三和一善  | 5 ways to use empathy and emotion for greater success

Sandra Worthy is a chemical engineer and is quitting alcohol. Fortune 100 executives have become full-time entrepreneurs. In her new book, she discusses how a growth mindset can help you control how you experience change. She personally relies on these concepts and exercises to grow her company's career, stay sober after being arrested for drunk driving, and remain a productive entrepreneur during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Below, Sandra shares 5 key insights from "Passion for Change: How to Use the Power of Emotion to Achieve Leadership and Success."

Faith is the glue for change

Our repeated behaviors or habits are driven by the ideas we have been thinking about or our beliefs. In order to achieve this lasting change, we must first understand the belief system that drives this change and instill it into our hearts and thoughts-whether it is our own or the individuals in our organization.

This is where many leaders change by mistake. They create and state visions, assign roles and responsibilities, and even create plans with specific deliverables to achieve goals. However, with all these efforts, there is almost no time to adjust and share the reasons behind the change-why they think change is the best move, and why they themselves are excited about making the change a reality. Lasting change is rooted in the change that sustains the belief system.

Faith is the glue that holds everything together. Without this glue, you may achieve a considerable number of change goals, but if you do not understand the beliefs that connect new realities and ensure that your heart and mind are aligned, your efforts will be slowly but surely reversed. I think this is the key driver behind McKinsey's statistics, that 70% of major change initiatives have failed.

The future of business will need to embrace emotions in the workplace

Emotions continue to occupy more and more space in business. In recent decades, emotional quotient (EQ) has found a solid foundation among the world’s most senior managers, and millions of people now believe that EQ is as important as IQ, or even more important.

Emotion is the undercurrent of every organizational culture in the world. You can feel the culture of the organization by feeling the emotional energy up and down the corridors and meeting rooms. Emotions are caused by the efforts of companies when customers use products and services. Emotion is the natural inheritance of our species.

The idea of ​​leaving emotions at the door of a company is outdated, because it leaves no room for us to express the most complete and true self in the work of our leadership. Leaders who recognize and welcome emotions and provide strategies and tools to use this energy as business fuel will lead the way to success.

"Negative" emotions are actually the signal of our greatest growth opportunity

When fear, anger, frustration, anxiety or sadness are aroused in the face of change, these energetic entities will appear to serve us. Social psychologists have found that emotions spread faster than cognitive thinking. Centuries ago, our ancestors used these energies as tools to roam the earth. When danger approaches, the emotional energy passing through the amygdala will remind our original ancestors of an opportunity: either to be eaten or to survive.

In the face of changes in the world today, our feelings are often seen as an imminent danger, because we may break away from what we know, disrupt our daily work, or deviate from our goals. But it is these same emotions that remind us of opportunity: to become bitter, or to become better.

Emotion is a resource with unlimited supply. This efficient resource exists to remind us of opportunities to learn, grow and develop-whether it is to understand ourselves, to understand peers or direct reports, or to understand your business. When we strive to be consistent with these energies and how they manifest within us, we can grant ourselves grace, allow them to exist, and accept their invitation to enter our greatest opportunity for growth.

Choice is the most powerful tool in the human toolbox

The place where you sit right now is the culmination of millions of choices. Choose to be able to send you to Maine immediately. Choosing the ability allows you to no longer pursue a medical degree, but to live on a friend’s couch to cultivate business ideas.

The power of choice will never exceed the power of facing change, especially when you feel it knocks you to the ground and provokes anger, fear, or frustration. Painful changes you have never asked for—such as demotions, firings, new managers, or new responsibilities without the resources to support the extra workload—provide moments of choice and allow us to explore opportunities. Through choice, we have the ability to transform emotions into growth motivation.

Effective and inspiring change leadership is both compassion and self-cultivation

When leading complex and ambiguous changes, the two most important skills for leaders are empathy and self-care—the latter is far more important than the former. I have seen many great leaders leave the company they once loved because they were exhausted from complex change plans. After ensuring that everyone else has everything they need to succeed, they forget that they have to feed themselves.

If you don't refuel your tank, you will never be able to provide the best service to your employees. Only when you are refreshed and well-rested can you behave kindly what you might be. The second key skill is empathy. This requires not only to accept emotions as a key part of change, but also to realize that everyone dresses differently. As a leader, you have a responsibility to communicate to your employees that they are not alone, they are valued, and you will be there to support them. The most effective way to do this is through empathy-listening while leaving room for another person to understand how they manage change and how you can help.