The truce. Leadership and sensitivity are actually compatible, and tremendously powerful. It will actually help boost any (corporate) career as conscious leaders, or have a solid assessment to become a self-employed entrepreneur. And even when this is no news for most, and talked by many, it is still hard to walk that talk, isn’t it?
Leaders set the tone of any organization. Whether the smell of the place will be about trust, about cooperation, about working as one team, or –on the contrary– about competition and hidden agendas; all of these will be greatly due to leadership styles in charge.
When I suggest sensitivity, I relate it more to the registering and the picking up on what is going on with people around us. Not with being emotional or reactive. I truly believe we are more powerful if we listen to what is (really) going on. On both the human and business arenas. How does it work? Well, when we are able to tune into what people are feeling and guess on what they may be thinking, and when we dare to have those difficult conversations about underlying motivations, we can unfold those hateful hidden agendas or uncover a seemingly great project opportunities. We can build trust among team members. We may boost careers by connecting the desire in people’s hearts and the needs on the organization. Everything can be better, faster, greater.
I want to share 3 reasons why reconciling leadership and sensitivity is something we need to act on NOW:
Sensing peoples’ moods and intentions will bring uniqueness to any leader, just because it will make us more US, and less like the pre-fabricated kind. Let’s say it out loud: thinking strategically is a commodity in corporate as it is in entrepreneurship. It’s like the basic skill for business, right? Do not be afraid to be more of you, it will make the smell of the place more fun and inspiring!
Finally, sensing will give us the opportunity to act earlier than too late on potential issues.
Time is money and the more in tune we are with what is actually happening, the faster we can make a change for the better. When we act all cold-machine-like with the frowned-eyebrows-look on our faces to be SO clear we care about business, the less approachable we are to be told the facts up front. They will think that they will be in trouble, and delay bad news. Let’s be the kind of managers that ASK, ASK, ASK, to learn, to be changed by the answers 😉
Nothing inspires us to work harder than trust. Trust will be the reason we go the extra mile and be proud we did. It is a virtuous circle any leader can initiate. In turn, it will break the reaction cycle and make us more … strategic! In my experience the best strategies are born out of creativity that blooms out of VERY HIGH EMPATHY, whether it is with consumers or your team. And no energy will be lost by defending ourselves from each other.
I am a Highly Sensitive Person with a background in Corporate and currently decoding the self-employment life, who has been exposed to all kind of leaders while playing very diverse roles throughout my career. Never did I work harder than when reporting to the (true) conscious leader kind. I say true, because there is a lot of conscious leadership training going on, which does not necessarily mean that it comes through, right? Worse than someone being the “it’s all about me and my career” type is faking to care. These leaders that marked my professional self have showed me they are vulnerable, have asked powerful questions and invited me to co-create goals and strategies, have understood me in my moments of truth, and it was with them that I thrived the most. And yes, it was with them that I worked the longest hours!! But I did that without counting those hours, and later on being able to celebrate the shared victories and talk about the learning that comes with any experience.
The truce between leadership and sensitivity will benefit all. Watch this video which inspired me for a great part of this post.
