116: Compassionate Leadership for the Modern Workplace, with Lori Pappas

Send us a text

What does it take to authentically lead with compassion? 

For Lori Pappas—entrepreneur, humanitarian, and author of "The Magic of Yes"—the answer lies at the intersection of self-awareness, organizational alignment, and redefined success metrics. She shares her journey from successful entrepreneur to humanitarian, revealing how addressing personal trauma enhanced her ability to lead with authentic compassion.

We discussed a framework for compassionate leadership built on three pillars: 

• System alignment (ensuring compensation, recognition, and promotion systems reflect compassionate values)
• Communication (seeking first to understand rather than be understood)
• Metrics that incorporate human well-being alongside productivity measures.

"Employees are brilliant," she emphasizes. "The mistake many leaders make is relying only on their management team." This approach not only improved operations but created such profound connections that 30 years later, her former employees still implement and value the leadership principles they learned together.

Ready to transform your leadership approach? Discover why Lori believes employee turnover is the greatest risk of non-compassionate leadership, and how building trust—sometimes literally through trust falls in Ethiopian huts—creates the foundation for teams that innovate, adapt, and thrive through any challenge.

Connect with Lori at www.loripappas.com or through her Facebook group The Wise Woman Sisterhood. Her book The Magic of Yes: Embrace the Wise Woman Within is available at Bookshop and Barnes & Noble.

Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.

Support the show

__________

Producer / Editor: Neel Panji

Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams and position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in well-being, resilience, and trauma sensitivity.

Please subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice. It really helps others find us.

#trauma #resilience #compassion #MentalHealth #CompassionateLeadership #leadership #survivor