Howard White, Vice President of the Jordan brand at Nike, embodies the principles of a Big-Hearted Leader. In his podcast episode of This I Believe, he shares more on his driving philosophy on humanity: “I believe every single person deserves to be acknowledged, however small or simple the greeting.”
I’ve always been a huge advocate of face to face contact whenever possible. It provides a more effective platform for communicating, it feels more sincere, and it allows for greater clarity–all of which reduce the likelihood of a misunderstanding and make a more compelling case for succeeding at an intended accomplishment. It seemed intuitive to me that the loss of eye contact and real-life interaction lowers the connectivity and mutual understanding involved in an interaction, and my professional and personal experience have proven that suspicion to be true. Beyond the intuition and the support of communication theory, however, it appears that there are concrete biological indicators to validate these suppositions. As Susan Pinker explains in her TED talk, social interaction helps us to live longer, healthier lives; watch as she explains more, including how “face-to-face contact releases a whole cascade of neurotransmitters, and like a vaccine, they protect you now in the present and well into the future. So simply making eye contact with somebody, shaking hands, giving somebody a high-five is enough to release oxytocin, which increases your level of trust and it lowers your cortisol levels. So it lowers your stress.” It’s just one more way that being an effective, competent and caring leader not only makes you stronger and better at your job, it also makes for a better life.
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We live in an era during which polarization is becoming the norm, and it can be incredibly disheartening. From partisanship in politics to outrage over what someone hears when listening to an audio clip (remember the Yanni/Laurel debate) to longstanding sports rivalries, this concept is ingrained in our modern culture. Yet this is also a completely avoidable phenomenon. By setting intentions for ourselves, we can apply the principles of Big Hearted Leadership and overcome this impulse. We can show grace for others and still maintain a strong position of our own. And when we do, amazing things can happen. In the below video clip, Malcolm Gladwell gives a powerful example of this as he explains how crime has significantly decreased in Brownsville, New York due to the firm yet graceful methodologies employed by the housing commissioner.
There exists a commonly held conception that compassion and empathy are at odds with indicators of financial success, and this is a notion that we need to work hard to combat because it is simply not accurate. Doing well by doing good is not only feasible, it is probable both in business and in life. Acting in an ethical manner makes for sound, long-term productivity and reliability, and these translate into growth in profitability and market share. This is a concept I address in the first chapter of my book–structure is imperative, and being ethical and heartfelt are fundamental to creating reliable, effective structure.
Because I operate in this manner, it was no surprise to me to learn about the benefits of being mindful of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in investing; think of factors relating to how corporations treat their workers, build trust and foster innovation, respond to climate change, and manage their supply chains. According to the UN document Who Cares Wins (backed by prominent investment firms worldwide including Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley), “Companies that perform better with regard to these issues can increase shareholder value by, for example, properly managing risks, anticipating regulatory action or accessing new markets.” Additionally, according to Forbes contributor and investment professional Georg Kell, not only is “good corporate sustainability performance associated with good financial results,” but also “in many important markets, including the U.S. and the EU, ESG integration is increasingly seen as part of fiduciary duty.“
The bottom line is that approaching leadership, business, life, and even investing with a compassionate philosophy isn’t just the right thing to do. Done correctly and intelligently, it’s also the more beneficial, effective and profitable route to success.
As seen in Forbes by Joresa Blount
Ben Horowitz is not your regular venture capitalist. As half of Andreessen Horowitz, one of the largest venture capital firms, he knows a thing or two about surviving the ups and downs of startup life. Horowitz, who is also the author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things, shed some truth of being a CEO.
“Running your own company is incredibly emotionally challenging,” he said. There was a time when he would wake up in the middle of the night trying to figure out a way to save a startup. He admits being a CEO is something you learn on the job. Some founders of startups he has invested in never held that role previously. “It’s easier to teach the innovator how to be a CEO than to teach a CEO how to be an innovator,” he explained. “It’s great to have someone on your board that has actually started a company and been CEO,” said Horowitz.
Since being a great leader is something that happens day to day on the job, Horowitz did have one essential tip for founders, according to MillionaireMatch. “I think people skills seem to be highly underestimated in terms of the stability to run a company,” he said. “The ability to understand other people’s motivation, those you talk to and those you aren’t talking to,” he continued. In an article from 2010, Horowitz noted three key traits of a leader:
Now, the keyword attached to leadership is empathy. Instead of it being categorized as a soft skill, it’s in the file of essentials if you want to be an effective leader. Donn Sorensen, author of Big-Hearted Leadership, says that empathy is what makes one organization outperform another. Sorensen writes in the section of his book titled Value Vulnerability, “Instead of being the kind of leader who makes him or herself unapproachable or unassailable, you should be the first person to say when you’ve screwed up. In other words, give them your weaknesses, not just your strength.” Sorensen lays out what qualities a great leader should have which includes genuineness, integrity, emotional intelligence, resolve, courage and most of all tenderness and enthusiasm. “The common mistake is they focus on themselves and their own success, trappings of the office and return on investment. Those may be fine, however a CEO will not be highly successful unless they focus on their people and put them first,” said Sorensen.
As we welcome and embrace all things March Madness, it’s a great time to reflect on the importance of character. In sports, in life, and in leadership, a person’s character trumps almost any other factor at play in any given scenario. This is why I believe so strongly in being a big-hearted leader and why I feel compelled to spread not only that belief but the reasoning behind it and the inspiration I find in it with other current and aspiring leaders. Beloved UCLA basketball coach John Wooden embraced a compassionate leadership philosophy, and it showed in the players he developed as well as his teams’ impressive performance (his career coaching win-loss percentage is a remarkable .804 and he led UCLA to win a record 10 National Championships). During this NCAA tournament season, I honor and admire his legacy, his character based philosophy, and his demonstrated success in his distinguished career.
I have a chapter in my book entitled “Turn Your Organization into a Force for Good,” and it’s a concept I feel very strongly about. Leaders have the ability to galvanize entities into action, and it’s important to optimize that potential to do good in our communities. In the same regard, I really find it to be a moral imperative that as leaders, we offer as much positivity and inspiration to others as we’re able.
While this certainly applies to our organizations and communities, it extends beyond that into the realm of social media as well. The current climate of what can best be described as conflicting and full of animosity is toxic, and we can all do better. Whether we are leaders or aspiring leaders in our professional lives or not, we can apply the principles of Big Hearted Leadership to our individual presence on social media to make a concerted effort at changing the nature of the conversation.
Being generous in your genuineness is one of the five pillars of Big-Hearted Leadership, and applying this principle to our social media lives could go a long way towards improving the climate. As a society, we value vulnerability and the courage to be authentic in others, yet it can be incredibly hard for us to exhibit these qualities ourselves. Big-Hearted Leaders take this risk, and they do it wholeheartedly and with enthusiasm. If each of us vows to increase our willingness to be genuine, and we extend this to our social media channels, we will transform the content our social circles are consuming, thereby initiating momentum for them to feel emboldened to become more genuine in their interactions. We are the authors of social media’s fate, so let’s make it a force for good.
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