaling time before offering ideas to support introverts. Or creating a rule that no meeting can take place without an agenda and any materials to review sent ahead of time. Implement a way for all team members to give feedback that feels safe and encouraged. Take a poll of your team and find out the best times to hold weekly meetings so you are supporting all lifestyle needs of parents, disabled team members, or those who handle elder care. Recognize someone each week who has exhibited empathy with a colleague or customer so that it becomes a public celebration.

Building an empathy habit does not require massive disruption. It’s in the small steps that we make progress. Find those small and easy opportunities to change your environment and context so your empathy habit can better stick.

Photo credit: Unsplash

Seeking Emotional Intelligence? Embrace Stoicism

Posted on by Red Slice

This article stopped me in my tracks.

It’s an article from Jeff Haden, a contributing editor for Inc.  It so perfectly and succinctly lays out the entire premise of my forthcoming book, The Empathy Dilemma: How Successful Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries. (psst, you can pre-order now!)

Too often, we conflate emotional intelligence with weakness, softness, submission and don’t even consider it to be in the same realm as ambition, steadiness, high performance, or courage.

And this view is SO WRONG. Because emotional intelligence unlocks a part of ourselves that enables us to be intentional and effective so we can succeed.

The article spells out some tenets of Stoicism, practiced by many of the famous Romans we know and love, including Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius

Stoicism is not the cold, emotionless, robotic approach we often equate with it. While the definition of a Stoic is a person who can endure pain or hardship without showing their feelings or complaining, Stoicism as a philosophy is something else – something much more applicable to leadership and performance success in today’s world. From the article:

In simple terms, Stoicism has nothing to do with being stone-faced and emotionless. Stoicism is a practical philosophy that says while you will never control everything that happens, you can always control how you respond. If you’re a Stoic, you can still experience and fully embrace your emotions; you just try not to let your emotions control your actions, especially in a harmful way.

Being a Stoic means deciding the kind of person you wish to be, and then, when things happen around or to you, trying to be that kind of person.

Damn, I love that last line: …deciding the kind of person you wish to be, and then, when things happen around or to you, trying to be that person.”

Too often, leaders bring their own emotional baggage to their roles, and it comes out in all sorts of negative ways: inability to create trust, screaming at people when they make mistakes, fearing that if they are not the ones who come up with the good ideas themselves, they will be “found out” and many more I’m sure you can name.

But empathy requires you be intentional. To make choices rather than blindly react. To know your values and stay true to them, even when under pressure.

This is the fundamental reason why I preach that empathy AND high performance can co-exist. That it is Both/And, not Either/Or. If you have a healthy foundation, as presented through the five pillars of my forthcoming book, you can practice empathy and be very effective, not in spite of empathy but because of it.

According to the article, the four basic virtues of Stoicism are: 

  • Wisdom
  • Moderation
  • Courage
  • Justice.  

All of those require us to know ourselves well, our triggers, blind spots, and strengths, and adapt judiciously within a team environment so the ultimate goal can be met. 

This is why self-awareness is my very first pillar of being an effective and empathetic leader. If your own foundation is shaky, you have no room left to see other points of view, adapt and flex to different needs without losing yourself, or listen to ideas without defensiveness and fear.

A strong leader can effectively list and respond to another person’s experience, point of view, or idea without defensiveness and fear. They can see it as additive to the ultimate mission. 

It doesn’t mean they cave in.

It doesn’t mean they people please.

It doesn’t mean they even agree.

Empathy is about making the space to synthesize diverse ideas and, taking a note from the Stoicism playbook, tempering our own biases about them, weighing all options, having the courage to bet on someone else, and being fair to hearing the best ideas, no matter where they come from.

That is ALL STRENGTH.

Which is why it is laughable when people say they don’t want to be empathetic for fear of being perceived as weak, or treated like a doormat. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If that is your view of empathetic leadership, then you don’t know what empathy means or what it requires. The best leaders can inspire, motivate, and perform because they are empathetic. They drive diverse teams to a common goal, thought understanding, listening, curiosity, and fairness. 
Photo Credit: Dario Veronesi, Unsplash

You Are a Hot Mess AND a Masterpiece

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“You can be a hot mess and a masterpiece at the same time.”  Hannah Corbin, Peloton.

A few months ago, Hannah Corbin uttered these words on a Peloton ride, and they stopped me in my tracks. Metaphorically, of course. I kept pedaling.

I can’t recall the context but I think it was about letting yourself “get ugly” in order to grow. No one looks their best when they are red-faced, dripping with sweat, and struggling to cycle up a steep hill. And yet – doing so, helps you chip away at the work of art that lies beneath. 

That when you try, fail, get up again, strain, get uncomfortable, get scared, yet keep moving forward, you are working toward becoming your own masterpiece. 

AND not just working toward it. You already are a masterpiece.

It felt like she saw me. I feel like a hot mess most days, while I’m striving to be a masterpiece, a better person. It sometimes feels like everyone else has it together but me.

But we’re never just one thing or the other, are we? We can be two opposing things at the very same time. We can be striving and struggling while still being the best version of ourselves. 

That’s the journey we’re all on, whether you’re hopping on a Peloton bike, or trying to be a better parent, or seeking to coach and inspire your team with empathy. It’s a process. And just because you’re not at your ideal goal (which is fictitious anyway), doesn’t mean you are not both a hot mess in progress and closer to your destination.

And it also doesn’t mean you don’t have impact along the way, either. 

Even if you don’t believe you have perfected being an empathetic leader, human, or parent, it doesn’t mean you are not impacting lives yet. YOU ARE.  You are making incremental differences and changes. People notice when you see, hear, and value them. They are affected by your grace and compassion. They are moved to perform, deliver, innovate, and start their own journey to being more empathetic.

Don’t give up or assume it’s perfection or nothing. Just making the attempt day after day means you are a masterpiece. And if you are stumbling along while you do it, that’s okay, too. Both/And.

Photo credit: Ave Calvar, Unsplash

How Either/Or Thinking is Killing Us

Posted on by Red Slice

Leaders, listen up: Have you ever heard the improv maxim, “Yes, and….?”

In my work researching, writing, and speaking to audiences about the power of empathy, a magnet has pulled me to one notion that gets in the way in almost every dysfunctional workplace or societal conversation.

Let me explain…

Our brains seem to defend us – yet often hold us back – due to cognitive dissonance.

From the article cited above:

The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people are averse to inconsistencies within their own minds. It offers one explanation for why people sometimes make an effort to adjust their thinking when their own thoughts, words, or behaviors seem to clash with each other.

Put simply, it is less distressing to us to hold one single view in our thinking. We want this one thing to be true OR this one other thing, but we refuse to believe they can possibly be both.  We crave simplicity.

But life is not always that simple. Others see things differently based on their own experiences, worldviews, philosophies, and personalities. 

Call it either/or thinking or binary thinking. Any way you slice it, this approach can lead to division, stress, mental health crises, families being ripped apart, and the destruction of our planet. Not to mention how it stifles creativity, innovation, and collaboration at work.

The either/or approach to leadership and relationships is broken. It got us into our current mess. It’s not working for us.

As leadership paradigms shift in the new era of work and as society demands more collaboration for its own survival, we are called to embrace dialectics. 

To simplify, dialectics is understanding that we can hold two seemingly contradictory things to be true at the SAME TIME.

We can be empathetic and high-performing.

We can be compassionate and competitive.

We can be kind and ambitious.

We can be empathetic leaders and still make tough business decisions.

We can care about our people and still hold our personal boundaries.

We can be stewards of the environment and still reap financial rewards.

We can turn to alternative energy and reskill our people.

We can marry purpose with profit.

We can deliver great results and do right by our teams.

And when we extrapolate this out to our lives outside of work….

We can disagree and love each other.

We can care deeply and have to let go.

We can care about the collective and also prosper individually.

We can enjoy nice things and still be good to the environment.

We can be gentle but still get our point across.

We can guide behavior without abuse or shame.

We can both be right. Now, the question is, how will we move forward?

In our world and workplaces today, it no longer serves us to focus on either/or thinking. We must embrace BOTH/AND.

Think about all the innovations your organization is missing out on because your leaders are clinging to command and control leadership. Never leave the door open to new perspectives, insights, information, or possibilities.

We have the capacity to hold two things to be true at the same time. It just may take practice.

For your organization, and for our world, it’s time we embrace the power of BOTH/AND. Abundant, inclusive, both/and thinking will get us out of our current dysfunction.  Are you ready to see what’s possible?!

Photo Credit: Fly D on Unsplash

Are You Outsourcing Empathy in Your Organization?

Posted on by Red Slice

My 9-year-old son recently left a note on his dirty breakfast dishes:

Can u pls take care of this ☹️Thanks

The fact you must know is that he placed the dishes on the counter right above the dishwasher. The ultimate in lazy maneuvers. I mean, writing the note took him longer than putting the dishes away!

While this provided a great laugh over on social media, it got me thinking about the primal nature of laziness and how it shows up in our organizations.

We see laziness as the customer service rep who can’t be bothered to listen to your real issue and look into possible options.  It’s just easier to tell you nothing can be done.

We see it in the leader who claims that adopting a more empathetic approach is too hard and takes too much time and then falls back on the old ways of doing things. Which are dying, BTW.

We see it in the colleague who decides getting to know other team members is a “waste of time” and forgets the importance of building relationships and connections in order to get things done.

So that is the answer?  Here are some options leaders like to think they have:

  • We outsource empathy to HR
  • We outsource empathy (hopefully) to AI
  • We strengthen the muscle ourselves

Let’s parse these out:

Trying to outsource empathy to HR is like a parent trying to outsource love to their child’s teacher. It doesn’t make any sense. Do they outsource kindness, courage, and effective communication? The point of empathetic leadership is that your team members know you, their leader, have their backs and see, hear, and value them. That is the only way for you to reap the benefits of empathy, including increased engagement, performance, loyalty, and creativity. It needs to be woven into the way we interact with each other. It’s not a need I “go to” someone else to fulfill.

Trying to outsource empathy AI is trickier. There are empathic AI technologies available that are helping organizations strapped for resources or staffing to provide individualized guidance and interactions in industries such as healthcare, higher ed, and finance. But the organization’s leaders have to strengthen their own empathy in order to build it into the AI models and ensure the holistic customer experience is consistent and engaging. 

Strengthening your own empathy is the smart choice. Just like going to the gym, you can build that innate human muscle if it has atrophied. You just need to put in the reps.  This is why I wrote The Empathy Edge and speak at leadership trainings, keynotes, and customer events. To clarify what empathy looks like at work (and what it is most certainly NOT), and give you actionable tips to strengthen your empathy. The results may not be immediate (who gets six-pack abs on the first day at the gym?) but over time, this is the more sustainable option that you will carry with you to great success, no matter what team you’re leading or what role you are in.

If you’re tempted to outsource empathy, please think about the reason why.

Are you too scared or feel too vulnerable to connect with your people or customers with empathy? If so, you may need to do some work on your own strengths and blind spots. And what causes that fear. Is it insecurity, defensiveness, low self-esteem?

Are you strapped for time and overwhelmed? If so, perhaps prioritization is the issue and an understanding that the work of leading IS connecting and engaging with your people. If you don’t have time for that, you may need to reassess how you spend your time. 

Do you think machines can “do it better?“ If so, who is teaching these machines? Where are the inputs coming from? And what happens when people interacting with AI dip in and out of workflow between humans and machines? We abhor inconsistency. That seems like a big risk you don’t need to take that could have catastrophic implications on your customer or employee experience. And also, no, to the question above. Empathy is an essential human trait about human connection. Machines will never be able to fully replicate it, even if they are able to imitate it in some scenarios.

Empathy is the most important leadership skill going into the 21st century. You can definitely augment empathy by shoring up your HR team and investing in empathic AI solutions. But you don’t want to outsource it without building it yourself because if you really believe that is possible, then you’re making yourself obsolete.

Photo Credit: Maria Ross