Empathetic Leadership in Action: Navigating Change, Emotion, and Team Trust

Episode Transcript

Patricia Ortega:

Welcome to Daring to Succeed or the Uncommon Career podcast, wherever you are listening.

And again, I’m really excited to get into this conversation because it comes up so often. How can I be a great leader who my teammates and my direct reports really enjoy working with, while also holding the line, keeping my authority, and making great decisions?

Julianna, I’m ready to start this conversation. Where should we begin?

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

Oh my gosh, there’s so much. I know we had to actually stop our pre-recorded conversation because there was so much to get into.

But maybe we can start with the topic of what is authority in the first place from a leadership perspective?

We understand that there’s this concept of managing versus leading, but the authority topic doesn’t really come up as much because we imagine these totalitarian leaders who are like, do as I say, just because I say so.

And, you know, the traditional, we do that. Because we always have done it, which nobody likes, but kind of what’s your take on somebody who is in a position of leadership and authority?

Patricia Ortega:

Yeah, yeah. One of the things that comes to mind, and I think we mentioned it in a prior episode possibly, but one of the things that comes to mind is, you know, when you have both leadership and authority, you have those leadership skills that people can be influenced by, that people can really buy into, that people can confidently follow.

while also having the authority of, I make the final decision. I think it’s one of those pieces where you have this good balance of, you know, what we’re going to talk about today, which is empathy, understanding for what the person is going through, or what the team, or what the organization, and the people specifically within the organization are going through.

But then at the same time, having the logic and the wisdom and being able to share that with people, being transparent around, here’s how we’re making

Decisions, while also maintaining that bit of, you know, I have a perspective that individual people on the team may not fully have.

And so I want to make sure that I’m transparent about how I’m making decisions while also letting you know that there are some pieces that, you know, I’m receiving from my higher ups or some pieces that I can see with an eagle eye view that maybe you may not be able to see.

So I need you to trust my leadership in the same way that I trust you to do the work that you’re doing.

And so for me, that’s kind of where I saw it, you know, and when I was in my other positions prior to, you know, to starting the practice, one of the things that always came up is that a good leader would always share the information they have, kind of allude a little bit to kind of like, here’s some of the other factors without saying, I’m going to give you all the information so that you can make a decision.

Because that’s giving too much of that authority away because it’s hard for someone who’s not in the right position to make a choice when they don’t have all the content.

Even if I can share all the information with you, there’s context that even unconsciously I’m not sharing. I can’t share.

I don’t know to share. And so that’s why you do want to hold that decision-making ability. And that’s, for me, that’s what it is.

It’s the empathy and the decision-making ability.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

Oh, I love that so much, especially with the transparency behind the actual decision that’s being made, because that’s oftentimes what teams struggle with the most is all these decisions are happening from everywhere and without enough context.

And, of course, in certain situations, you can’t share all of the contacts or all of the information. But knowing how much to share so that it’s enough that your people can understand how you got to that decision definitely is such a position of power for those people in leadership positions.

Patricia Ortega:

I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the other part of that is there’s going to be this level of transparency.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

There’s also going to be this level of trust.

Patricia Ortega:

And if we want to get into the position where we can lead with empathy, it starts with building trust at the very beginning.

Because if I can’t trust my leader or if my direct reports can’t trust me, then the transparency in the world is just going to be ammunition.

It’s not going to be, you know, the logic. It’s not going to be a train of logic that other people can follow.

It’s more going to be, you know, pieces of information they can then use against you later.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

so trust is the most important piece in, I think, the whole equation to be able to then bring empathy in and have it go both ways.

Yeah. And I think kind of the piece that draws it together for me is being transparent about having the empathy and making the right business decision for the entire business.

With that empathy in mind. But not necessarily having that drive your entire decision or the opposite, which is completely ignoring the human emotion behind the decision that needs to be made.

I think that’s a lot of the times some of the more junior leaders that I work with feel that they need to kind of come across as this very polished, logical, non-feeling leader so that people will respect them.

But they struggle because they find that, oh, well, then people aren’t trusting me because think that I’m not acknowledging this really difficult part of the decision or the real human impact of some of these difficult decisions.

Patricia Ortega:

Oh, my gosh, absolutely. There’s this tension between trust and respect in our minds, right? You either trust me or you respect me, but you actually, in a perfect world, would have both, right?

It’s the same tension between, you know, empathy and authority. We think there’s this tension in there, but there’s actually not.

They go hand in hand. And one of the first things, kind of jumping into, you know, from a defining of empathy and leadership to kind of how to get there as a leader, or even, you know, and I think sometimes when we talk about leaders, people assume I have to be in a VP position in order to, or have to be in a, right?

But there’s so many people I’ve talked to recently who are in individual contributor roles and are either leading cross-functionally or either are in individual contributor roles where they’re leading by influence or they’re cross-functional leaders, where again, you’re leading by influence, or you’re in a position that by all, you know, a great example is executive assistants, right?

There’s no delegated authority to necessarily executive assistants when it comes to having like a direct report or a team or whatnot, but there’s so much influence and so much power when an executive assistant has basically.

Ownership of the CEO’s calendar and all these things. Anyways, all of that to say there’s this tension that I think we need to, as individuals, deal with within ourselves before we move into what do I do in X situation or what’s the first step I do with my team?

It’s first actually addressing that and getting really quiet to listen in for what is the worry that being empathetic brings up.

How does being empathetic, and I’m just going to say, how does being empathetic threaten your authority? Because there’s a protective instinct in us that we think, if I give my authority away, I will never get it back, number one.

And number two, if I show an emotion or if I’m vulnerable, then I am not the authority, right? It’s a very, it may not feel like it.

No, let me go back. It may not look as if. It’s. It’s threatening, but it will feel like it is.

It feels like you’re a king and you’re about to be dethroned, right? And I say that because, you know, earlier in my career, I have felt that way.

I don’t want to release any power. I don’t want to release any, I don’t want to share any emotion, you know, because I’ll be perceived as X, right?

So it’s figuring out what are those feelings that you have and how can you come back to an equilibrium where empathy is not perceived as soft, but it’s perceived as relatable, which actually gives you more influential power than it takes away.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

And I would even challenge people to think about being able to show vulnerability, show emotion, show empathy, and still be seen as a powerful leader who can stand in their own and command that type of respect, even with their heart on their shoulder.

Especially in difficult times, I think it’s almost like putting yourself all out there and saying, okay, this is all of it, whether it’s your personal emotions or just acknowledging the difficulty with a decision or a situation and saying, I acknowledge this, I acknowledge that this is difficult, but this is still the right thing to do for the business.

One of the examples we were talking about before we started recording was, you know, financial hardship with the team, where, you know, I’ve been in many situations where people have come to me saying, hey, I need a raise.

I’m like, okay, let’s talk about this. And of course, the need for the raise is always coming from the cost of living, the expenses of raising a family.

But there is a way to still acknowledge that difficulty and support your staff in. Finding a path forward so that they can earn enough to make a decent living without abandoning the business ethics of, okay, this person needs more money, I’m just going to give them more money, because that’s not the right business decision, right?

The raises are given based on performance, based on whatever internal measures are in place for that salary range. And I think a lot of people think, okay, it’s one or the other.

I can either acknowledge their difficulty and then give them what they are asking for, or I need to be emotionless and not acknowledge the difficulty and stick by my business decision.

But there is a third option to empathize with the person, explain to them, this is not a reason, unfortunately, for a raise, I can’t make a business case based

And then help them find a way forward that is still fair to them and fair to the business.

Patricia Ortega:

You know, when you say that, two things came to mind. I’m going to come back to the business decision of kind of salary and the candidate or employee’s needs versus leader’s needs.

But first, you mentioned something, and I don’t remember the exact word, but it was, I’m just going to say it.

When someone’s sharing something, we can sometimes make this assumption. And if it’s not you, it’s not you. But if it is you, we’re in the same boat.

We can sometimes make this assumption that if I open up to some emotion, I will not be able to control the gates of that emotion.

I have, I have removed that boundary and it’s an all or nothing, but you can actually allow some emotion into the process while still creating a boundary.

And it’s. Part of it is figuring out what does it look like, right? Because emotion is intangible and it’s this complex human nuance that’s so different with everyone, I think we see it as an all or nothing.

You’re either emotional or you’re not emotional. Newsflash, we are all emotional on some level or another. There are emotions that go into every single decision, whether you’re the candidate asking for a raise or you’re the person who has to make the decision of whether or not to provide that raise.

And so one of the pieces that’s really helpful is, and I, you know, I always bring this down to really simple terms.

And so I’m just going to share this example, but a really good parent will understand that you really want your blanket right now, or you really want to have that action figure, right?

And sometimes we discount the emotions of kids because we think an action figure, no big deal, a security blanket, no big deal.

But we have to remember. is that in that child’s, you know, six-year-old life, that security blanket truly is a life or a death, and the crisis going on within them is just as big as the crisis going on with us when we lose a really high-paying job and there’s nothing for miles.

It’s the same crisis. It’s the same level. And so I bring that example up because imagine as a parent, what would the ideal parent do?

An ideal parent would basically acknowledge that crisis as opposed to say, it’s just a blanket, get over it. That’s no emotion.

They would acknowledge, I understand, you know, maybe the blanket was stolen, maybe it was lost, right? And so you’re helping them to say, what you’re feeling right now is absolutely valid, and I understand where you’re coming from.

Some things are out of our control or some things are out of the, you know, model, right? Whether it’s a business plan or whether it’s a family budget, right?

Some things are just… Out of our control or for whatever reason, but you can acknowledge the emotion and care for the emotion while still saying, however, you know, here’s what I can and cannot do, you know, based on the parameters that I’m given access to and the decisions that I’ve had to make for a larger team, because just like you, a great parent would tell a child, hey, we have to be fair about these things.

Your sister lost her blanket three weeks ago. And so we’re going to make sure and take care of some of those prioritized needs, right?

So all of that to say, you can be empathetic without being in agreement. And that’s one of those distinctions that like, if you can make that distinction, you can open up space, make room, make space for that person’s emotions and how they’re feeling and allowing them to feel that and even showing understanding, while at the same time, maintaining your decisiveness and your logic.

of how you’ve come to the decision of, unfortunately, this isn’t going to take place, or we’re not able to move this forward at this time.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

Yeah, that is such a, I think, humanizing example to kind of connect with those decisions in leadership that need to happen because somehow we’re always a little bit more forgiving with children than we are with staff.

So I love that you used it in that context. It may be, you know, considered simplistic for some people, but I think that it wraps in nicely with the topic because we are talking about human emotion.

And one thing you said made me think about how I think one of the fears for certain leaders or certain people in leadership positions is that if they, like you said, open up the floodgates for emotion, that it’s an all or nothing, right?

You’re either this highly emotional person or not. And I think it’s more about making sure that you can have the emotions without being ruled by them.

That you’re still able to feel those emotions without that being the overshadowing factor in whatever you’re deciding or whatever action needs to happen from that discussion where, yes, we are human.

And like you said, we have emotions. Why not just acknowledge those but find a way to work that into the situation and logically decide whether or not that should be a factor in whatever needs to happen in the business?

Because I think a lot of people think, okay, well, I just need to discount it entirely or not. And sometimes there’s that tricky part where you do need to account for the emotional impact of whatever is going to happen to make sure that you are making a better business decision.

I think of all the bad business decisions out there that we see in the news or in use cases, and in a lot of examples, they’re considered bad decisions not only because there’s financial impact to the business, but because there’s such a harsh personal impact to their employees, to their customers for what they’ve decided to do, right?

And that, I think, would be a good example of where, yeah, maybe the emotion shouldn’t override all of the other illogical, factual pieces of that plan, that decision, but it should still be a factor in it.

Patricia Ortega:

Yeah, definitely. You literally mentioned that the statement was, emotional impact of business decisions. And that just is, it’s such a great way of putting it, because the emotional impact is often intangible.

You see the results, but it’s usually far too late. Do anything about them. I just saw last night, actually, the documentary on Ocean Gate.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

Do you remember Ocean Gate? No.

Patricia Ortega:

Ocean Gate is the submersible, it was a capsule, I guess. It was like a submarine, sort of. But anyways, it was built out of carbon fiber, instead of being built of these really durable metals, and five people died, including the CEO.

So, but if you watch the documentary, and if you haven’t, it’s really good. But if you watch that documentary, it goes through the incredible red flags that were present prior to that happening.

And at the very end, one of the statements that really stuck to me, he was like, it wasn’t this one thing that killed five people.

It wasn’t this one thing over here, this one, you know, engineering flaw. No, it was not anything about material.

He’s like, ultimately, culture killed five people. And there was one person leading that culture. And that’s what reminds me of the impact, emotional impact of business decisions.

It’s like he had made all of these decisions just so, it was like my way or the highway. And ultimately that led to a culture that wouldn’t speak up.

And even when they did, they were shut down. And it’s like, this is such a much bigger problem than use of carbon fiber versus another stronger material.

And so it just, it stuck with me. But one of the other things that you mentioned is kind of, I think we’ve talked about it a couple times here now, is like opening the floodgates of emotion.

It doesn’t have to be like a true floodgate, right? And what it reminded me of is being able to have empathy while maintaining your boundaries.

It kind of reminds me of the coaching space, right? Where in coaching, we help someone. If they’re in an emotional pool, we don’t get in the pool with them.

We have to stay. Imagine. A lifeguard is another analogy, another example. Imagine you’re a lifeguard and someone is drowning.

You go and save them. You don’t go and drown with them. So that’s the piece that, you know, acknowledging, I think when we think of an empathetic leader and bringing emotion into the workplace and acknowledging emotion means that we have to cry and hug and, you know, we don’t have to do any of that, actually.

And it may not be your style. And who knows? Maybe it might be your style and that’s okay. But really, we’re talking about holding space for someone to allow their own emotions and then not absorbing those emotions, like you said, Julianna, not absorbing those emotions, continuing on with the process while making space for people to be humans and to allow that, not to have to hide that.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

I think that’s a big part of it. Yeah. And I think it’s just, it really does go back to what we’ve touched on a few times in this conversation, which is the, this negative stigma around

And being seen as an emotional person in the workplace, right? Somehow the workplace is supposed to be this sterile, thinking-only environment where only logic prevails.

And come on, anybody listening to this, if you’ve worked more than one day in your life, you know that is not the reality.

We all bring work home with us, whether we want to or not, because we can’t separate ourselves. It’s not like that TV show where you step into the building and all of a sudden you’re this other person and you have no recollection of the outside world and vice versa.

We carry our whole selves with us all of the time. So whether it’s our person or the separation between fact and logic and emotion, that separation simply can’t exist.

Patricia Ortega:

And I think that’s why so many people…

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

Struggle so much with this topic is because they’re trying to create a chasm where it can’t exist, and then they wonder why it’s so hard.

Patricia Ortega:

Why am I hitting my head against the wall here? You know, one thing that could be helpful, especially if you’re visual like me, one thing that could be helpful is for these, for most or if not all decisions, especially decisions that affect a team or a larger group of people, and especially if we’re talking about change management, I would look at when you do your planning of how are we going to roll out this decision, how are going to make this decision, there’s usually, you know, time and money on your paper.

You can clearly see here’s how much money, here’s how much time, here’s what we’re going to get in return, here’s a task assigned to everybody.

Imagine on a piece of paper that when you’re making these decisions, there’s a, like an invisible force at the table.

In that invisible force. This is emotion. And so anytime you’re presenting something new to someone or you’re suggesting a change or whatever the case might be, when you’re planning, you don’t want to just plan the logical, which is the budget, the money, etc.

You want to look at there’s logic, there’s truth, there’s emotion, right? Like what do we know is fact? What does everybody agree on?

Or what can everyone come to an agreement on that can’t be refuted? And then there’s logic. How do we connect the, you before to the after, right?

What is currently going to take place versus what’s going to take place in the future? Those are usually always there.

But what everyone forgets is the emotion. So let’s anticipate before we go into the room, what personalities are in the room?

How are these personalities going to react? know, some people are very much, they love change. All right, let’s do this.

We’re so excited. They’re going to be your champions. That’s awesome. But there’s going to be other people with equally amazing personalities, but for a particular change.

She might be like, I have been working in this company for the last 15 years, and we have always done this in this way.

There is a value to that personality because they help keep a constant. If you change too many things at once, you’re not going to know what works.

It’s going to break or it’s just going to wear out your team, right? And so there’s a value to every single perspective in the room, but you do want to acknowledge it before you move that change forward.

It’s looking at, okay, what is logically, what logically needs to happen, budget time, et cetera. What is the facts?

What can we all come to the same conclusion on? And then for everything else, look at the emotional reactions and how can we navigate those?

You know, and when you plan with all those things in mind, it is going to change your strategy a little bit.

And you might move a little bit slower, but guess what? That is the speed of human.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

So now you’re moving at the speed of human, the speed of machine. It’s going to be so much better, so much smoother for the whole process.

Yeah, I really love that you brought the planning piece into the conversation because I think, again, going back to some.

And we were talking about earlier, people sometimes worry that if they allow the emotion in, that they’ll make a decision to solve for the emotion and sort of neutralize it.

And that’s not what we’re talking about here. Like Patricia said, it’s how do we acknowledge that this emotion will be triggered by this decision or this conversation or whatever?

And then how do we plan to make space, support it, whatever needs to happen with that emotional impact, rather than just saying, oh, well, people aren’t going to be happy with this, so we’re not going to make this decision.

That’s not what this conversation is about. It’s more, okay, we know that there are going to be some people who are going to be devastated by this, excited by this, whatever.

How do we plan for all of those different reactions and make sure that that we help guide the team through that?

No matter. Or what it is to the end state that they need to be in. Because if we ignore that, it’s just going to be a mess.

I mean, we’ve both seen it, I’m sure most of you have seen it, where if you ignore the emotion, it’s just going to get worse.

If you just come out like this polished robot and say, we’ve made this decision, that’s it, we’re not going to acknowledge that all of you are feeling all sorts of emotions based on this.

Because you’re going to have a much worse situation on your hands than if you take Patricia’s advice and plan for handling all of that so people can get from where they are now or where they will be when you have that conversation to where they need to be to go back to a place of productivity and comfort and safety.

Patricia Ortega:

Oh, that’s so good. good. And going back to a place of productivity, that’s, you know, you can enforce a change and force it to happen, but your productivity is going to

We would tank, right? So morale. And so, you know, as we start to kind of wrap up, it reminds me what you were talking about, Julianna, me of, there was a situation early in my career where we were, we had to implement this really big change and there was a lot of emotions that were at play.

And we’re talking about an environment where, how can I say, there’s a lot of really strong personalities, we’ll say that.

I was in an environment where there’s a lot of strong personalities. And in this environment, we’re considered thought leaders.

So we’re not necessarily over each other. And so everyone’s kind of at the same level in this environment. And so we had to make this really big change that was coming up from up top.

And I was gifted, we’ll say, not voluntold, I was gifted. I was gifted with the opportunity to be the person to reveal these big changes.

And one of the things that I think was really helpful in that situation. And I remember in the beginning, I was really worried that I was going to get tomatoes thrown at me and people are going to be just up in arms.

For Angry. And I actually got compliments at the end of that. And I remember wondering, okay, what happened? And this was the first time in my career that I had done that, that I had looked at what are the people in the room?

What are the emotions in the room? What’s the message I have to give? So logically, what do I have to say?

What’s the truth? We can all come around. And the thing I realized that helped the most is I addressed the emotions before I talked about the thing.

And so I think I did this like, and since then, I’ve used it many times. Every time we need to make a change, I like bring this up, but there’s a change curve.

And it kind of goes through the emotions, like, we’re going to go through some changes. And in those changes, we are going to feel shock and denial.

And then we’re going to feel angry. And, you know, and I don’t remember the exact, you know, off the top of my head right now, but just kind of going through those emotions and talking to people about like any change brings this up.

And just saying that is going to happen and then entry. Producing it, people were almost like watchful, like, no, don’t want to follow the, you know what I mean?

It was watchful, like, like, okay, I know that this is going to make me angry, but I’m going to, you know, I understand this is part of the process, you know.

So that was really helpful to kind of in the very beginning share that. I know sometimes you can’t. So if you’re caught in a situation, you can use language like, you know, I can tell this really matters to you.

And so here’s, let me tell you my train of thought, or thank you for sharing that. Let’s find a way that’s going to help us meet both of our needs kind of thing, right?

But in a perfect world, you’d be able to, you know, for, what is it? Front load. You’d be able to front load that and kind of say, okay, we’re about to go into a situation that is going to require change, you know, and here’s what I think it might mean.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Everyone can get on the same page emotionally, and then we can move on and actually get into the change.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

That’s something that’s helped me. How about you, Juliana? Yeah, I think a lot of the Sometimes it’s doing the prep work to really understand your people and what that decision or that conversation is going to impact them with.

Because without that information, like to me, the emotions are data, right? To me, they are data points for all the planning for the decision making.

So coming back to the core of the topic, which is the empathy part, you need to know your people enough to anticipate their most likely response to what is going to happen here, and then use that for your planning, for your decision making.

And you can’t do that without empathy. can’t do that and deny emotional impact or the potential emotional impact of everything that’s happening in the business.

So that would be my piece is, yes, there’s all sorts of things you can do, but your starting point has to be.

From a point of empathy and trusting that, like Patricia said, you’re not going to give away your authority by being human, right?

That’s part of what we look to our leaders for is somebody who can be empathetic and human and not just like this AI bot that makes all the decisions for us.

Patricia Ortega:

And we’re like, what? What happened?

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

What happened? That’s the wrong decision.

Patricia Ortega:

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I’ll leave you with this last thought and I’d love to hear your final thought too, Julianna.

My last thought, just to kind of leave you with something to munch on here is after you have, you know, shared that, whether it’s a one-time change that’s going to go through, you know, the organization or if it’s you’re just noticing more emotions are coming up, it’s a more stressful time.

And, we often pack our days with meetings and tasks and we want to be really productive and, you know, but if you are leading people, it’s important that, you know, you.

Part of your time is to tend to people. I would leave space open for people to come in and sometimes it’s just venting, right?

You want to put a boundary around like how much venting, how much of your time is taken. But sometimes people just want to be heard and know that they were heard before the decision was made or after the decision was made.

So just create some space is all I would recommend. Just create some space to have some conversations with people, hear them out before and after.

Yeah, what about you, Julianna?

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

I think for me it’s maybe try imagining you were on the receiving end how you would want your leader to show up in that moment, in that decision, in that conversation.

Because sometimes we think that we need to show up a certain way for people to respect us, to respect our authority, to trust us.

But when we put ourselves on the other side. We may find that the exact thing that we’re trying to run away from, the emotion, the empathy, is what the people are craving so much.

So I’d say just a little bit of reversing, role reversal in your own mind might help you get a little bit more comfortable with opening the door just a little bit for that empathy to come in.

And you can see that it’s not scary, it’s not going to give away all of your authority and position of power, or that people will respect you less.

Patricia Ortega:

Yeah, it’s a practice. It’s a practice.

Julianna Yau Yorgan:

It’s a skill and you get better at it over time. Yeah. Well, I think that’s it for us this episode.

I think we’re both a little emotionally drained from all of the conversations. So we need to recoup. Yeah, we hope this was helpful for you if you are in a leadership position and not quite.

Make sure what to do with all the empathy and emotion that’s inevitably around it, and definitely reach out to us on LinkedIn.

We are always here to chat to see what you’re thinking about with our topics or if there’s something you want to hear from, and I guess we’ll talk to you next time.

Patricia Ortega:

We’ll see you on the next one.