The Empathy Edge

We talk a lot about the importance of self-awareness and self-care in helping you be a more empathetic and effective leader. In fact, those are two of my five pillars in my book, The Empathy Dilemma because they are vital to being a more effective leader and human. You may think of the traditional modalities, but have you considered hypnosis? Today, my guest is Amy Koford. We discuss how Amy got i...

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 and balance the demands of the business with the needs of their people. I am so excited to share this with you! For the next 5 months, I'll be devoti...

The research is clear: investing in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging contributes to your bottom line. I hate to be so crass about a topic that should just be something we care about as humans connecting with other humans, but with all the recent backlash about diversity and equity initiatives, we have to get executive attention somehow. Today, you will hear about what’s driving that bac...

Post-pandemic leadership can be challenging. With the current market and increased expectations workers, leaders, and mid-level managers are squeezed, balancing the needs of the business with the demands of their people. This is why I'm excited to talk to a Chief People Officer of a global organization that is doing the work, navigating the journey, and experimenting with ways to better support th...

Visiting snow leopards in their natural habitat or hanging with penguins in Antarctica is a life-changing way to engage with nature but it's not within the grasp of most people. So how can we leverage technology to offer that exposure and foster empathy for wildlife conservation? My guest today, Gautam Shah, figured out a way to combine his passion with entrepreneurship to connect people with wild...

Self-care is more than just manis, pedis, and massages. It is vital to helping leaders embrace empathy while also making tough business decisions, holding people accountable, and setting high-performance standards. It matters because depleted leaders are ineffective leaders.   To access the episode transcript, please click on the episode title at www. TheEmpathyEdge.com   Key Takeaways:...

What do psychological safety, your team's performance, and sports coaching have in common? Today, you're going to find out how belonging helps you innovate and perform beyond even what you thought possible. Today, Diana Cutaia defines what we mean by "peace" and that it is more than just the absence of violence. She also breaks down psychological safety and how both of these concepts are related....

The most popular question I get, by far, is how to balance empathy and accountability. often a false impression of empathy that makes us ask this question in the first place. Today, I'm talking with Andrea Butcher, CEO of HRD, a Leadership Development Company. Andrea is a visionary—she knows how to lead organizations from big picture to execution. Today we talk about what emerging leaders are aski...

When you think of emotional intelligence, there are still many leaders out there who falsely believe it has no place in business. Business is about logic, not emotions, right? Wrong. How can being aware of yourself and others not have a place in an environment where relationships are everything? My guest today is Robin Hills. He defines emotional intelligence and its core components, the role moti...

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 and balance the demands of the business with the needs of their people. I am so excited to share this with you! For the next 5 months, I'll be devoti...

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called out an epidemic of loneliness and highlighted how workplaces are one way to help. How can people get their needs for connection and recognition met in appropriate ways at work? And how does this impact the overall performance of the organization? I dug into these questions and more with Logan Mallory. Today, we talked about why he is so passionate about t...

Could YOU or YOUR company survive if you had to live and work with your customers and coworkers? Hearing every bit of praise, every complaint, and every...everything? That's what life is like for the cruise industry, where crew and customers live together for weeks in the middle of the ocean. And it's why my guest today, Paul Rutter,  helps land-based companies apply the lessons he's learned...

Marketing often relies on a lot of "tricks" to reach people in this noisy world. But we have an opportunity to be more intentional and responsible in our marketing  - and when we do, that leads to increased customer engagement, loyalty, and yes, profit. Today, I talk with Kat Kennan about trauma-informed marketing and how we can rethink the way we promote our offerings. We talk about what tra...

My guest today, Charles Gellman, is the CEO & Co-founder of HiDO Health and he has leveraged empathy from his own health experiences into AI-assisted robotics that will alter the future of medicine and healthcare. Charles is an outgoing data scientist with a Masters in Clinical Informatics, an accomplished speaker, and one of the top voices on AI-assisted robotics, digital health, and the impa...

I've often said that many entrepreneurs get their business ideas from practicing empathy. From either experiencing a pain point themselves or wanting to solve a pain or provide a benefit to an audience who needs it. Today, we talk to one such start-up entrepreneur, Shizu Okusa, the Founder and CEO of wellness company Apothékary. Today, Shizu shares her entrepreneurial journey from Wall Street to w...

Burnout is one of our biggest workplace challenges. Turnover and lost productivity due to burnout cost businesses $322B globally. Voluntary turnover costs 15+% of a company’s payroll annually. Most employees will seek out workplaces that support mental health in the future, showing the importance of these benefits in employee retention. Today, I chat with Amy J. Wilson. We talk about how burnout i...

We are experiencing a transformation, an evolution in how we lead and what makes a successful leader. Today, I had a great conversation with Alain Hunkins, CEO and author of Cracking The Leadership Code: Three Secrets to Building Strong Leaders about the common leadership assumptions that can get people into trouble, the obstacles we face in how to connect, the three secrets of strong leaders, and...

Empathy is a superpower, yes, but what about those people you just truly believe are unbearable to work or talk with? I know someone is coming to mind for you. And how much more complicated does it get when you work for that someone, or they work for you ? Today, I am delighted to share my conversation with leadership coach, speaker, and best-selling author Michael Bungay Stanier. Michael and I ta...

Resilience might be eligible for word of the year. You hear it everywhere you go. We talked a lot about resilience during the Pandemic. How do we bounce back and adapt? One definition of resilience is “ The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Clearly, we need to embrace resilience as human beings. In a chaotic, unpredictable world where the only constant is c...

Can allyship be fun? Or do you envision every inclusion or diversity training as a slog? It doesn't have to be so heavy-handed! Today, Jeannie Gainsburg shares why, as a cisgender woman, she became a strong ally. We tackle how to get over the heaviness and blame of allyship and focus on having conversations with an open heart. We discuss pronouns and why sharing your pronouns (even if they seem ob...

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…   To access the episode transcript, please click on the episode title at www. TheEmpathyEdge.com...

"You're so needy" - We say that like it's an insult sometimes, but yes, yes you are needy. Because you're human! And until we can learn to identify our needs, find the words to articulate them, and adjust our schedules and interactions on any given day to accommodate them, we are doomed to burn out and be more unproductive than we ever thought possible. My guest today is Mara Glatzel, author of Ne...

How will AI transform leadership and work? Can we "delegate empathy" to it? Can we have empathic AI that fills a need we all have as humans? Today, I discuss all of this and the role of empathy in AI with my special return guest Minter Dial author of Heartificial Empathy, Putting Heart into Business and Artificial Intelligence, the 2nd edition, just released in 2023 to include all the latest AI sh...

When you think about your company's DEI efforts, are formerly incarcerated people in that equation? Probably not, right? Most companies shy away from hiring returning citizens for fear they can't be trusted, will not deliver value, or won't show up. And you would be wrong. Today, Trent Griffin-Braaf shares his story, breaks apart negative stereotypes, and tells us about the many benefits of hiring...

Benevolent cyborgs. Not a phrase you hear often these days. With all the hand-wringing and media fear-mongering about AI and new technologies, we seem to have lost the bigger vision of how technology can improve our lives. That's why today, I'm speaking with Dr. Cori Lathan, a techno-optimist who believes technology can be used to build empathy and connection.  Today we discuss how Star Wars...