Management Perspectives

As we move through the third quarter of 2022, it is normal for us as leaders and managers to look to the year ahead and the strategies we want to put in place for the growth of our businesses. But these last few years have changed so much. We may now be far more practised in balancing our work and home lives, but new global financial issues, rising inflation and The Great Resignation has meant our people are still experiencing levels of discomfort and anxiety around the future. The need for shared understanding amongst leaders and their teams is central to our ability to survive these tumultuous times, and organisations that embrace empathy will be the ones that see a return on their investment in terms of profits, growth, and employee morale.

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2022 Report1, only 21 per cent of employees around the world are engaged at work. Add on the disrupted work environments we have been trying to balance since homeworking became the norm, and people are overtly reconsidering what work means to them and how they see the future of their career choices. Many employees are questioning their need to maintain an office-based role at all, and none more so than the millennials who have never been a group afraid to challenge the status quo. The generational gap between the younger and the older team members has perhaps never been wider, as the two generations grapple simultaneously to decipher what changes to the way we work means for the future growth of the careers and the organisations that employ them.

The requirement for leadership teams to reboot the way they manage and motivate all generations within their teams has forced corporations to shift culturally, and indeed operationally, at speed. Today we face the critical need to understand, and relate to, the changing realities of our workforce beyond those facing our businesses. Whether these are social, political, or emotional, they reach well beyond the walls of our offices, or home offices, and demand our leadership teams to focus on regenerative direction that goes beyond the rational and connects with people on a far more authentic and motivating level. Teams are looking for leaders who connect with their own emotional value - their soul as well as their role, their purpose beyond their position. If we lose out on this empathic connection with our employees, we lose out on the people protecting the shareholder value, and the brand purpose story, that we all so dearly desire. Teams are looking for leaders who connect with their own emotional value—their soul as well as their role, their purpose beyond their position. If we lose out on this empathic connection with our employees, we lose out on the people protecting the shareholder value, and the brand purpose story, that we all so dearly desire.

As a leader, understanding and empathising with the realities of each team member is no easy feat - but it is one we need to find scale in. On a micro level, empathy will allow us to better co-exist with our colleagues and teams, providing a more collaborative and connected environment that can perform and grow in the months ahead. On a macro social level, where we increasingly see a disregard toward truly connecting as people first and foremost, the strengthening of our shared empathy is both urgent and critical as the world struggles to overcome the traumas of the last few years. Empathy is a perspective shift, and it is one that the CEO of every organisation needs to embrace before that organisation loses perspective—and attendance from our teams—altogether.

The necessity to create connected teams that trust the ability of their leadership to understand them will continue to rise. Employees are driven by the need for leadership that goes beyond the rational and connects with people on a far more authentic and motivating level, within a context that values holistic employee health. The Gallup report found that business units with engaged employees benefit from 23% higher profit than those where teams are disengaged, as well as lower absenteeism and higher customer loyalty. As leaders it will be our ability to recognise, empathise and systemise the context our teams’ work within, and their individual driving force in today’s corporate environment, that will maintain the motivation, organisation, and processes that our people need to reach the business vision we are rallying behind.

Empathy is no longer a nice to have, or a one-off training course from the human resources team, this is now the only path to sustainable growth as humanity continues to embrace the inconsistency of our business world. We must embrace Regenerative Leadership and prioritise empathy to drive our growth. We need leaders who can understand their teams beyond the output that they create and are focused on transforming and regenerating people, and their organisational construct, by emotionally engaging with the key inputs that people need to thrive as human beings. These will be the leaders that manage to lead their troops to recovery at a pace.

Regenerative Leadership is transformational in its ability to prepare our businesses and teams for a new world of business and consumption. From home working, flexible formats, purpose led goal setting and cohesive sustainable agendas, it covers tenets of organisational success that recent times have proven are more valid and more current than ever before. As we navigate the year ahead it is my prediction that these areas of focus, of empathetic influence in the workplace, will be recognised as the most desired facets of inspirational and impactful leadership. Accenture2, it seems, agrees with me as they placed empathy as trend six in their forecasts for 2021. Leaders must acknowledge that the values their workforce resonate with personally are as critical as the values of the brands they are building. The creation of an empathetic organisation that delivers on this won’t happen overnight, but we are now seeing conscious and longterm commitment from senior executives to the critical combination of emotional intelligence, well being at work and trust as performance mandatories.

We can no longer afford to separate our working ‘employees’ from the ‘humans’ they are in their personal capacity, nor will we be able to separate our business purpose from that of the teams bringing this purpose to life. Empathy is the key to driving growth and support for our organisations. As we emerge from this period of uncertainty and change, we must be ready to step into a period of regeneration and put our people first, if we are to see a regeneration of our profits.