Curious Leadership with Dominic Monkhouse

E334 | Respond, don't react! Empathy: a strategic advantage for leaders with Maria Ross

Mar 4, 2025

Maria Ross, a keynote speaker and founder of Red Slice, champions empathy as a strategic advantage in leadership. She discusses how to cultivate empathy while maintaining performance, emphasizing a five-pillar framework: self-awareness, self-care, clarity, decisiveness, and joy. Maria debunks misconceptions around empathy, asserting it fosters effective workplace relationships and culture. They also explore the balance between decisiveness and compassion in decision-making, and the importance of joy in leading high-performing teams, especially in today's evolving workplace.

43:52

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Episode guests

Maria Ross

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Empathetic leadership combines compassion with clear communication, enabling leaders to make tough decisions without compromising team morale.

The education system plays a crucial role in fostering empathy in future leaders, emphasizing the importance of integrating social-emotional learning into curricula.

Deep dives

The Role of Empathy in Leadership

Empathetic leaders are essential for fostering high-performance teams and achieving better business outcomes. Empathy transcends mere kindness; it involves understanding others' perspectives and acting with compassion. This approach enables leaders to make tough decisions without sacrificing team morale, demonstrating that empathy can coexist with effective leadership. Building an empathetic culture begins with self-awareness, ensuring leaders recognize their emotional triggers and how to navigate them with clarity.

Intro

2min

Cultivating Empathy in Leadership

21min

The Necessity of Decisiveness in Empathetic Leadership

4min

Empathetic Decision-Making: Balancing Leadership and Accountability

3min

The Importance of Joy in Leadership and Team Dynamics

3min

Empathy in the Evolving Workplace

12min

Maria Ross, a keynote speaker, author, strategist, and empathy advocate, believes cash flow, creativity, and compassion can coexist. Founder of Red Slice, she advises organisations on leveraging empathy for better engagement. She authored ‘The Empathy Dilemma: How Successful Leaders Balance Performance, People, and Personal Boundaries’ and hosts ‘The Empathy Edge’ podcast. A dynamic speaker, Maria has addressed top conferences like TEDx, The 3% Conference, and Salesforce, with her insights featured in outlets such as MSNBC, NPR, Forbes, and Huffington Post.

In this episode, Dominic explores empathy's role in leadership and business success. With Maria explaining how empathy can be cultivated, especially in education, and addresses the challenge of balancing empathy with performance. Maria introduces the five pillars of empathetic leadership - self-awareness, self-care, clarity, decisiveness, and joy - offering a framework to enhance empathy while ensuring high performance. They explore effective leadership, the role of decisiveness, joy, and empathy in workplace culture, and how leaders can make tough decisions without causing team stress.

Discover

Balance Empathy with Action: Empathy doesn’t mean avoiding tough decisions. Instead, it’s about acting compassionately while staying focused on goals. Gathering different perspectives helps make thoughtful choices, but avoid overthinking - decisiveness keeps progress on track.

Clarity and Transparency Build Trust: Clear communication is essential. Whether setting boundaries, making decisions, or solving problems, being explicit about your intentions reduces misunderstandings and creates trust. Explaining your rationale helps others feel heard and valued, even if they don’t agree with your decisions.

Empathy Can Be Learned and Strengthened: Empathy is a skill that can grow with practice. Similar to building a muscle, environments that promote listening, curiosity, and collaboration can nurture this ability. Making an effort to understand others’ experiences leads to stronger connections and better outcomes in every aspect of life.

Empathy Drives Problem-Solving and Innovation: Empathy allows you to understand others' needs, fears, and motivations, which can lead to better solutions in any situation. Empathy isn’t just about relationships - it’s also a catalyst for better decision-making and innovation.

Book recommendations:

Rob Volpe - Tell Me More About That

Dr. Adam Dorsay - Super Psyched

Robin Dreeke - Unbreakable Alliances

Anna Liotta - Unlocking Generational Codes

Maria’s books The Empathy Dilemma & The Empathy Edge are out now

Dominic’s book Mind Your F**king Business is out now