THE EMPATHY~POWERED LEADER
A NEW APPROACH TO DEVELOPING LEADERS
DID YOU KNOW THAT YOUR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT IS WASTING TIME & MONEY.
Why? Because it’s teaching the wrong skills to the wrong people.
Typical programmes focus on skills such as motivating and inspiring people, developing your team, giving feedback, and handling difficult conversations with sensitivity. We’d all agree that these are essential skills.
But, in reality, very few people are good at these skills. It’s because of two crucial problems that until now, no-one else has noticed:
PROBLEM 1. THE WRONG PEOPLE
Not everyone can learn these skills
These skills depend on underlying innate personal qualities, particularly the ability to tune into others (empathy), the desire to help others (compassion), and understanding your own impact (self-awareness). Some people in your organisation have these qualities inherently, and some do not.
The people who have these personal qualities do have the potential to be natural empathic leaders.
PROBLEM 2. THE WRONG SKILLS
Not everyone wants to learn these skills
Some people in your organisation do not have these personal qualities inherently, and are not interested in developing these skills. They are task-focused, target-driven, competitive individuals.
No amount of leadership skills development will change them. They will always be more interested in their own career development than nurturing talent in others. After all, you can’t train someone to care.
THIS UNIQUE APPROACH IS RAPID & COST-EFFECTIVE
It’s also very simple.
BEGIN BY TARGETING THE RIGHT PEOPLE WITH THE RIGHT SKILLS
SOLUTION 1. FIND THE RIGHT PEOPLE
The right people are in your organisation; they are innately empathic, compassionate, and self-aware.
They just don’t yet recognise their leadership capabilities, and hold themselves back by:
X Downplaying their own accomplishments, experiencing self-doubt and imposter syndrome
X Having a low-profile: avoiding self-promotion because it feels inauthentic
X Being too busy helping colleagues or taking on other people’s work
X Discounting positive performance reviews, and ruminating on the one piece of negative feedback
X Having an unhealthy inner critic that undermines their self-belief
X Struggling to handle their own domineering managers
Quite often, their managers don’t recognise their leadership potential either, holding back naturally empathic individuals by …
X Mistake their people-focus, niceness and compassion as weaknesses
X Block the progression of strong performers in order to keep them in their own department
X Dismiss styles of leadership that are different from their own
You may already be thinking of empathic people who are being held back like this. And it’s a shame, because these people are also typically conscientious, committed, and results-oriented, as well as having the skills for getting the best out of others.
SOLUTION 2. DEVELOP THE RIGHT SKILLS
Those who do have the personal qualities to become empathy-powered leaders do need development, just not in the skills typically covered by ordinary leadership programmes.
Instead, the essential development themes for empathy-powered leaders include:
- Ditching people-pleasing – building gravitas and authority
- Discovering the 3As of Assertiveness
- Setting stronger boundaries and consciously managing the spread of the responsibility net
- Maximising your impact by Dialling Up and Dialling Down specific personal qualities
- Taming and befriending the inner critic
- Cultivating self-compassion, instead of just compassion for others
- Role-modelling the 7 Principles of Self-Promotion
- Overcoming imposter syndrome and owning your accomplishments
- Handling feedback without over-sensitivity or rumination
HOW IS IT DELIVERED?
THIS EMPATHY-POWERED LEADERSHIP JOURNEY IS FLEXIBLE
I help clients with all of the themes above, in both individual coaching settings and in group programmes.
It’s a flexible approach that can be adapted to meet your requirements.
I also offer this as a pre-designed group programme. with a blend of live webinars, coaching calls, and pre-recorded audio content. It includes downloadable journals, workbooks and exercises.
WHO IS THIS FOR?
THIS EMPATHY-POWERED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME IS FOR…
~ Organisations wanting a cost-effective and results-driven leadership development strategy
~ Senior leaders who need to develop the next generation of impactful, people-first leaders
~ Empathic professionals who want to step into leadership with confidence
While most leadership development wastes time and money, this innovative approach to ‘Em~Powered Leaders’ is helping organisations to thrive.
THIS APPROACH WORKS
THE EVIDENCE TELLS US THAT EM~POWERED LEADERS …
✔ Improve employee engagement, wellbeing and commitment by meeting the many workforce demands, especially as Gen Z expect to feel cared for at work
✔ Experience less stress and burnout themselves; their direct reports have lower sickness and absenteeism rates
✔ Can be confident, courageous and make tough decisions with a human touch
✔ Enhance the success of wellbeing programmes and DEI initiatives
✔ Create a stronger ethos of customer care, improving customer retention – people who are treated well, treat others well
✔ Attract the best talent – when a company has a reputation for being caring and supportive, the best people will want to work there
✔ Boost the organisational brand – employees and customers will be raving about you behind your back
FAQ
A novel approach like this invites lots of questions...
Do you have proof that this works?
Yes! As a coach, I have been attracting empathic clients for years, helping them to become effective, impactful leaders. Frequently, clients get promoted while they are working with me. But please don’t just take my word for it – you can read testimonials from individual coachees and repeat corporate clients HERE, and for example:
One middle-manager in the oil and gas industry needed support to stand up to a toxic manager. Shortly after we’d finished working together, she wrote to me saying she had been promoted to the level above him.
At partner and director levels, clients say that working with me has given them the courage to express themselves as the competent expert they are.
How long does it take to see results?
Because you will be targeting the right people with the right skills you’ll see dramatic results quickly.
If empathic leaders are holding themselves back, will they be resistant to training?
The joy of working with this cohort is that they haven’t felt valued and seen. Deep down they know they have potential. In my experience, they are eager to engage in development opportunities like this.
Does this go against target-driven business performance?
No, absolutely not. As mentioned above, by developing empathic leaders you will be targeting people who are also conscientious, committed, and results-oriented.
How can I find these “hidden” potential leaders?
There are several ways to do this, and self-identification is often a key part of it. If you offer development on the essential themes listed above, the right people will put themselves forward.
If you want a more systematic approach, I can help you identify them. As a Chartered Business Psychologist and former Global Organisational Development Manager, I have extensive experience of assessing and selecting high potential people using psychometrics, development centres, performance management systems, and curating succession pipeline planning.
Is this the same as “Compassionate Leadership”?
No, it’s the opposite. Compassionate leadership programmes try to teach task-focused managers to be more compassionate. My approach is to find already compassionate people and help them to step up into leadership roles. This approach is more effective and cost-efficient.
Much of the research that is used to support the idea of compassionate leadership training, simply shows that compassionate people make better leaders. There’s limited evidence that you can take people who lack compassion and train them to become compassionate.
Wouldn’t it be better to upskill everyone to become empathic leaders?
This would be great if it worked. It’s also the premise behind compassionate leadership programmes. However, here is a list of reasons why it’s a challenge.
- Innate qualities: Personality theory suggests that innate traits such as empathy and compassion are difficult to learn in adulthood.
- Inauthenticity: While you can learn the surface skills of active listening and non-verbal cues of attention, other people will see through them if they are not authentic.
- Values training: Teaching all managers to be more compassionate is not just about skills training. Empathy and compassion are fundamentally driven by values, and it’s difficult to change someone else’s values.
- Sustainable change: Without fundamental changes to someone’s values or personality, any behavioural changes are unlikely to stick.
- Cognitive dissonance: Somebody who is naturally self-interested won’t see the benefit of caring about others.
- Conviction: Some delegates are likely to be sceptical about being trained in compassion. Do we really believe that the organisation has bought into this, or is it just the latest HR fad?
- Organisational culture: If senior managers do not role-model compassion, those who undergo the training will be inhibited from applying it back in the workplace.
All of these challenges will evaporate if you take the approach I’m proposing here, focusing on developing your natural empathic leaders.
Why work with me?
Empathic people are drawn to working with me. They’ve been seeking me out for over a decade. I have a natural connection with them which allows me to transform them into strong, courageous leaders, often with rapid results.
Perhaps this is because I am empathic and compassionate myself. I have spent my whole life tuning into others. My coaching clients say I get inside their headspace. They say they feel safe and seen. I pour my energy into this. I also draw on what I call secondary empathy to offer insights into people they are struggling with, such as domineering managers.
I have worked hard throughout my own life to overcome those same self-limiting behaviours that used to hold me back. This is why I became an expert on the psychology of helping.
Formal biography
I am a Chartered Psychologist and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (CPsychol AFBSsS). While I began my career in public healthcare, I’ve been practising as a Business Psychologist and leadership coach for twenty years.
My award-winning book, The Super-Helper Syndrome, has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and will shortly come out in Polish.
You can find me on stage at business conferences and wellbeing festivals, speaking on imposter syndrome, emotional resilience and assertiveness. As a guest lecturer at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, I teach impactful and empathic leadership to MBA students.
I’ve addressed online audiences of 15,000 people at a time. Over a thousand people have been through my programme, Tame Your Inner Critic.
I am a regular commissioned writer for ACCA on the subject of wellbeing and leadership. I’m invited to comment on psychology at work and mental health themes, for magazines, newspapers, podcasts, radio, and television.
As an expert on the psychology of compassion, I offer my services on a voluntary basis to charities including NSPCC, CarersUK, Zero Suicide Alliance.