Tag Archives: Mentoring

Empathy is an essential leadership skill — and there’s nothing soft about it

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by  Prudy Gourguechon

I get tired of hearing about “soft skills,” even when it’s acknowledged they are important. No less a hard-muscled body than the U.S. Army, in its Army Field Manual on Leader Development (one of the best resource on leadership I’ve ever seen) insists repeatedly that empathy is essential for competent leadership.

 

Why? Empathy enables you to know if the people you’re trying to reach are actually reached. It allows you to predict the effect your decisions and actions will have on core audiences and strategize accordingly. Without empathy, you can’t build a team or nurture a new generation of leaders. You will not inspire followers or elicit loyalty. Empathy is essential in negotiations and sales: it allows you to know your target’s desires and what risks they are or aren’t willing to take.

Elsewhere I’ve proposed a short list of 5 essential cognitive capacities and personality traits that every leader who assumes great responsibility must have. Empathy is one of the core five. (The others are self-awareness, trust, critical thinking and discipline/self-control.)

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Corporate Heaven: The ‘Authentizotic’ Organisation

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by  Manfred Kets de Vries

How to create an organisation where people find meaning in, and are captivated by, their work.

The CEO of Wickrott Corporation was known as a suspicious control freak. Symptomatic of his leadership style were the numerous “internal consultants” hired to keep him informed of the goings-on in the organisation. Staff described their work environment as a cutthroat, Darwinian “soup”. Information was power; secrecy was the norm; transparency and teamwork were conspicuous by their absence. To add to the company’s paranoid culture, the CEO demanded pre-signed resignation letters from all of his senior executives so that he could fire them on the spot if he felt that they had transgressed. At meetings, he frequently subjected them to abusive, even profane tirades. During these humiliating sessions, he made it quite clear that the firm owed every bit of its success to him alone.

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Four pathways to authentic leadership

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By Peter Himmelman

I’m not at all pleased to report this, but even the good ol’ word leadership has become something of a buzzword — a term people bandy about without considering its deeper implications. It’s the same thing that’s happened with words like creativity, innovation and disruption.

In an attempt to service the ever-increasing demand for web content, the pace of creating content has also increased. Sadly, this is all too often accompanied by a decrease in serious analysis. To attract as many readers as possible to their sites marketers tend to overuse certain words that emerge as more eye-catching than others. The trouble is those words get used so often they begin to lose their inherent meaning. This is a problem for both society and individuals when it happens with words that deserve more, rather than less of our attention. To help refocus, here are four pathways to evincing more authentic… (and here comes the buzzword again) —leadership.

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Servant leadership: Who is ultimately responsible for your people’s success?

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By Ronald M. Allen

The emotional high of going to work and being among a group of productive associates, fellow employees with a common goal and supported by an understood incentive, moves people to act like no other force.

The key elements are that the employees feel part of something bigger than themselves. They have a sense of purpose. They are supported by the correct incentives to put forth their best efforts. They come each and every day to give so that the team will receive the benefit of their contribution and be recognized.

When a leader executes accordingly, this show of confidence in one’s fellow employees speaks to the security of the leader and the trust they show in their employees. But before you can learn how to improve your own leadership, you must understand what qualities make up a servant leader.

Here are some of the characteristics of successful servant leaders:

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Can leaders be both likable and respected?

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By Jayson DeMers

Every leader’s ideal relationship to his or her subordinates requires some measure of likability and respect. A likable leader will get along with subordinates on a personal level, and they’ll be able to enjoy each other’s company, making the workday more enjoyable and boosting morale.

A respectable leader, in addition, will command attention, discipline, and obedience from subordinates, which will lead to a more organized workplace, and a firmer hierarchy in the organization.

The problem is, respectability and likability exist, in some ways, on a spectrum. Taking an action that makes you more likable might lose you some respect. And taking an action that commands respect could make you less likable. So, is it possible to be both liked and respected? And if not, which one is more important?

Respect as a necessity
First, as a leader, understand that respect is a necessity, and it can exist both as a form of compliance and in a freely given form. For example, most employees will follow your commands because they know they might be fired if they don’t; this is respect as a form of compliance.

Another group of employees might admire your leadership style, and personally wish to follow your directives so they can align themselves with that style; this is respect freely given.

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