Q&A: How Empathy Makes for Effective Leadership; HR Exchange Network, January 3, 2022

Francesca Di Meglio , HR Exchange Network; Q&A: How Empathy Makes for Effective Leadership

"The next generation of leaders must have empathy. Life is hard, and the pandemic made it harder. So, kindness and heart are becoming more important than even practical skills like accounting. Many employees are facing tremendous pressure, and now HR leaders are responding. Mental health and wellness are top priorities of organizations aiming to recruit and retain top talent. 

As a result of this shift, employers are recognizing the need for softer skills in hires. Recently, Maria Leggett, director of Education at MHI in Charlotte, North Carolina, spoke to HR Exchange Network about the importance of empathy in leadership. Leggett will be hosting a session at the online event HR and the Future of Work, which takes place February 22 to 24, 2022. 

HREN: Why is empathy vital to leadership? Why has it come to the forefront now?

ML: There is room for kindness. Now more than ever, we need kindness in the workplace. With the talent shortage and remote work, employees have more and more career options. As a result, managers need to be more people-focused and incorporate empathy and kindness into their leadership approach.

Empathy is about understanding. Having compassion allows us to see different points of view and perspectives. Employees want to be more than just "seen." They want their managers to know that they work hard and accomplish a lot while having a life outside of work. When managers connect and collaborate with their teams effectively, they learn more about their strengths and skills and get the most out of their interactions with their teams. Empathy helps facilitate that.

HREN: How do you teach or help managers to be empathetic?

ML: Slow down, ask questions, listen more, and be authentic. When people hear more and talk less, they can be open to different perspectives and respond more appropriately to situations.  While managers may have to deliver feedback that is not always positive, people are more likely to receive the input when delivered with empathy and genuine authenticity.  

COVID has allowed people to be more authentic as they worked out of their homes, allowing people to see a personal side and providing people space to be their whole self. That won’t change when things get back to a more stable state. COVID has demonstrated that people can still show up and accomplish great work, even with a chaotic personal life. No one has time for someone to be micro-managing, uncompromising, and lacking empathy. Empathy is changing the fabric of our work culture."

Why Legal Department Mission Statements Are Mission Critical During the Great ‘Reflection’; Law.com, January 25, 2022

Catherine Kemnitz, Law.com; Why Legal Department Mission Statements Are Mission Critical During the Great ‘Reflection’

It’s been termed the Great Resignation but as a colleague of mine likes to say, it should really be called the Great Reflection. We’re not seeing lawyers question whether they should be practicing law, but rather reflecting on how, why, and for whom they practice it.

"So when Axiom, in collaboration with Wakefield Research, conducted a survey of 220 legal department heads at companies with $250 million or more in annual revenue we aimed to dive deeper into more unusual, but critically important terrain. We focused on examining how COVID impacted GCs and the legal teams trying to reconcile changing business demands with the values of their departments and broader organizations.

What we found underscored the importance of values to the in-house team and the critical role GCs play in developing those values, articulating them, and leading organizational adherence to them.

Here’s the headline: 85% of GCs surveyed believe that the legal department has a responsibility to be the primary driver of company values. Those values vary by organization but typically include complying with relevant laws and regulations; an emphasis on social responsibility and human interests; promoting diversity and inclusion; addressing social, environmental and human rights concerns; and importantly, the development, retention, and well-being of the legal team...

Actioning Department Values 

What we found is that adherence to values isn’t just talk, it’s action...

Mission Statements: The Haves and Have Nots

A mission statement is a promise between a company, the legal department, and its lawyers to follow a core set of values. Even more than other departmental mission statements, legal department versions are enterprise-critical. Many, if not all, of the company’s hard choices will hit the legal department. As a result, a values-based approach within legal will inherently permeate throughout the rest of the enterprise.

In addition to its impact on the broader organization, the legal mission statement is becoming increasingly important to the lawyers who are part of the in-house team. Employees’ priorities and goals have evolved into something substantively different from their pre-pandemic aspirations. Like other workers, lawyers are rejecting workplaces, practices, and remuneration that don’t align with their personal goals. They’re also rejecting employers that don’t have a greater missional focus, or if they do, lack a fundamental adherence to it. Lawyers will no longer settle for soulless roles, and will no longer practice on behalf of soulless organizations.

As a result, our survey found that articulating and reaffirming a commitment to both departmental and organizational goals is increasingly imperative to legal team satisfaction, retention, and performance.  Despite the importance, however, a full 40% of GCs admit they lack formal legal department mission statements.

Put simply, that’s a mistake. Not only does our survey demonstrate that GCs with mission statements are better positioned to navigate volatility, it makes clear that these statements are a critical tools for retaining and nurturing the type of legal talent needed to effectively serve the organization.

The Bottom Line for GCs

Legal department mission statements are mission critical.

GCs that don’t have them must develop them. GCs that do, must consistently revisit them."

The big problem for Uber now: Attracting talent; Washington Post, June 14, 2017

Elizabeth Dwoskin and Todd C. Frankel, Washington Post; The big problem for Uber now: Attracting talent

[Kip Currier: Uber's ongoing travails provide an illustrative case study for the critical importance of organizational culture and core values. For an upstart start-up company betting the corporate house on developing paradigm-shifting self-driving technology, there's an ironic sense that the leadership and Board were asleep at the steering wheel (or revved up on too many Red Bulls!) for a very long time. Whether Uber can now shift out of "off-roading" bro-culture mode, institute tangible "cultural guardrails", and make lasting transformational change is anyone's guess.]

"Last year, software engineer Elizabeth Ford got what many young engineers in Silicon Valley once considered the dream job pitch: Would she be interested in working at Uber?

Ford was blunt with the Uber recruiter, telling her the company was immoral and asking not to be contacted again. “As an engineer in the Bay Area, I feel we’ve pretty much turned on Uber,” Ford, 27, who works at restaurant start-up Eatsa, said.

On Tuesday, Uber said it would be taking 47 wide-reaching steps to address a recent string of controversies about its anything-goes, cutthroat corporate culture, including allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior — accusations that have made Ford and many other tech workers, particularly women, skeptical of joining the company.

Ford said Tuesday’s actions did not change her views.

“The company still has so much toxicity,” Ford said by e-mail Tuesday evening. “They would need to change everything about their culture and how they operate to make me want to work there."

Favorite son: Duquesne has a proven leader in Gormley; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 11/6/15

Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Favorite son: Duquesne has a proven leader in Gormley:

"Nine months ago, when outgoing Duquesne University President Charles Dougherty announced his plans to retire in June 2016, board members of Pittsburgh’s largest Catholic campus started a nationwide search for his successor. They found what they were looking for right at home in Ken Gormley, a Swissvale native who has been dean of its law school since 2008.

Mr. Gormley, 60, is a highly respected legal scholar, author and teacher who took over the leadership of Duquesne’s law school at a time of turmoil. He recruited alumni and practicing judges and lawyers for an advisory panel, hired new faculty, increased courses and raised the national stature of the school, as seen in the improved ranking of U.S. News & World Report...

As Duquesne’s 13th president and the third who is not a priest, Mr. Gormley, who is Catholic, said his top priorities will be increasing the endowment, completing a strategic plan and strengthening Duquesne’s connections with the city’s foundations, corporations and elected officials."