R Karl Hebenstreit Of Perform & Function: 5 Ways Empathy Will Affect Your Leadership

An Interview With Cynthia Corsetti

Make better, well-informed decisions. Rather than relying on just their own experience, instincts, and hunches, leaders who are empathic consider multiple, diverse perspectives and their impacts to select the best way forward.

Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, is increasingly recognized as a pivotal leadership trait. In an ever-evolving business landscape, leaders who exhibit genuine empathy are better equipped to connect, inspire, and drive their teams towards success. But how exactly does empathy shape leadership dynamics? How can it be harnessed to foster stronger relationships, improved decision-making, and a more inclusive work environment? As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing R. Karl Hebenstreit, Ph.D., PCC.

Karl is a certified executive coach, leadership and organization development consultant, author, and international speaker. His 25+ year career spans the areas of HR and OD in the biotechnology, clinical diagnostics, life sciences, healthcare, pharmaceutical, telecommunications, professional services, high-tech, and real estate services industries, having worked at Merck, Bellcore, AT&T, Lee Hecht Harrison, Cushman & Wakefield, Kaiser Permanente, EMC², Bio-Rad Laboratories, and Genentech/Roche. He holds a PhD in Organizational Psychology from Alliant International University/CSPP (where his dissertation focused on “Helping Organizations Attract, Retain, and Motivate employees with the Enneagram”), a MS in HR Management from the Rutgers Graduate School of Management and Labor Relations, an Evidence-Based Coaching Certificate from Fielding Graduate University (that led to his PCC), and is an IEA Accredited Professional with Distinction as well as an IEA Accredited Professional/Provider/Teacher. He is the author of The How & Why: Taking Care of Business with the Enneagram (now in its third edition) and the children’s book Nina and the Really, Really Tough Decision (now available in English, Spanish, and Greek!).

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about empathy, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

Certainly, thanks for asking! I am an Executive Coach, Author, Speaker, and Organization Development Consultant with over 30 years of experience working in the Human Resources, Leadership Development, and Organization Development departments of large, multinational organizations, including AT&T, Merck, Genentech/Roche, Kaiser Permanente, Cushman & Wakefield, and EMC. I discovered that I wanted a career in Human Resources accidentally, while taking an undergraduate elective course at Rutgers in what was then called “Industrial and Personnel Psychology.” I quickly became very intrigued with the topic, and, upon graduation with my Bachelor of Arts degree (and finding myself unable to secure a job in the early 1990s), I went right into the Rutgers Graduate School of Management and Labor Relations’s Master of Science program for “Human Resource Management.” I went to school at night and was able to land a series of temporary Human Resources jobs at Merck & Co., Inc., covering for maternity leaves in their Labor Relations, Employee Communications and Policies, Human Resource Information Systems (including being an administrator of their applicant tracking system and home-grown College Recruiting and Fair Tracking System!), and Employee Stock Option Program departments. Over the course of my two years at Merck, I basically created my own HR Rotation Program, applying what I learned at night in my Master’s program! I was recruited away from Merck into a “permanent” role as a Recruiting and Staffing Manager for Bellcore (who recruited Rutgers graduates), and two years later, AT&T recruited me (also because of my Rutgers affiliation). I moved to California with AT&T a year-and-a half later, where I transitioned from an HR Generalist to Leadership Development and Organization Development, along with starting my Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Oh wow! I guess it depends on how you define “interesting!” One of my more “unique” temporary assignments was working at a cork factory, repurposing already-packaged cork tiles to make them self-stick for a large customer order … One of my most fundamentally memorable jobs was where I learned the importance of taking others’ needs and perspectives into consideration rather than thinking that I already knew them (or that they were the same as mine). While I was working at AT&T in a role that was new to me, my 27-year old self somehow ended up in a marketing/business development role (for a Human Resources program) and was deemed the logical person to present our program at the annual Society for Human Resource Management conference in Minneapolis, MN. Off I went with my agenda of demonstrating and showcasing the virtues of our technology platform and hopefully attracting new organizations to join this “Talent Alliance” network. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of this amazing network of forward-thinking, employee development-centric international organizations and pay millions of dollars annually to do so? My first session was a disaster — live technology didn’t cooperate (this was 1998), people were not interested in a sales pitch, and they left in droves. I was devastated. Fortunately, I had one more session scheduled to redeem myself with a new audience. I approached the session with a totally different mindset, this time focusing on THEIR needs and what THEY wanted to take away from the session. I also set expectations up front about what my session would be so that they knew if this was right for them. Only a couple people left at the beginning, since the topic would not have been of interest to them, and the rest stayed and engaged in a much more meaningful session. My lesson learned is that we don’t know what others really want/expect unless we ask them and that it’s imperative to set expectations up front so that everyone is aligned on what will happen. It’s akin to the Platinum Rule: treat others the way THEY want to be treated, and it’s a very inclusive and empathetic way of discovering, appreciating, and integrating the diversity that surrounds us and of which we may not be aware. And this was my first real lesson on the importance of empathizing with others and their potentially different needs.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

My company, Perform & Function, stands out because of its focus on helping create a better future by helping leaders (and everyone is a leader!) become more emotionally intelligent and effective at life and business. I use the Enneagram as a universal model to address business challenges. I recall an engagement when I was an internal consultant for a clinical diagnostics and life sciences company and was working with their R&D team of executives. We had previously completed a team-building workshop a few months before, using the Enneagram to help identify each executive team member’s core motivation and how that played out when the team came together. The current meeting was tackling the challenge of how to empower their employees so that they felt safe to take more risks and be more innovative (important for an R&D function, no?). The executives were stuck and going in circles. At one point of exasperation, I reminded them that they already had the answer, based on the work we had done during their prior team-building workshop. We took the nine core motivations found in the Enneagram model and created an empowerment checklist to provide to employees, reminding them that if they, in good faith, considered all nine of these areas, they would have satisfactorily covered all the most important perspectives, without having to rely on their managers for approval. And if anything went wrong, since their managers agreed to this rubric and process, their managers would have their backs. The checklist is:

1. (How) is this the right thing to do (for me, the team, the company)?
2. (How) will it impact other areas? What are the potential repercussions on others (colleagues/stakeholders/customers)?
3. (How) does it support our goals? Is it the most efficient option? How will it affect cost/budget?
4. Does this present an opportunity to pursue patent protection? Does the solution bring a unique value?
5. Is there data/research to support that this is the logical action to take?
6. What are my back-up plans if this fails? What are the consequences if this desired outcome isn’t achieved or if we don’t take any action?
7. Does this allow growth for/in the future? What are my other options? What are the likely positive outcomes?
8. Is this within my scope of authority/purview to control?
9. (How) does this fit within and affect the overall system? Is it sustainable?

Considering these nine areas thoughtfully is actually an exercise in empathy, since it takes into account every core human motivation, addressing all of our primary concerns.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

I would narrow the factors that led to my success (or at least continued existence!) down to these three:

• Relationship-building/networking. All of my big career breaks and success at pivotal points come down to relationship-building and networking. I got my initial “break” into Human Resources (an industry that is difficult to get into) because of the reputation I had built over myriad temporary assignment engagements and the relationship my agency had with Merck. I was hired into my first and second “permanent” jobs because of my hiring companies’ (Bellcore, then AT&T) relationships with the graduate program at Rutgers, through which I was pursuing my Master’s degree. I was selected for promotion and cross-country move to California because of my relationship with my boss, who knew of my aspirations to move to the Golden State and was able to make it happen when business needs made it possible. After my first (of five!) layoffs, I was hired into my second management role by Cushman & Wakefield because of the relationship I had as the Career Management Consultant to the wife of one of C&W’s executives, who introduced me and referred me to the open position. I have received countless referrals to new consulting and coaching business from the variety of colleagues with whom I have worked or went to school over my 30+ year career. Never underestimate the power of relationship-building and networking. Your success depends on it.
• Focus on the intersection of what you love doing, what you’re good at, and what the world needs. I remember an exercise taught to me by a fellow Career Management Consultant at Lee Hecht Harrison, where we were facilitating workshops for people who had recently been downsized. Jill had our clients look at a list of transferable skills and put a checkmark next to the ones that they could do. Their second pass was drawing a star next to the ones for which they had received positive feedback and/or praise; things they did really well, maybe even better than anyone else. The final pass was drawing a heart next to the ones they really loved (got energy from) doing. This self-reflection is so important, because if you find your niche and apply it to a need that people/businesses have, you are bound to be successful … and happy in the process. I definitely found that niche by becoming a Leadership/Team/Organization Development Consultant, author, and international speaker, focusing on using the Enneagram to help people become better, more emotionally-intelligent versions of themselves and optimize their potential.
• Perseverance, Resilience, and Reinvention. The ability to pivot and change when the business environment changes (or when you’ve outgrown the situation you’re in, and/or is no longer satisfying and fueling your passion) has been critical to my success. When I was unable to find a full-time, benefited job post-undergraduate graduation (after over 100 interviews!), I pivoted and created my own two-year-long Human Resources development program by covering maternity leaves at Merck & Co., through a temporary agency, while pursuing my Master’s degree in the evenings (to hopefully open up more doors for me). That worked beautifully. When I found myself needing a change from my last corporate role and found myself being the first runner-up candidate for half a dozen other corporate jobs, I decided to use what companies were reluctant to hire me for internally (my age, vast experience, and concomitant salary expectations) and focus on delivering the same leadership, team, and organization development services through my own external consultancy. Perseverance, resilience, and reinvention definitely came into play as success factors here, and will continue to do so.

Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader? I’m curious to understand how these challenges have shaped your leadership.

In the late 1990s, I was given an opportunity to leave my known, comfortable environment and support network of family and friends on the east coast and move cross-country to take on a new leadership role, where I knew no one. It was my first management role, the result of a combination of four roles whose incumbents had chosen to retire under a generous incentive program, where I inherited a team of 27 local and remote employees, across four different states. I was also tasked with leading a national function encompassing 1,000 employees, along with the HR staff to support them. I was faced with the decision to leave well-enough alone (this was already a very successful and “profitable” organization) or restructure to become even more customer-focused. Despite the pains associated with change, I went forward with a plan to move from a decentralized/geographic model to a hybrid of decentralized HR Generalists (as they were called at the time) and centralized Recruiters. Empathizing with the needs of our clients (both hiring managers in the business as well as our employees doing the work for them), I felt this model would best address their diverse needs. Our 1,000 employees would still benefit from the local support of their familiar HR Generalist, while hiring managers with responsibility for hiring across the entire country would now only have one point of contact for their division’s recruiting needs, regardless of job location. Despite the initial disruption, the model was a resounding success and increased client satisfaction even more. This experience helped shape my leadership mindset in ensuring that decisions always had the best interests of the business and clients’ needs at heart. Empathizing with the client experience and their needs and pain points is always the best starting point.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define empathy in a leadership context, and why do you believe it’s a vital trait for leaders to possess in today’s work environment?

Empathy involves being able to take on another person’s perspective, truly understand their situation through genuine curiosity and non-judgmental open-mindedness, and share/validate their feelings with authentic care. This is a vital trait and ability for leaders to possess in today’s work environment because they work with people. People need to feel seen, heard, understood, included, and have their diverse opinions and suggestions acted upon, or else “learned helplessness” and disengagement may result. After all, people were hired for a reason (their skillsets, backgrounds, abilities, knowledge, diverse perspectives, values, etc.), and ignoring or devaluing those qualities will prevent them from feeling valued for their contributions and making them at all. Especially in today’s work environment, where diversity has been recognized as a key factor in an organization’s success, lack of empathy prevents the ability to engage this imperative lever.

Can you share a personal experience where showing empathy as a leader significantly impacted a situation or relationship in your organization?

I recall a time when I was Director of Workforce Strategy and Development (fancy name for Recruitment!) in a service area of the country’s first and largest Health Management Organization. I inherited a team of about 20 recruiters and recruitment coordinators reporting to me, all of whom had been in their roles for several years. Our entry-level Recruitment Coordinator role was pretty much a receptionist job — accepting and collecting resumes from walk-ins, showing candidates how to apply online, answering questions about our recruitment process. One of our Recruitment Coordinators was often out due to migraines, and, in the past, had been overlooked for promotions due to this fact. She was intelligent and capable and had a can-do attitude, and felt comfortable enough to come to me to voice her frustration and aspirations. I listened, gained a better understanding of her situation, saw how her frustration in her current situation may actually be contributing to more migraine incidents, took note of her potential, and when a (double) promotion opportunity became available in one of the other facilities in our service area, was able to offer her the role — where she flourished, experienced fewer incidents of migraines, and worked with a team that backed each other up during any absences. This was a morale boost for the team, showcased internal career development and progression opportunities, and met our business needs. About 10 years later, I ran into her in a totally different company where she continued her successful career in the Talent Acquisition arena, and she told me how meaningful my taking a chance on her was.

How do empathetic leaders strike a balance between understanding their team’s feelings and making tough decisions that might not be universally popular?

This is where the power of AND thinking comes into play. Being empathic to the needs and perspectives of others and achieving business goals are not mutually exclusive. In fact, including the insights of diverse perspectives will help make better decisions, and surface options that may not have been originally thought of. When tough decisions need to be made, everyone needs to understand WHY they need to be made. This will resonate with some people more than others, which is why it’s important to understand the perspectives and situations of all our team members and colleagues. If we consider communicating the WHY or business reason for the tough decision based on the lenses through which our team members will receive that information (we can look back to the empowerment/decision-making list outlined above), we’ll have a better chance of it resonating and being accepted by everyone. When we start with why (nod to Simon Sinek!), we open the door for people to also come up with other ways of addressing the business challenge (the ultimate WHAT outcome) by coming up with different HOWs that may not have been already considered. Inviting in different perspectives will create a much better solution than what was initially developed without others’ points of view in mind. This is the best way to strike that elusive balance between empathy for the people and tough business decisions. As Maya Angelou has been quoted as saying, “ … people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

How would you differentiate between empathy and sympathy in leadership? Why is it important for leaders to distinguish between the two?

Empathy involves being able to take on another person’s perspective, truly understand their situation through genuine curiosity and non-judgmental open-mindedness, and share/validate their feelings with authentic care. Sympathy takes it a step further, by feeling compassion for them, their feelings, and their situation. There was one example (to be described later) when I overstepped empathy and went into sympathy overdrive for the people I had to notify about being laid off, and I developed shingles; this is where caring too much and taking things personally and internally can literally make you sick. It’s really important for leaders to distinguish between empathy and sympathy in order to prevent from going too far, having their judgment clouded by sympathy, possibly treating people inequitably (they may not know every one’s story, only the ones they’re told), and potentially impacting their own health and well-being. Also, some employees may not be as receptive of a leader’s sympathy, since they may feel that it places them in an even further vulnerable, weaker position, and may even feel like it may not be authentic. It’s definitely a fine line to be walked, and one of the reasons being a leader isn’t easy!

What are some practical strategies or exercises that leaders can employ to cultivate and enhance their empathetic skills?

Leaders need to unlearn the pervasive “Golden Rule” that leads to self-serving, self-centered, and selfish ways of thinking, and instead adopt the “Platinum Rule,” and do the relationship-building work of finding out how others truly want to be treated. The ubiquitous Golden Rule has been touted from religion to hotel chain commercials as the way to approach life: “Treat people the way YOU want to be treated.” Unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way, since not everyone wants to be treated the same way — we live in a world where people have different backgrounds, needs, ideologies, religious beliefs, political beliefs, values, and morals. And we have been institutionally taught that different is bad. Getting past this limiting belief structure to adopting a “Platinum Rule” mindset, where we “treat others the way THEY want to be treated,” requires a lot more work, interaction, and relationship-building to better understand the equally valuable and valid diverse perspectives and needs of others, and then taking it a step even further, to INTEGRATE those perspectives into our own ways of thinking. In this way, we have a broader, fuller, more robust, and inclusive picture of what’s really going on and what is really needed. A wonderful tool to achieving this mindset shift is the Enneagram. Leaders can first determine through which lens they view the world, then recognize that there are eight other equally important perspectives as well. The goal is to integrate all nine (which already exist within us to some extent) so that we are as empathic and inclusive as possible in all of our interactions, decisions, and relationships. Also, approaching every situation with genuine curiosity to see what we don’t know, and to challenge our human implicit biases, is a great exercise in empathy-building. Ask yourself, “What if my way of thinking isn’t complete?” and
“What other ways of approaching this are there?”

How can empathy help leaders navigate the complexities of leading diverse teams and ensure inclusivity?

Empathy involves being able to take on another person’s perspective, truly understand their situation through genuine curiosity and non-judgmental open-mindedness, and share/validate their feelings with authentic care. This is a critical instrument in every leader’s toolkit to facilitate the complex navigation of leading diverse teams and ensuring inclusivity. Taking on another’s perspective starts the process of creating an inclusive and psychologically safe environment, since the leader is allowing themselves to be open to and value other perspectives, not just their own. It is a recognition that diverse perspectives and opinions are just as valid as one’s own. It is a conscious understanding of other ways of thinking and feeling, and a validation of their importance and relevance to the situation at hand. In this way, empathy leads to inclusivity of diversity in a very meaningful way.

What’s your approach to ensuring that succession planning is a holistic process, and not just confined to the top layers of management? How do you communicate this philosophy through the organization?

One of my biggest epiphanies around succession planning (and this holds true in every company in which I have worked) is that leaders are not approaching the process through an empathetic lens. Leaders identify high-performers (often who mirror their own career journey or educational background) and assume that they will naturally aspire for their leadership role, just like they did … without ever having had the conversation with them!!! This is a total application of the Golden Rule, rather than the Platinum Rule, and often results in difficult and embarrassing conversations when a role opens up and the identified successor turns it down. Beverly Kaye, prolific author of books on employee engagement, recommends that managers hold “Stay Interviews” with each of their team members — basically, meeting with their team members individually to find out what they like about their jobs, what’s engaging, what’s disengaging that they want to change, and their career aspirations. Stay Interviews, if done right, often, and acted upon, should prevent the need for an Exit Interview with these employees. This is the empathetic approach I recommend with all my clients, regardless of level. Making sure they have regular conversations to understand the (sometimes changing) needs of their team members, and making development and succession plans based on this information.

Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways Empathy Will Affect Your Leadership”?

Empathy involves being able to take on another person’s perspective, truly understand their situation through genuine curiosity and non-judgmental open-mindedness, and share/validate their feelings with authentic care, and is a critical component of leadership success. It allows leaders to:

1. Use the appropriate situational leadership style to match the immediate and diverse needs of the environment. Leaders who proactively think outwardly/externally and look to see what is going on around them and how others are feeling and impacted by current happenings and decisions, have better information about which leadership style will match the current needs of the situation (whether it’s the employee’s needs in their lifecycle or the business’s needs impacted by environmental forces). Employees often complain that leaders can be “tone deaf” in times of change, since their leaders don’t exhibit the empathy that employees need to feel understood as human beings progressing through the change curve.

2. Adopt a more inclusive and expansive mindset. Attention to others’ diverse needs and perspectives, and the creation of an environment where those are invited, welcomed, heard, considered, and acted-upon, creates that ever-elusive culture of psychological safety. This, in turn, leads to greater employee engagement, collaboration, satisfaction, productivity, and innovation.

3. Become more strategic and take more strategic action. Adopting and integrating others’ diverse perspectives helps to expand one’s own viewpoint to a more systemic one. This also includes greater focus on customer and stakeholder needs and consideration of what’s going on in the external competitive environment (rather than relying solely on one’s own myopic experiences and perspectives).

4. Make better, well-informed decisions. Rather than relying on just their own experience, instincts, and hunches, leaders who are empathic consider multiple, diverse perspectives and their impacts to select the best way forward.

5. Become more emotionally intelligent and role model EQ (and thus, more successful). Daniel Goleman identified self-awareness, empathy, and self-regulation in taking informed action as components of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence has long been shown to be the differentiator in leadership effectiveness and success.

Are there potential pitfalls or challenges associated with being an empathetic leader? How can these be addressed?

I will share an example from my own experience about where too much empathy ended up literally making me sick. Early on in my career, I was hired to be a Recruiting & Staffing Manager (my first full-time, benefited role!) for a telecommunications research and development company. I spent my first year there hiring over 100 employees into the company. My second year there was drastically and 180-degrees different. The company was preparing for “commercialization” (to be bought by another company) and decided that the task of laying off hundreds of employees would fall on the Recruiting and Staffing Managers. I was voluntold to have one-on-one notification conversations with hundreds of employees, letting them know that their jobs were being eliminated and that they would be unemployed. Some took the news very well, having “retired” or “transferring” from a related parent organization and having their service bridged, presenting them with a huge windfall of severance and taking them into a comfortable retirement. Others, earlier in their careers, single parents, those unready to retire, who needed a consistent paycheck, took it far less well. I overly empathized with them, to the point that, at 25 years old, I developed shingles. And that helped no one. Up until that point, I tested as an ENFJ on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. Since then, I test as ENTJ, although I know that “Feeling” is my more dominant decision-making style. From this incident, I learned that I can be empathic to a point, and I can make sure that I do not let that affect my health. People know when you understand them and their situation — they can feel your empathy. You can still be there for people, understand and feel their situation and point of view, and find a healthy, productive way forward. I have learned that allowing a healthy level of emotional reaction is necessary when dealing with stress, conflict, or frustrating situations — — and that it’s unhealthy to stay there too long. After addressing these emotions in a healthy, productive way, and when the time is right, we must then move on to seeing what is possible now that this door is closed, and finally create an action plan to make it happen. That’s a combination of heart/feelings, head/thinking, and gut/action, in that order, and it’s the ideal sequence for ensuring we’re giving appropriate and optimal focus on each of these critical areas.

Another downside of being too empathetic is that employees may see a leader as being too “affiliative” and think of the leader more as their friend. This may result in expecting and seeking out preferential treatment (favoritism), and can make delivering feedback and managing performance challenging. Leaders who are overly empathetic may want their people to like them — and that can create challenges in an effective, productive, and fair business and working relationship.

Off-topic, but I’m curious. As someone steering the ship, what thoughts or concerns often keep you awake at night? How do those thoughts influence your daily decision-making process?

How can I help my clients and the world become more empathetic and inclusive in their feelings, thinking, and actions? This question is at the forefront of all the work that I do in executive coaching, team-building, and organization development interventions.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

Someone who can give more exposure/circulation to my book “Nina and the Really, Really Tough Decision” that teaches children (and the adults who may read it to them) that human beings have one of nine core motivations/worldviews that drives all of our perceptions, decisions, and behaviors … and that we must be empathetic and integrate all nine of them into our own mindsets in order to leverage that diversity and develop ourselves more fully. I would love to find a way to get this into the hands of teachers, children (around 5–12 years old) and their parents as a way to help make their lives easier from an earlier age, as they develop more empathy and inclusion of diversity. My business book, “The How and Why: Taking Care of Business with the Enneagram” can also help leaders build empathy and emotional intelligence into everything they do.

How can our readers further follow you online?

Feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rkarlhebenstreit or via my website: www.performandfunction.com

Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

About the Interviewer: Cynthia Corsetti is an esteemed executive coach with over two decades in corporate leadership and 11 years in executive coaching. Author of the upcoming book, “Dark Drivers,” she guides high-performing professionals and Fortune 500 firms to recognize and manage underlying influences affecting their leadership. Beyond individual coaching, Cynthia offers a 6-month executive transition program and partners with organizations to nurture the next wave of leadership excellence.