Did you know there’s an actual scientific, numerical value to love? There is measurable data around love and its effect on our personal and professional lives.
Let me back up and see if you can relate:
Because business has been historically driven by numbers, when we start to hear any talk of spirituality, human connection or EQ development, professionals are quick to dismiss it as part of a corporate agenda or too “woo woo” for the workplace. We have a constructed aversion. So to add facts and numbers to the EQ mystery, new research by the consulting firm Hay/McBer, which draws on a random sample of 3,871 executives selected from a database of more than 20,000 executives worldwide, takes much of the mystery out of effective leadership. The research found six distinct leadership styles, each springing from different components of emotional intelligence. The styles, taken individually, appear to have a direct and unique impact on the working atmosphere of a company, division, or team, and in turn, on its financial performance. And perhaps most important, the research indicates that leaders with the best results do not rely on only one leadership style; they use most of them in a given week—seamlessly and in different measure—depending on the business situation.
Whether inside or outside of the work arena, one thing is true of us humans: we naturally seek connection, seek fulfillment, and purpose. The line between our professional and personal world is becoming blurrier by the day, especially through this pandemic pause.
The interesting thing is, as we’re discovering, our humanity and our business success are more deeply interwoven than previously acknowledged, despite these disturbing stats: 30% of entrepreneurs suffer from depression, 1Trillion$ is lost every year due to anxiety and depression at work, 45% of employees face discrimination at work. Has everyone been missing out in the race to relentlessly achieve more? Leaders, employees and stakeholders have used their sweat and tears to build a pyramid of cards constructed from an unstable foundation made of low value, illusive cards.
Emerging 21st century leaders who create sustainable success and inspire large teams know empathy to be the number one quality in managing people as it builds trust, relationally intelligent connections, unity and opens the door to vulnerable, hence effective communication. 21st century leaders know that to thrive professionally, people must thrive individually.
Here are the habits of highly effective, empathetic leaders:
They build influence through love:
Love isn’t a popular word in the world of business but all influence is rooted in love. We have to acknowledge that fact and its numerical value in universal law. The energy of Love is measured as the most powerful frequency, according to Dr. Hawkins. We don’t create success alone. Human connection is the basis of all organizations, transactions, and decisions inside and outside organizations. The business world has put the quality, emphasis and strategy of human connection on the backburner because of a belief that profit and bottomline should rank first as an outcome to create results. But, to successful leaders, this makes little sense – human connection is the foundation of positive profit. Emotionally intelligent leaders know how to connect deeply with humans, and use the uplifting & lasting effects of love as an intrinsic part of their leadership style to inspire employees to perform at their best for sustainable results.
They make presence an action:
Empathetic, effective leaders know the value and impact of their Presence to their employee’s challenges, engagement, quest for fulfillment. Authentic presence is a gift and yields impactful results. Presence creates rich relationships and demonstrates empathy between humans. Effective leaders know that superficial communication, flowery language, or emotional distance generates exactly that in people: detachment, disinterest, nonpartisanship. Leaders create presence through their empathetic listening, their authentic rapport building ability, their inspiring language, their body language that reflects their genuine relatability.
A great example: the recent Zoom controversy. When Zoom was accused of major security issues for their millions of customers, Zoom’s CEO Eric Yuan was authentically present. He addressed the world from a blog and his own LinkedIna and took personal responsibility. He addressed his employees and team in a way that was personal, raw and full of empathy. It gained him points in the middle of a crisis as well as the commitment and respect from not only employees but customers.
They build deep, personal rapport:
Empathetic, effective leaders know they are in charge of their people, not the bottom line. Because people are loyal to people, not ideas, not businesses, and certainly not to a bottomline. 60 percent of workers would be willing to take a pay reduction to work for an empathetic company, according to a 2018 survey. Who we work for has a direct impact on our loyalty, performance, willingness to serve through good and bad times. Leaders are responsible for building meaningful relationships with their people in order to create that loyalty. Without that human, personal rapport, employees are more likely to feel disengaged. It’s about creating those moments. It is about creating moments where employees feel like they are communicating with a person who is humble, self accountable, and inspiring to achieve a common purpose. Effective leaders encourage trust by being vulnerable.
“People remember how you make them feel.” Maya Angelou.
They make high EQ a priority:
Effective, empathetic leaders use emotional intelligence as an impactful tool for building stronger teams, making better decisions collaboratively, and influencing positively across their organization. Emotional Intelligence is the capacity for self awareness, governance and expression of emotions with Self and within relationships in a judicious and empathetic fashion. It’s key to creating uplifting and impactful influence for loyal results. Leaders make this priority through team training, communication protocols, and by example.
They understand the impact and context of masculine & feminine energies play in professional interactions:
Regardless of gender, we all contain both masculine and feminine energy. Your leading energy reflects your inner nature and values. Because of this, there are women who have masculine leading energy just as there are men who have feminine leading energy. For decades, our business world has been fixated on leading and behaving through a masculine lens. Masculine energy being logical, analytical, outcome driven, achieving, impatient, assertive and all about doing, has been the desired, respected qualities of leaders and both men and women have suppressed their feminine leadership values. When we do that, we suppress a part of being human that exists in all of us and we become unable to relate to each other wholly, let alone to our suppressed part of Self. Pre- 21st century business power did not value the art of building strong personal rapport that fuels loyalty, foster collaboration, generates innovation, let alone boosts trust and team performance. The qualities attributed to feminine essence are empathy, collaboration, creativity, expansion, the capacity to multitask. By cutting out the feminine part of our humanity, we’ve left behind a very magnetic part of our Power. Power is operating from a space of inner integrity, a capacity to lead from wholeness that integrates all of you, masculine drive and feminine expansion. Context needs to be understood and enacted. Effective leaders know when to be competitive and results-driven and when to inspire collaboration and generate empathy in their relationships.
They work on themselves from the inside out:
Leaders are believed and followed because they walk their talk, in other words they embody their values. They demonstrate their integrity. They genuinely care for their people to thrive. They are not fragmented on the inside otherwise they could not deliver the formula for organizational wholeness and cohesion. For High achievers to restructure their organizations to generate results through a human-centric high performance system, they must also commit to their high performance formula to be generated from the inside out. They are consistently doing the internal work to create results on the outside.
Empathetic, effective leaders must “multiply” to create change. The thing is that we are all capable of being leaders like this – we already are deep down because we are all human. We all have layers to peel back to unveil these authentic versions of ourselves to continue becoming the best version of the 21st century emerging leadership. I would love to work with you.
