Strategic Empathy in Leadership with Josine Muurling & Charlotte de Jong Schouwenburg-Mestwerdt

Hi everyone, my name is Patrick Kakil and if you're interested in building trust, teamwork, vulnerability and authentic leadership, this episode is for you. Joining me today are Yossina and Charlotte, business psychologists and founders of Bravely, where they help leadership teams do better in start up and scale up environments. Enjoy what is usually the ask to

which a company comes to you with. Yeah. So I think the majority of all the the programs that had the, the request that we receive are about first time managers. You know, fast growing start-ups all of the sudden with a a new leadership team that needs a lot of help and training in the area of basic leadership skills, communication, you know basically how to deal with all kinds of conversation throughout the whole employment cycle.

I think that's the majority of the request that we receive and next to that's definitely you know, we want to establish a feedback culture. How do we do that? Yeah. And why do companies usually, especially in the start up phase, need help with that? I think what happens quite a lot in start-ups is that people join the company because of its kind of friendly culture or because there's a culture that speaks to them. And then what tends to happen is that we make a lot of friends at

work, right? So a lot of our colleagues become friends as well. And when you're not that experienced yet with working in kind of a business environment or you've only worked in these kind of circumstances, you want to stay friends with everybody is something that tends to happen quite a lot. And we sometimes as humans confuse that a positive atmosphere or strong relationship means that we're not allowed to be critical or

direct. So I think that's a fear that quite a lot of people have, that they might ruin the relationship or ruin the atmosphere or the good culture if they give feedback for example, especially critical feedback. So that's really something kind of to do.

Also a psychological safety that has to be established that you feel safe enough in the relationship or in the culture to be able to make mistakes of course, and also address them in others and address your own needs and boundaries without fearing that that relationship will be destroyed or change. Yeah. Do you believe that there's a way to still be friends then and still be very critical of each other? Within an environment like that, especially, things can get heated.

Yes, but but what we see, and you see that from research as well, is a properly deepened relationship. A strong relationship is one that has gone through conflict of some sort. So actually going through these lows, let's put it that way, going through those together and then managing to connect again means that you increase your psychological safety by so much. So trust will be increased. So you have a stronger bond after than you had before.

So it's a good thing for a relationship if you have the skills and the environment to kind of grow and go through it together. That's what we see a lot in our

training program. So what we always include is a very practical part. So yeah, when we have a a training actor coming in, they practice conversations with each other, difficult conversation, let's say a challenging feedback talk. And then if you're then able to sit with the discomfort that you experience in this conversation and you're able to deal with that and help the other person to process it, it actually increases trust. What happens a lot is that people avoid it, right?

Because it's so awkward. They don't want to experience that discomfort. They don't want the other person to feel sad or get angry or whatever it is, you know, right, that they're feeling. So what we teach them is to actually go through it. We teach them skills so that they're actually handle, you know, to deal with all those kind of challenging situations which will indeed like actually increase trust if you can get through it. Yeah, very interesting. That's very hard to do right.

If you look at, maybe it's yourself, your own, in your own personal life, the relationship that you have with each other. It's sometimes so hard to to be very honest with each other and to you have to deal with all those difficulties, because of course you also get emotional yourself sometimes, right? You have your own triggers and allergies and it takes some vulnerability to be able to sort of step out of that and to see what the other person is feeling and to sort of hover above and

to address that. Then you can get out of that, maybe that discussion or that discomfort or you know you can, you can deal with it together. Yeah, I was talking to my coach.

Her name is Monica Duvall. And we also recently did an episode and I said I'm going to have this conversation and we're going to talk about leadership as well as empathy. And she sent me a video. It was from a researcher called France Duval and he researched chimpanzees and also bonobos specifically with regards to alpha males and behaviour.

And it was very interesting that he had a chart where you saw let's say mid rank chimpanzees and lower ranked chimpanzees that the females had higher empathy levels than the males. But then when it comes to the alpha males, the leaders of chimpanzee groups, empathy all of a sudden was a way, way higher. And I didn't expect that.

And then he laid out that even in presidents and even with the Pope, you can see empathy on a different level compared to, let's say, people that are not as prevalent of leaders. And I thought that was very interesting. Because maybe also it's their main well, it should be their task to care about the people you know, to take care of them. Maybe the least, yeah, how you say the least. Happy person, for example, in the team, you know, it's your job to make sure that they're all engaged.

So maybe therefore they develop higher empathy skills. I'm not sure. That's an interesting research for sure, yeah. Yeah. And then I thought of, OK, is empathy something you can train,

or is that something you're kind of born with? And I feel like in some environments I've been in, people don't think they have time for empathy because everything is kind of time bound, deadlines and everywhere. How do you train empathy in the first place? I think it's a, it's really a combination of environment and the individual. Like you said, sometimes it feels like there's an environment or a culture in which there never seems to be time for empathy.

So in my mind, that by definition means there's no time for a growth mindset. There's no time to make mistakes and learn from them. There's no time to share learnings. There's no time to ask for help,

right? So if there's a certain environment in which a talent cannot bloom or develop or a skill cannot develop, then it is also almost impossible for us to facilitate that because of course, we can inspire people if we see them once a quarter or something like that and they'll walk away, Yeah, I'm going to change this. I'm going to change that. And then they're going to run into all these obstacles because of the environment they're in.

So whenever we work with a client, we also have, well, we have mainly very thorough conversations about how their company looks like, what their culture is like. So is that skill that you're looking for truly something you desire? Does it really work in the circumstances you're in? And are you walking the talk, are you doing, are you showing that skill yourself. So I think that's the, that's the first you need to look at the at the environment and empathy itself.

Yeah, I think certainly it's I'm, I'm pretty sure it has a genetic component to it. At the same time, it really is also something that you grow up and learn to develop. So some children learn it maybe more through observing their parents. It's naturally something that plays a big role in their family or they have many siblings,

right. So there may be different factors, but for sure what we see a lot is if it's not something you very naturally use on a daily basis, showing the strategic advantage or the use of empathy, especially in a business environment, cause most people are empathic with their friends and family, That's not that's not a big deal, but they've somehow learned, maybe through movies or I don't know, culture. That work is like a professional place, right? We don't show emotions, we don't

talk about private things. It's all business has to be professional, but once they learn that there is a massive

strategic benefit to be had from strong empathy skills, then suddenly it makes sense to use them. They want to reap the rewards. Exactly. Interesting. So sometimes it's also framing things, right? Because empathy is kind of a it can be a bit of a red cloth to some people because it's oh, no, not feelings. Again, come on, it's work, You know, let's get over it. Let's get on. So our job, I feel to a certain extent, is to gauge what triggers people, right? So how can we get them on board

with this? By showing them the science, By giving them the skills, By explaining the strategy, how it will benefit them or others or the project or whatever it may be. And then we find the entrance, so to say and then we have them on board. And then it's something that really can be practiced and used. But very often, I think one of the things we say most during role plays, when they practice challenging situations is think friend.

If this were a friend and you were, you know, having a cup of tea together and they would tell you all about their boss and how they're feeling so belittled and so sad and so frustrated, what would you say? And then empathy comes naturally. So it's very interesting to see

in those training situation we always have time out talks. So they can always take a time out whenever they feel stuck. They don't know what to say, they don't know what to do, how to address things. And then usually they talk to us, say what I really want to say is this is and this and say, OK, why don't you tell him right. Tell him what the effect is on you, how it makes you feel, what's your what's your wishes, what your goal is.

Tell the other person, they're usually so afraid to do that, to actually address it. But you know, if they can overcome that and actually have that conversation, that real conversation, as I said before, that real honesty creates trust. But you know, they need to experience that and they need to feel what it does, right? You know, if they do that intervention, why it actually works.

And as you say it, it saves us so much time, energy, you know, because otherwise that frustration will only increase. Then you may be avoid that person, right? Or drama arises, gossip, maybe someone feels left out. You don't want all of that. And there's indeed so much research that backs it up as well. That's active listening skills and actually really increase that the team performance, the engagement, motivation, increase

sales, whatever. You know, if you look at maybe you know that project that, that quest that Google did, they wanted to try to really reach that perfect team, right, the high performing team. So Google, Aristotle, they had a lot of data. They looked at what is it really

that makes an effective team. And indeed, what they found was the foundation is that psychological safety and also to have that word is already efficient, because then they could talk with each other, hey, you know, remember, psychological safety let's you know, let's have this conversation. So sometimes having that common language can also already help in, for example the whole performance cycle. Yeah, I've done a training like that and it was 5 days. And it was also fun because it

was abroad, it was enrollment. I'd never been there, but I was with a group of people and they were not with like a traditional tech background. There was only one person

similar with a background like me, more in the security field, but there was a person that was a teacher and he went to a high school where he actually went to high school himself. And then he became a teacher in history and now he's a team lead and he has all all these challenges and there were a few more people and during that training session we had these

conversations. We had to have our most difficult conversations probably and really be vulnerable, give feedback to each other and reenact certain scenarios. And during it I was not comfortable at all. But then looking back, I was really appreciative of that period specifically. And also sometimes it's hard to build trust, but because of that environment and because of like a five day kind of incubation process, we really trusted each

other. And I still know those people and we keep in touch even though this was two or three years ago, I remember that fondly. That's awesome. Yeah, that's it's very interesting sometimes. A while ago I was in the supermarket and there was so many looking at me. You know that feeling when you think I think I know you, but I don't know where from. I I just can't quite grasp it. And eventually I walked up to this lady and I said, do I do I know you?

And she's like, yeah, a long time ago I was at a different company. You were that. I'm also a training actress, so she said You were that one client that made me cry. Oh, no way. I'm so sorry. Yeah, she's. I distinctly remember, but it was it was a apparently I couldn't remember, but it was a practice about setting boundaries and I had as her customer in that role play. I pushed her boundaries so far that eventually she started crying. She felt overwhelmed.

So we practice obviously took a time out practice again and again until she was able to set that boundary. So it's amazing that this one moment, it takes like 1520 minutes maybe for her it's it's a one of the most memorable moments from her career. Because she said, yeah, from that time on I thought, oh, I can actually say what I need or don't need. That's always what we say, right? This is not you're you're going to feel uncomfortable like you say, and that's the purpose.

We want you to get there so that you feel the same emotion as what you would experience in that real situation and then get through it and try to fix it together. But it's never going to be fun, right? No, it's it's always going afterwards afterwards. After to see the relief people. They're bonding. They're so proud of themselves and of each other because it's a tough thing they're doing. What you say. It's also interesting because you were five days in Rome, you

said. Yeah, Yeah. So in itself, the training experience of how, you know doing this together with that group is already a bonding experience, especially now that there's a lot of people working remotely. Sometimes we train fully remote companies or hybrid at least. And then the intervention of being together, physically together and doing this together already is a beautiful side effects of, you know, having that leadership training where of course they will also learn a

lot of skills. But that's I think definitely now even more than how it used to be. Yeah, great at it value. Yeah, Strategic empathy is

something that triggered me and I think it's very interesting to dive into that. What would you say like the strategic benefit is of empathy? One of the things I I nearly always say is you cannot change another person right? No many. How many, no matter how many courses you followed on sales and whatever in the basis, somebody always chooses how they behave towards you. So what you do is you extend an invitation of how you would like

the other person to behave. What you can adjust, what you have a lot more control on, is yourself. However, to adjust yourself to what you need from the other person, right? So to to kind of make that invitation as specific and as inviting as possible, as enticing as possible, you have to really know what the other person is looking for, where they are in their brain, are they in their emotional brain? In their reptile survival brain, are they in their rational brain?

So in order to be able to make that invitation really nice, so the other person is very likely to show the behaviour that you're looking for, you need to 1st dive into them a little bit. So how can I make this imitation specific to you, to this moment, to what you need, so I can get what I'm ultimately looking for? This is what we see. That happens a lot, right? I think one of the most familiar cases is that they're just not

aligned. So, you know, you talk to someone and that person is completely in the rational brain talking about, I don't know, the agenda, the targets that you want to set together, the goals that you want to achieve, I don't know, certain new projects that you're taking up upon. And then the other person is maybe stressed about something clearly not in the rational brain because maybe something happened at home or maybe stress about certain deadlines.

And then those two persons, they want to have a conversation together, it doesn't work. You're not on the same level. So the other person needs to see, hey, OK. I see that you're stressed. I see that you're dealing with something right now, what's up? And if you're able to address and if talk about that, then you can, you know, meet each other on the same level. And after that, it's also very efficient because after that, the person consent, you know,

can release some of the stress. Say, you know, this and this happened. I'm so stressed about it. Hey, what can I do to help? Maybe. Or oh wow, you must be so upset about that or whatever it is that they're feeling. And then you can meet each other in that same mindset, that same level as Charlotte's already talks about. And that's super efficient. So that's in a way also very strategic of course to do that.

Yeah, and it's naturally something we already do with people. We're hurt people, right? We're hurt animals. We want to belong. So biologically, from an evolutionary point, we will always seek connection. So I, I, I don't really know. I think that's industrial revolution talking for to whoever it may be. But somehow we we introduced this construct that at work, that doesn't matter, right? So only your output or the content matters. However, we are first and foremost human, so our brain

doesn't have a work switch. It's the same one that you have at home with your spouse or your children or your friends. It's the same one you bring to work. So to harness that by by using the skills that we have in our brain. So relationship first, soft on the relationship, tough on the content. When we're soft on the relationship, when we pay attention to that, when we are careful about that, when we treat that with time and attention and focus, then we can

go much quicker on the content. Because when the relationship's good, you can just zoom on the content. It's it's easy to make an agreement, right? Or or I don't know, find a solution with somebody. When you're chill together, when you feel aligned, it's easy, right? And you can also have a

discussion and not feel bad about it. You can have kind kind of a meaty or tough discussion with somebody that you're OK with, right when it's a bit awkward, when you don't quite trust the person, or it's always a bit difficult or you don't, you don't really feel a click. It's very hard to come to decisions. And this is what we see a lot. So we see two people having a conversation. The other person constantly repeats himself about certain arguments.

And the other person is like, you know, clearly getting frustrated because you don't hear me, you don't see me, right? That's often what's underneath that, the need to feel seen and heard. If that other person doesn't see you know, if you don't need each other, then that's going to be a very frustrating and long conversation about who is right, essentially. Followed by a whole line of FYI emails and angry slacks and. And gossip. Gossip.

Colleagues, it's a shit show that you want to avoid and you can actually avoid that. Yeah, and that's quite strategic if you can call it like that, you know to really be open to each other, really listen to each other. It's all it all comes down to active listening skills, you know, really listen with the intents to understand instead of to reply, you know that famous quote and that's really true.

But that's hard because sometimes you know in a lot of cases we were actually applauded of having a a wonderful opinion or being the smartest kid of your in your class or whatever it is. So we're very trained to, to have those discussions and to win those fights, so to say, right. And sometimes it just takes, you know, to let go and to really listen and then to find a

solution much quicker. Yeah, it's easier from like a third party because, especially from this podcast, I feel like I've developed this active listening scale continuously. And then within my team, if I see an argument or two people having a conversation, I can see that maybe they're not listening to each other, or maybe they're saying the same thing, but they don't understand each other. Or I have to be like, guys, come on, is this really the most important part?

Why do you? Think it's easier as the third. Because I can see both sides and I'm impartial. Basically, what's the difference of being in? You know, let's say you're one of those two. It's like I have skin in the game sometimes, yeah. So it also has a lot of, a lot to do with power, right.

So we sometimes also train managers and you know they're so used of having that authority and having that control, right. And then all of the sudden they need to just listen and you know, give up, that's that's, that's feeling of control as well. And maybe they need to adjust their own assumptions, right, Because if you really listen to someone, maybe it also changes your mind. So there's also some risks there.

So that's why we see that managers fall back and they had to hold patterns or sort of learn behaviour, which isn't always. That's effective of course. Yeah, Especially especially in the long run because it really diminishes autonomy in your team, right? There's there's a continuum of space that is about power and

and ownership. So if you take up 80% of that by being controlling or being dominant in conversations or always being the one in the lead, that means there's only 20% left for somebody to take autonomy and develop ownership. So one of the main complaints that we hear is, oh, my team doesn't take enough ownership. They're not creative or they they, they never come up with their own ideas or whatever.

And then when you dive into OK, so how do you have these conversations and you and we practice A1 on one and the the lead or managers literally controlling the entire conversation speaking 70% of the time saying oh this is what you need to work on. Here are some suggestions how you can do. That the rules that I set for

you exactly. Yeah. And this is your timeline and this is how you should be doing it. So they're giving no space whatsoever in this continuum for the other to develop autonomy, develop ownership. To make mistakes. To make mistakes. So if you want ownership, you have to give a lot of space and trust and safety for people to even start to develop it. So it's really a lot about control and power. So you have to let go of some control in order to Createspace. This takes time.

People don't immediately jump in there because they're testing the waters first, right? Is it safe? Is it OK for me to try this out? It will take some time and encouragement and then they will step in.

But it's a it's a big thing. So once again, they're also empathy is a strategic thing, because you want as a leader, you want to be empathic, as in, read what The other person might need to take this step to develop autonomy, for example, or develop whichever skill that you're looking for right. One person wants more verbal encouragement. The other person wants you to just really step back and get

very situational. And it makes it hard right to to effectively manage your whole team, because they're all different individual, different needs. Your friends, you know, maybe someone just started, right? Is in the onboarding phase. Maybe someone else is maybe losing a bit of motivation, like looking for new projects. So that's it's hard. It's not an easy job to do. Yeah, Well then to play devil's advocate, me, let's say as a

leader I can do a few things, right? Because it I would only have to kind of personal and tailor made things in my communication based on if I have a heterogeneous team, for example, I can also hire people like me and have a homogeneous team. And then I have to kind of act similarly without all of the nuances there and then build up a relationship like that. But then I lose that benefit that diversity offers as well. Yes.

And also it is a bit of a bias to think that just because somebody is a bit like you, they will think and feel and act like you, right. So just because somebody seems similar, it makes us sometimes it's kind of like a smokescreen. It's even worse because you're going to think, oh, assume, right. Assumption really that they will think or act the same way. So especially when you have an homogeneous group, it's even more important to have the conversations where you're double checking your

assumptions. Hey, you know, after that meeting we just had, I'm kind of assuming that you know that I want this and this and this from you. Is that true? Right. And very often people will go like, oh, I thought actually that we're going to do XYZ, right. So especially in an homogeneous group, you want to always double check. Yeah.

And then also with giving control away, there's a risk involved there. Because if if deadlines are tight and I all of a sudden decide, OK, maybe I was too controlling. And especially new leaders or

new managers can have that. If they move from the content all of a sudden to the people that have to do the content have to let go of what they're good at, and all of a sudden their skills are different or what they have to be good at is completely different than the content they used to be good at, then you can be controlling. But that control also ensures a certain level of quality, maybe that you previously strived for, but then letting go of that might take in risk kind of the

quality that you aim for. Of course. And that's that's working with people and that's also the challenge when in leaders you want. That's why personal leadership is such a big topic. Because you want a certain confidence and calm, right? So this really comes back to emotional regulation. How good 'cause control is a sign of your survival? Brain kicking in going? I have no overview. This is scary. This might, you know, burst into flames it. Needs to be perfect.

So let me do it, you know. So that's that's. Really. Survival. Brain talking. So whenever you've, you feel that as a leader coming up, you really want to regulate your own emotions, right? So take deep breaths, go out for a walk, feel your whole body, feel your feet on the floor.

So anything you can do to regulate your body back into your rational brain, your rational, calm nervous system, because those are the moments when you're back here where you can really make A an executive decision, right? So what do I need to do? Do I need to do I trust Person A, whatever, to manage the deadline, even if it may be in a different way than I would do it, right? Do I? Do I feel they have enough experience, enough whatever, help, etcetera.

Or do I need to step in? And then whichever part you choose, have a conversation about it with person A. Sit down with Adam, let's call him, and you know, to say you know, and then there's a set line coming and I'm feeling kind of anxious about it. It's the first time I'm letting you do it completely and I trust you and it's also challenging for me. Also, what it sometimes takes is setting boundaries, maybe managing up because they're under a lot of pressure themselves, right?

Maybe there are deadlines or stakeholders, you know, asking for certain things. Investors, founders that you know need certain things. So there's a lot of stress involved as well. So maybe they really feel very responsible of handling certain projects very well. So maybe indeed they would think, you know, let me do it, because then at least it's quicker and more efficient. It's of high quality though. You take away autonomy then,

right? So if you give the other person the chance to really try the project and maybe you're there to help and to support and if they fail and that's always the balance, right? In certain situations you really cannot risk because it will cost the the company a lot of money. So you really cannot risk it. And then maybe you step in and also you can discuss those. Situations, exactly. That yeah. So maybe now I step in, but, you know, shadow me, see how I do it and learn from it.

And next time you can do it alone or, you know, together so slowly. Then you let go. So this is also very situational. In some situations you completely let go and you can delegate. Other situations you may be more more involved. But but this is the this is the process and that's beautiful. But that's often what we see. Indeed for especially the first time managers, very difficult to let go and to delegate. It's completely different

mindset. That's what they did as individual contributors and experts. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious to learn about your

experience as well because especially in this tech field, there was this, and I'm talking about 1020 years ago, this trajectory of you're really good at the content, really good at software engineering. And then the only way is to move up basically, and they take you out of this individual contributor role. And all of a sudden you're managing people that do that now. And there's a different expectation of you, Peter.

Principle. Yeah, And nowadays, luckily it's different and you can go very deep and actually stay an individual contributor. But for me it's the question of when is the right time to, if you're interested in this people side and that different skill set, move to that. Because you're dealing with start-ups with people that might not even want that or might not even strive to get to a level to

achieve that. But they get rolled into this position and all of a sudden they have that responsibility and accountability. Yeah, Well, we see what happens also quite a lot. I worked internally at a fast growing start up and what we did there is also we established for example a mentor program or you know a body system.

All those kind of yeah, certain projects that they could they could do to already see hey how is it to actually coach someone and to mentor someone so they could already develop certain leadership skills or maybe they could hire interns, right, to manage so slowly they could develop those leadership skills. Maybe they would join our leadership program.

And that's really a nice route to, you know, to maybe one day becoming a A-Team leader or manager because then they already know, hey, maybe this is something that fits my personality and gives me energy or they know. OK, this is really not for me because I'm all the time having those conversations and I actually miss, you know, my expertise and doing the job after individual contributor. So that's really a nice, I think, a best practice of how

company can approach that. Yeah. Other than that, what is a nice when, when do you know it's time is sometimes you just experience when you are promoted, right. Some companies use certain personality tests to see what gives you energy. What doesn't. Is it really in your quality or not? Yeah, the promoting your best individual contributor isn't that great. Right.

Because you lose that the best salesperson, for example, the the best developer and it's so hard to replace, you know a lot of knowledge goes away, so. I I think it's also it's the feeling of at least that's what I've heard from a lot of people. When you really start to become more interested in or your curiosity develops and why do people do their work well or how do they? How can I make them, you know work better or how can I work best with my teammates.

So when you start to become more interested in the why or the how and not so much the output when the what kind of becomes a little less interesting maybe right. So it's once again that thing relationship towards content, right. So when the relationship is something that that that you're curious about, when it's something that tickles you in a way, then leadership might be a

more interesting path to take. If it's something that only because it frightens you doesn't matter, it doesn't mean that it's not for you, right? New things scare us a little bit. That's how our brain is wired. So that doesn't need to be kind of a boundary. But when it's still fascinating to you or you're like wondering why does this person work well in those circumstances or not, then leadership is an interesting thing to do.

When you when you really, when you get most energy and joy from let's say a finished product or the process of making something, then I wouldn't necessarily for this moment advise to go into a leadership role because you'll be a lot less involved in that obviously. But luckily there's this now, this evolvement where it isn't so much any more about the

traditional ladder, right? Because if the system promotes a manager position and you're going to earn so much more than, of course a lot of people want that position. Which sucks, basically, because then you don't get that had a natural, yeah. Well, you're losing expertise. You're losing expertise in the right field, right. So it's it's like when we, when we walked in here and and I I made the joke that I'm, I tend to be the least technical person

in the room. So we work with all these tech companies, right. And I'm, I always say like oh how do I connect my computer? I have no idea guys. There's too many cables, right. So it's just, it's not my expertise. My expertise is in a different field. And I think that you want to stretch people to a certain degree, right? Especially when they're kind of towards the end of the situational leadership cycle, right?

So they, they, they, they know the skills that then that are in their role, they're maybe starting to get a little bit bored or are looking looking ahead, right? What else can I do? And of course you want to ideally mould your people a little bit with the growth of the company, right, so that you're that it's somewhat aligned, but you want to stretch people within reason. That's the intrinsic motivation. If the if the reason is money or power, then we will advise against.

Yeah, you're going to fall flat. Yes. Interesting, This combination of or this alignment of people and

content, it needs to be in alignment. And I agree with that. But I've also seen an experienced management where they've been removed from the content for a long, long time and then it's like, OK, from my side, I'm looking for a few things, let's say within my manager. One of them is to help me achieve kind of my goals or to even help me explore what my goals are, because as a person I'm very curious.

So that those can be numerous basically and I have to decide, make trade-offs but also in kind of guidance and mentorship about the content itself is something especially early on I wanted. And then with managers or leadership that are far away from the content itself, I felt kind of this gap in their advice versus what I thought was relevant for me. Is that something you've seen as well? And I think it might be especially relevant in tech

here. Yeah, they want someone to look up to, to learn from someone, really a mentor. Also, regarding the expertise, sometimes you cannot have it all, you know? Sometimes you have a great manager, you know, with a lot of people's skills. Very inspirational, very motivational, but then maybe lacks the expertise. And sometimes you have someone who's created content, right, Great, expert and maybe isn't the best visionaire or whatever. Yeah, you cannot.

There's so many different type of leaders and there isn't one perfect leader, right? That doesn't exist. And sometimes you can maybe choose to have a mentor in that specific expertise or that specific field that you want to develop further in and have that great, you know, people leader. We also sometimes see companies with both an expert and a coach and that's can be a wonderful combination.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah, we also touched on psychological safety as well as building trust, building relationships and building teams. For me, it's interesting because if I look towards a leadership

team, I expect the people within that leadership team to also operate as a team. But sometimes they get into a position because either they're best at what they do, they've built up certain relationships and they get promoted or they're

really good at the content. Again, with the same kind of scene we've seen at the tech scene and they come together within this group of individuals that are all leaders, all either best at their craft or with the right relationships or just get promoted for certain reasons I don't understand. But then the time and effort that gets into building a team is the same for a leadership team.

But I don't know if there's the same care and attention that there needs to be. We work with quite a lot of leadership teams as well and I see where you're coming from so quite often. What we also experience is that they they're wondering why do we even have to bother? Like right, why are we even here? We're all super busy leading our teams that really need us, so to say. So what is actually the added benefit of us being a team? What's the point?

And I I I see where they're coming from because from a content point of view, they are all experts in their own field. So. Right, what? What can I get from you? What we see happening a lot though is also especially as the company grows, right, especially when you scale and your teams become bigger and bigger, so very often the distance also increases so to say and and right in terms of hierarchy. So even if you're really the culture is very flat and you're, you're good to go.

Once there are so many people you can't talk to everybody on a daily basis anymore, right. So distance so to say in relationship grows. So they also tend to become more lonely and that feeling of well you know I'm sort of managing 50 people down the line with managers or leads in between, but it's gotten so big that it's you're you're only occupied with strategy and long term focus and all of that. And on a content level, that's fine.

But I mean, one of the main human cravings is connection. And a lot of us, when you work full time, you spend most of your waking hours working, right. So the the brain and the body craves connection to a certain degree. So that can be one of the major benefits even in a leadership team to have that connection with each other and kind of share that, that loneliness, so to say, right? Share your experience. Oh, I'm always the one that's called upon when things go

wrong, right? Or I need to fix another fix another thing or actually I never quite know what the team is talking about because they can't really join them for lunch, right, these these kinds of things. So it's sometimes it's connection first and foremost.

And I think also they sometimes lose sight of the strength of their leadership in terms of being inspirational like Yosine just mentioned, right. So that really is another thing that goes through empathy and. A connection. You can't be inspirational if you're not connected to somebody. If there's no click, right I Who are you to tell me then how I should be doing things right? I don't. I don't trust you. We need to trust a leader. Otherwise it's not truly a

leader. It's just somebody that's kind of pushed upon us to tell us what to do or how much money to earn. But a true leader is somebody who inspires who you feel connected to on some level, somebody where your rational brain goes, oh, what can I learn from you? Because that person is so safe that my survival brain goes, oh, I'm chill because she's there, right? She's a safe leader. We're good. She's going to lead us away from

home. The emotional brain is OK because there's a safe connection. I'm connected to that person. So then the rational brain goes on and that's the moment where you learn and you thrive and you grow and you become curious. And together, of course, you're

also responsible for maintaining a certain culture with certain norms and values, right? Incorporate. And how do you see those values back in the day-to-day behavior? As a leader, of course this is something you're the the role model for, right? You have to show you know walk the talk. How do you do that? People will look up to you and see a you know how does this person deal with certain stress or you know how often does he or

she take holidays you know. So I think, you know being aware of that position as well is very important and to get at all leadership team, you know they they also establish the culture in a way I I have no idea of. This actually is an answer to your question by the way, but you said it came up. Oh, it's a nice app. No, I think it, I think it's an interesting insight and I hadn't realized that.

I mean, I I have realized that from an individual contributor, if I'm working towards something and it's so far down the line that I don't really see it making an impact, then I lose fulfillment from that side, but I can still find fulfillment within my team and doing it together, Yes.

And how you laid out kind of that leadership aspect, especially in a company that is numerous amounts of people, while you're kind of top of the food chain and your command is also a few thousand people, then yeah, you don't get fulfillment from those, again, because you don't even know the people that you're leading or you're managing. But you are responsible for their for their daily life,

right? You're responsible for a big, big part of the happiness and for a big part of their private life as well. Because you right, your, your strategic decisions determine whether they'll be able to continue to pay their mortgage. Yeah. Whether they'll have to find a new job while maybe their partner is at home with a baby they just had.

Whatever, right. So you you carry a lot of responsibility while not necessarily always gaining right that effect that you just mentioned without getting that warmth so to say or the the well really the good hormones that we get from connection. And the people that have those similar challenges are then also within that same leadership team exactly. So they can really empathize

with. You yeah, what we see a lot also what we always advise is after training sessions to or after our training programs to have intervention peer-to-peer learning activity that they have for example on a monthly basis.

So they come together and maybe first session we will facilitate, but after that they will do it themselves and they just discuss difficult cases with each other, you know challenges and they learn from each other peer-to-peer learning And that's very essential if you know if you really want to have that learning culture, so to say that's the culture maybe as people refer to it, you know that element is very important.

You know how how often do you sit down together and discuss certain challenges and how you deal with it and if it really reflects the company's values, for example? Very important. Yeah, absolutely. Your your team is, in evolutionary terms, your team is your tribe, right? So after you've encountered something difficult or scary, the bear, the wolf, the angry customer, whatever, the financial crisis, you come together, you huddle up around the campfire and you share your

stories and you blow off steam. And that is what you need your tribe for. That is where safety starts, right? The safety is the moment psychological safety comes. And it it it, it's not something that magically appears. But it has to be worked on and it's worked on and it and it grows. When you sit around that fire and you blow off steam and you think about solutions together and you connect, right? And then next time you go hunting, that's when you're back

in your rational brain. But it's not the moment while something really big is happening, it's the moment after, right? So that really is that campfire. This is also one of our exercises that we throw in quite regularly in training programs. You know, let's do Campfire, and then they share stories about their leadership experiences. And challenges and how they made them feel. Stories in itself, of course, have a huge, you know, power in itself, right? Which is always a very

inspirational exercise. You see really people opening up. And. And you don't feel so lonely anymore because apparently all these other people had the same that you felt kind of shameful about, right. The same sort of situations. And you're like, oh, you had that too. You always seem so together, right? Or I'm kind of impressed by you or intimidated, even.

Right. So usually also the higher up you go to use that old school term, the more closed people become because they have to really show for themselves because they earn a lot of money. They have a lot of responsibility, Right. So I'm not allowed to show weakness. Yeah. Recently we had a group of leaders who were actually all dealing with the same issue, that their CEO in their biweekly meetings was the only one

talking. And the rest of the leadership team was there listening, you know, OK, collecting the data. Slacking each other. Slacking each other like, Oh my God, this is such a long hour and he's talking a lot again, you know, but what are you going to do about it together, right? What is your next step then? What is your action? How are you going to address it? So how are you going to use your influence? Or aren't you just go? Aren't you just going to let it be and accept it?

And that's what often what happens, of course. Well, let's just accept it. Let's sit through it. But what are you going to change then, right? But that's once again ownership, right? And if you don't feel connected, there's no ownership. No, it's not going to happen. You're not going to take that autonomy. It doesn't feel safe because who's going to have your back? Yeah, the vulnerability that

people share within a team and especially from leadership, I think it would be valuable if let's say the people they are leading also experience either that same vulnerability or they share that story as well. Is that also something you advise them to do? Yeah, and a lot has to do with authentic leadership. So to be completely be yourself as a leader. You're also just a human being with your pitfalls, your strengths, sure, your allergies

as well. If you can be vulnerable about that and you know, do self disclosures it definitely. It actually increases trust. So they feel much more safe with you as well because you're also only human. You're real. You're real, right? And there's, you know, the hard thing sometimes still is if that same person is still deciding your salary raise, you know, because then you're also the judge and the coach and that

safe person. But, you know, at the end of the year or twice a year or whatever, they're also the one deciding, hey, OK, do I get a pay raise? Yes or not? So also then what can really help is to have one person completely dedicated to personal development and coaching, you know, and that that's safe relationship and someone more on a performance. You can do both, but it's it's it's challenging for sure. Yeah. And I think an important tip there really is the timing, right?

So just coming back real quickly to that evolutionary example, the moment to share is around the fire, not when you're heading into the next hunt it. Should be separate. So next time that let's say you're facing a challenge, you're taking your spear and you're heading out for that is not the moment to go. I'm actually kind of nervous about this. I don't quite know what I'm doing right. That is when you want to be like the the, the, the right, the the kind of strong and energized and

confident leader. The moment around the fire, that's the moment when you want to share. I'm also kind of nervous about this or you know, I'm, I'm leading this team and the the challenges that we're facing now or the KPIs or whatever, they're also quite big for me. What can be very powerful as well is that you know, the manager also shares the feedback that he or she receives from the

team. Like, hey, OK I received this and this feedback about certain areas and this is how I will address it or how I'm going to approve. That's so powerful because you know what it what you're actually saying is that you're also only human with certain growth areas and it's it will help them. So to to also share, hey, OK awesome. This is what I want to do right. It's sort of sets sets that tone very, yeah. Vulnerability invites

vulnerability. Maybe you've been you've ever been in a situation where you're with a friend or family member or somebody you know privately and you know them well. And I don't know, you're having a beer or you're having a coffee and they confide in you. They share something with you and maybe they even say I've never said this to anyone before it. Will increase likability? Trust, yes. Huge.

Boost for the relationship. Also, it makes you feel like you need to share something with them, right? That you kind of want to say, oh, it's. Unfair otherwise. Right. It kind of. It almost feels out of balance. So as a leader, when you show vulnerability in any degree and once again this is kind of strategic. And still they use this, right? So they'll open up about what they did in the weekends or whatever, you know, add some

something personal, yeah. And that's also something really you can do in leadership right when you share. Like Yoseen just gave the example. I'm working on this and this and I'm actually quite struggling a bit. I find it challenging. I need your help. I need your help.

Could you give me some feedback on how I'm doing in terms of letting go of control or giving you autonomy, right, or giving you space to develop that invites by definite by, by definition, the openness from the other person as well? And once again, it will most of the time not come that second right? Because for a long time you have set the example that maybe you as a leader, you're the talker, you're the decider and you're taking up a lot of space.

So people will test the waters first, it might take 341 on ones before they really start. So if you decide to change the way that you want to approach this to give people more space or be more vulnerable, give it some time a. Good, yeah. A good tip or advice for this is

also to read about Lyrics Rose. So that's what psychologist Timothy Leary invented. The model Lyrics Rose, what we always use communicational model where you really see the dynamics of, you know what happens if you're the one taking the lead while the others will follow.

OK. If you then sit back and lean back, you know they will use that space that all of the sudden is there and they will take up, take that responsibility, they will take the leads because you allow them to, but that takes time, right, because they're so used of certain dynamics the same. It's an invitation. That's it. You're extending an invitation? Yeah. So if also.

Referring back to that example that you shared earlier, if you, if you're a manager and your team is very negative, complaining a lot and you're like, you know, maybe they will come to us and say do something fun with them, you know, organize a nice team building activity for my team because then at least they will be happy. Don't, you know, Of course we will say, hey, let's have a look at, you know, your behaviour. What do you do then sort of to

put them in that corner? And maybe that person is very, I don't know, competitive, maybe a bit aggressive in you pushing his or her ideas through. And of course they will be there complaining because they don't feel like they have the space to initiate certain projects or come up with certain new ideas. So yes, they will be negative complaining. And if you can look at those dynamics and see what can you do to change that, that's really powerful.

But it doesn't. Yeah. Sometimes you need multiple interventions for that, for sure, yeah. And it's also interesting how once you're in a dynamic you can get blind to it, right. You don't it's it's sometimes very, very hard, especially when you're constantly in your survival or emotional brain to rationally look at it from a distance. It's very difficult. You kind of get caught in these

dynamics. And then so that's also why sometimes it's very useful for us to we just look at a team when we give them an exercise or whatever and we just see how it pans out and after 20 minutes it's like, oh, these are your dynamics and and they go oh that's. What you say Patrick, right. It's about. It's so easy to be the third exactly. Absolutely, yeah. I've really enjoyed this

conversation. I must say. I think it's going to be really fun listening back to it as well, and there's a lot of tidbits and learnings in there. Is there anything you still want to share before you round off? I always do this at the end and it takes a second, yeah. Exactly. I'm thinking, did we cover our most? What's to talk about?

Yeah, it's definitely our mission to put back or to put empathy in the workspace and to to show others that it's so important to really listen to each other, to really connect with each other. Not only because it makes you an better human being, I think, but also because it increases team performance, your output, etcetera. So definitely make work out of that. And if and if you're struggling to do so, if you're struggling to hear someone or see someone, they're like somebody who's in

your allergy. Oh no, that's him. He's always complaining, right? Or Oh no, that's her. She, she, she never will, you know, finish talking. She just keeps talking. Don't look to the other person to solve it, but look to yourself and how you can regulate yourself in order to be with that or sit with that. So don't try to change somebody else, but look within yourself into your emotional regulation, what you can do.

Emotional Agility, for example, by Susan David is a very interesting read around this topic because we all have triggers and they will negatively influence how we can lead or cooperate with others. Which is fine, We're humans, it's OK, but it makes you such a it makes you a lot more dynamic and flexible person to work with when you're good at regulating your own emotions, because then nobody will really bother you anymore. You can go back to content with

everybody. So I think that is that's an important tip to take away as well. Start with yourself. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing and I'll round it off there. Thank you for listening and we'll see you on the next one.