Sounds a bit soft for a business discussion? Business is about avoiding emotions and feelings? Right?
Is business success not defined by profit, gain and the ability for leaders and business owners to use their mental capabilities and skill to build their businesses? Also, right!
What, if the answer is both, and…
The best business leaders have the capabilities to lead from both the head and the heart. Those that truly outperform on a sustainable basis, don’t ignore emotions. In fact, they understand how powerful leading from the heart is.
Today’s business world is defined by rapid technological advancement, AI and increasing automation. The human characteristic that does not change is the ability to lead from the heart.
Heart leadership is a blend between heart and head and is demonstrated in two dimensions.
- How well do you as a leader understand and manage your own thoughts, emotions, feelings and how your perspectives drive your behaviour?
- Secondly, how effectively are you tapping into the thought’s emotional needs and feelings of others that you lead?
Heart Leadership means connecting at a deeper level and being courageous enough to show vulnerability. Leading from the heart amplifies your strength as you become an example. More and more the people you lead are looking to you for inspiration to do their best at work and how to show up for themselves and for life itself. At the core of where organisations find themselves in this fast paced and ever changing world that requires more and more connection in being heart centered, leaders need to show high levels of understanding, empathy and for where their people and teams are at. They are brave in their authenticity and they nurture a culture of intimacy and connection where people feel safe to share what is important to them. They ask the right questions and give their people the space to explore different ways of being and doing.
Their heart centredness truly allows them to put themselves in the shoes of others – their people and customers. They use their observations and the information they glean to arrive at considered well balanced decisions. They go beyond the superficial level that ‘managers’ use to drive action; flow and forward momentum. In so doing they create a heart centered culture that is far more powerful than simply driving transactional or task driven outcomes. That is not to say that task driven outcomes are sidelined in favour of the so-called ‘soft stuff’. Quite the contrary. Heart centered leaders are able to balance the heart awareness with head centered intelligence to ensure a well balanced approach that ensures that value is added to their teams, and that their teams add value to their customers.
Leading from the heart creates forward momentum that builds a sense of connectedness and engagement where people put in extraordinary discretionary effort, not because they have to, but because they want to.
This powerful approach shows their people that they are valued and understood. Heart centered leaders recognize that team members are human beings with their own dreams, hopes and challenges.
Heart focused leadership can create remarkable businesses. People thrive on purpose. Heart centrered leaders encourage the same approach from their leadership teams to lead their people in the same way creating a ripple effect throughout the organisation.
And the impact of this ripple effect? Creativity is unleashed; innovation and disruption for making things better is encouraged. This results in a thriving ecosystem of co-ownership that primes their businesses as future ready.
By continuously tapping into people’s strengths, these leaders transcend conventional wisdom and thinking. This sets the stage for relevant disruption, increasing resilience whilst seeing supposed setbacks as simply stepping stones on the path to ever evolving success.
When we think about some of the disrupters that have built sustainable businesses, they have been driven by a deep sense of purpose that has been seen, touched and felt by their employees, their customers, their communities and their shareholders.
Leaders view people as individuals who they connect with when they lead from the heart. They commit to serving others in realising their potential and believe in themselves and in what they can achieve.
They understand that having a reason for being goes beyond short term profits. The foundation of their business is in building trust and relationships with their customers by truly listening to them, engaging with them and offering experiences, products and services that resonate with their customers’ needs and hearts. These customers feel a deep sense of heart-connectedness with the provider of such products and services.
This is sustainability in action as customers are continually delighted and they keep coming back for more. Customers value the products and services and even more so, they feel valued and respected as they experience their business as important to an enterprise that truly cares about them.
All this and more is possible as Leaders have set the stage for their employees to connect with their customers. By engaging in understanding with empathy at the same time as communicating meaning on what it is that is to be achieved employees engage in being led through transformation and change that is so much a reality in today’s business world. .
Embracing heart centered leadership will not only transform you, it will leave a lasting impact on everyone around you.
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