Those who lead with heart consistently have discussions with their teams about their unexpressed needs, fears, desires, gifts, and sense of purpose, explain the authors of the timely and compelling new book, Leading With Heart.
CEO coaches and authors John
Baird and Edward Sullivan share that anyone can learn how to make an
authentic connection with their teams in order to drive better outcomes. And
their book provides readers clear and practical insights to help them succeed
in making those connections. Be sure to read the highlighted key principles and
takeaways at the end of every chapter.
Baird and Sullivan further share
that since 2020, over 40 million Americans have left their jobs. Feeling
disrespected was cited by 57% of those who left as the reason. Workers today
want to feel seen and appreciated for who they are. That’s why companies with
the best retention, morale, and productivity are led by leaders with heart.
As Alexander Den Heijer said, “When
a flower doesn’t bloom you fix the environment in which it grows, not the
flower.”
“In heart-based cultures, people
feel safe pushing back and improving each other’s ideas. They communicate bad
news early so it doesn’t become a larger problem. They share resources in the
name of the common good, not to help personal agendas,” explain Baird and
Sullivan.
“When we started writing, we were
inspired by the question: What separates truly transformational leaders from
the rest of the pack? Every year thousands of books and articles are
written about the correct ways to be a leader with no clear answers. Diving
deeper into our combined 40 years of coaching work and assessment, our data
showed that great leaders are the most curious, caring, and insightful about
themselves and their people. They have the courage to have conversations often
considered taboo or too difficult.”
According to the authors, heart-led
companies have:
- Lower turnover
- Decentralized decision-making
- Healthy and constructive creative conflict
- Rigorous debate and truth-seeking in meetings
- Strategic alignment
- Sharing of resources to support company goals
- Seamless flow of crucial information leading to early problem detection
Also, Baird and Sullivan teach that leading with heart begins with developing your own understanding of yourself: your needs, your fears, your desires, and so on. “Leaders who do not have an exquisite understanding of an relationship with themselves can never hope to have conversations that unlock creativity, purpose, and results with their teams.”
Edward Sullivan
Today, Baird and Sullivan share these
additional insights with us:
What are the consequences of
leading with fear instead of heart?
Baird/Sullivan: In cultures dominated
by fear, silence and compliance become the norms rather than clear
communication and open debate.
In fear cultures, poor ideas aren’t
contested, bad news isn’t communicated, and information and resources are
hoarded, which can all lead to a negative death spiral.
Leading with heart coaching often
starts with helping leaders name their own fears. In the book, we talk about
Luis and his challenges growing up with the fear of disappointing his parents.
Luis is a classic imposter syndrome example, needing to control every
situation. Once Luis addressed his fears and shared his story openly, the team
dynamic changed.
What are some warning signs that
psychological needs are not being met in a team?
Baird/Sullivan: Some signs
that people’s psychological needs aren’t being met are easy to see:
in-fighting, politics, hoarding information and resources.
These toxic behaviors are obvious.
But it’s the less obvious signs that are even more important to look for:
people not sharing bad news that the team can learn from, expressing
disagreement through inaction rather than honest feedback, or simply falling
into a state of apathy and disengagement.
How do you address these signs?
Baird/Sullivan: We might be
biased, but we believe the best way to address these issues is to have honest
conversations about them. And it starts with the leader getting vulnerable
about their own experience.
Conversation starters like “I’m
noticing that people are less willing to bring bad news to this meeting, and it
may be a dynamic that I’ve created. I’d like to talk about what you all need me
to do to fix that.” Leading with heart is about helping leaders have these
conversations engaging their employees in real dialogue about what they see
going on. Once leaders ask these questions, it is critical that they “hear”
what their employees are saying and commit to actions for resolving the issues
surfaced.
How do leaders help team members
realize their gifts so they can be used with others?
Baird/Sullivan: We are all
gifted at something. The problem is our true gift might be a few layers below
what we are apparently good at.
Some junior person at an AI company
might apparently be great at writing succinct memos on complex topics, so the
common response is to give that person more memos to write. But what if their
real gift is gleaning what information is important in extremely complex data
sets? Perhaps their gift could be put to better use helping the machine
learning team train the algorithm which would be much more valuable to the
company. The challenge for leaders is to help teams see their underlying gifts
beneath what they are apparently good at.
The underlying gift is where the
magic and true value are. Too many companies fail to see underlying natural
gifts that people have. Instead of finding a job that fits a person’s gift,
companies are quick to fire people rather than find the right role. Leading
with heart cultures cultivate a climate where people can be at their best in
roles where their gifts are needed and valued.
How can leaders positively steer
company culture, especially if there is a long way to go?
Baird/Sullivan: The first
step is discussing why company culture is headed in the wrong direction.
Leaders try to be inspirational and get people revved up, but that is often
seen as lip service. Your people want to know that you recognize there are
problems and accept responsibility for them. They want to know that they are
not crazy, that there is indeed something amiss here. People know when they are
being gaslighted.
The leader who simply delivers an
inspiring speech or installs kombucha on tap rather than dealing with the core
issue makes people feel less safe, not more. Resetting culture is not easy and
often begins with reminding leaders to get back to their core mission and
purpose, reminding themselves and their employees WHY the company exists.
A word that comes up a lot in the
book is “empathy.” When it comes to leadership, why is empathy even more
crucial today than it was five or even two years ago?
Baird/Sullivan: The truth of
the matter is that leading with heart, which is really leading with empathy,
has never been more important. Many of the routines and structures that created
a sense of belonging and safety for us (e.g., going to the office every day,
having lunch with coworkers, drinks at the pub after work) are gone, or, if not
gone, have drastically changed. Add on top of that the toxicity in our domestic
and global politics, the looming threat of an economic downturn, rising prices
of everything—people are scared and tired.
Leaders who are unable to have
conversations that show they can empathize with the daily experience of their
employees and instead ask when the accounts receivable report will be done are
the ones who are seeing higher turnover and lower morale.
Your people are suffering. Stop
talking about work for a few minutes and start talking about what they need to
feel resourceful again, what gifts they have that are going unexpressed in this
role.
At the core of leading with heart is
coaching leaders how to listen and hear through conversation. Too many leaders
listen to respond rather than listen to hear. Start leading with heart.
Thank you to the book's publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.
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