The Power of Empathy for CEOs
How I use the Five Phases of Empathy in my job as CEO.
Many see CEO as a glamorous role.
If you’ve held the title or stood close to someone who has, you’ll know it’s much more of a responsibility.
Even if you’ve never held the title, we all have an inner CEO.
The one that steps up and leads others because they have to, or because they care about the outcome for the people involved.
This morning as I was checking in with my inner CEO, it dawned on me that all CEOs should understand the specific application of the power of empathy in unlocking greater productivity, resilience, innovation, and overall life satisfaction.
When I check in on the last five years as a CEO- I’ve had to grow. I’ve made many mistakes, and I’ve done many things right.
The difference between moments where I could have quit, rather than find the new way, came down to emotions.
I should add to that gratitude for the things that have been or continue to go right, and a process of turning inward to the building blocks that drive my mission.
The way I’ve used empathy to help others, actually follows the natural process of applying intention and emotional intelligence to my life, both as a businessman and as a man in search of healing.
I’m grateful that I now have it outlined, and extrapolated, to give myself easy-to-follow prompts to get me through emotional blocks and returning to my purpose.
At a high level, that process looks like this:
One: What am I feeling today?
Core to my resilience and well-being is having a morning check-in ritual that begins with scanning my body and cataloging my emotional state. In this process called the Five Phases of Empathy, in Phase One, we work prompts that will 10x your ability to do this. Our emotions inform our focus, how we treat others, and our inner narratives. Most importantly for CEOs, it helps us to locate the number one thing that requires our attention that day.
Two: What is most important in my world?
My second anchor is that I have a strong sense of my values and my purpose. I use those anchoring principles to help me edit where my attention goes. I also use them to mitigate new and uncomfortable situations. It works like this. “I’m stuck on this topic.” That’s a signal to scan the body. “I don’t know why I’m stuck, but let me see what it feels like as a way of going inward. Whoa. There is a pit in my throat.” At this point, you stay curious about that sensation, while bringing in your purpose statement and values. Really interesting answers emerge!
Three: Where will I put my attention today?
As CEOs, time and attention are in high demand. Particularly if we have families. Our homes are our primary responsibilities so It’s important we continue to grow in our proficiency with time and attention allocation. It requires advanced emotional awareness and graceful discipline. CEOs are more adept than most at allocating their attention while maintaining their individual well-being. But not perfect. Further, we don’t always communicate our needs and boundaries in the most healthy ways. If this resonates with you and you feel a bit of shame for how you may have reacted to news or delivered feedback, this is your signal to practice empathy.
Four: How am I showing up?
This is where I start to scan my ecosystem, from the inside out. With my relationship with myself strong due to my regular check-in process, I have the capacity to consider family, colleagues, friends, passion, and philanthropic associations. The Five Phases of Empathy invites us to be present to the places where those relationships give us life and energy. While also being willing to meet the sometimes challenging reality that past ideas or commitments may no longer be serving us.
Five: How am I inviting abundance?
Show me an overall pessimistic CEO and I’ll show you a slumping or underperforming business. That’s cold hard facts. In my book, I invite everyone to give themselves the gifts of looking for and finding their scarcity belief, then burring them. For CEOs, it’s important to be willing to not only find the limiting beliefs in ourselves as well as those that exist in our businesses. We have to then have the emotional proficiency to not shy away from the limiting beliefs, but to dredge it for useful information. Finally, the stretch goal is to mentor and groom people who do the same.
Empathy is often misunderstood as a soft skill without tangible benefits. However, practicing empathy can have benefits to our well-being, our happiness, our productivity, and our ability to groom leaders and persuade consistent action. I hope the work we explore together gives birth to a new normal in leadership, for ourselves and future generations.
About Michael Tennant
Michael Tennant, CEO of Curiosity Lab is an entrepreneur, keynote speaker, brand strategist, and author of The Power of Empathy available now at Target, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and booksellers everywhere. He’s also the creator of Actually Curious™ the empathy conversation game, Values Exercise™, and the Five Phases of Empathy™.
Connect with me on LinkedIn / Instagram / TikTok, Thank you.
