Servant leadership : How to lead with the heart ? | Liz Theophille | TEDxSaclay

Summary

In a thought-provoking talk, Liz Theophille emphasizes the importance of leading with the heart in the corporate world. Sharing her experiences, she illustrates the detrimental effects of fear-based leadership and the necessity of creating psychological safety within teams. Liz recounts her journey from a technical expert to a compassionate leader, highlighting moments where open communication and transparency transformed challenging situations. She advocates for fostering an experimental mindset, encouraging risk-taking, and embodying servant leadership to inspire and empower teams. By prioritizing empathy and understanding, leaders can cultivate a more innovative and resilient workplace.

Takeaways

• 👥 Leadership can take many forms, from traditional power dynamics to heart-led approaches.
• 💔 Leading with the heart involves fostering an environment of psychological safety for teams.
• 🧐 A leader should encourage an experimental mindset, allowing team members to take risks and innovate.
• 🚫 Micromanagement can stifle creativity and hinder team growth; listening is crucial.
• 👨‍💼 A leader's presence and engagement with their team are vital for building trust and understanding.
• 🙌 Servant leadership focuses on supporting and empowering team members rather than blaming them.
• 📉 Addressing failures transparently and collaboratively can enhance team morale and accountability.
• 🤝 Providing feedback is essential for growth, and leaders should be open to receiving it as well.
• 💪 Making difficult decisions, such as layoffs, should be handled with compassion and transparency.
• 🌱 Cultivating an environment where experimentation is encouraged leads to learning from failures and successes.

Q & A

What are some examples of leaders mentioned in the script?

The script refers to various types of leaders, such as parents, business owners, older siblings, and those who wish to lead in addressing global problems.

How does Liz define a leader who leads with the heart?

A leader who leads with the heart is open-minded, encourages an experimental mindset, provides psychological safety, and embodies the principles of servant leadership.

What challenges did Liz face when leading the transformation program?

Liz encountered a team that was afraid to speak up, lacked trust in their leadership, and spent time blaming each other for mistakes.

What did Liz's boss prioritize during the investigation of the project failure?

Liz's boss prioritized finding someone to blame for the failure, indicating a lack of understanding and support for the team's challenges.

What realization did Liz have about her own leadership style?

Liz recognized that her previous micromanagement approach stifled her team's creativity and innovation, leading her to adopt a more supportive leadership style.

How did Liz handle the difficult decision to let go of employees during the data center consolidation?

Liz chose to personally meet with each affected employee to explain the situation, instead of relying on HR to handle it without personal interaction.

What is 'psychological safety,' and why is it important?

Psychological safety is an environment where team members feel safe to take risks, experiment, and learn from failures without fear of negative consequences. It's essential for fostering open communication and innovation.

What are the three key practices Liz suggests for leading with the heart?

Liz suggests encouraging an experimental mindset, creating an environment of psychological safety, and being a servant leader who listens and shows compassion.

How did Liz demonstrate servant leadership in her career?

Liz demonstrated servant leadership by being willing to receive feedback, showing compassion to her team, and prioritizing the well-being of her colleagues over her own career advancement.

What impact does Liz believe an experimental mindset has on teams?

Liz believes that cultivating an experimental mindset leads to innovation and learning, as it allows teams to embrace failures as part of the growth process.

Outlines

00:00

❤️ Leading with the Heart: A New Approach to Leadership

In this segment, Liz Theophille introduces the concept of leading with the heart, contrasting it with traditional leadership styles that rely on power, hierarchy, and fear. She recounts her experiences leading a team involved in a troubled transformation program, highlighting the fear and blame culture that prevailed among team members. Liz emphasizes the necessity of fostering psychological safety and an experimental mindset within teams, allowing them to feel secure in sharing their thoughts and mistakes. She reflects on her own leadership journey, moving from a micromanaging technical expert to a compassionate leader, and stresses the importance of understanding and connecting with the team.

05:00

👥 Creating Psychological Safety and Empathy in Leadership

Liz shares personal anecdotes from her experiences as a leader, including a challenging decision to consolidate data centers that resulted in the layoff of 400 employees. She highlights the importance of handling such situations with empathy and human connection, opting to personally meet with each affected employee rather than relying solely on HR to deliver the news. This act exemplifies her belief in leading with the heart and being a servant leader. Liz discusses the critical nature of psychological safety, asserting that it enables teams to take risks and learn from failures. The segment emphasizes the need for leaders to be open to feedback and to create an environment that encourages transparent communication.

10:01

🌱 Encouraging an Experimental Mindset in Teams

In the concluding part, Liz outlines actionable steps for effective leadership: fostering an experimental mindset, creating psychological safety, and practicing servant leadership. She acknowledges that experimenting may lead to failures but emphasizes the importance of cultivating a culture that embraces learning from those failures. Liz encourages leaders to be supportive and compassionate, urging them to listen to their teams and invite feedback. By doing so, leaders can develop not only their teams but also their own leadership skills. Liz concludes with a heartfelt call to action, inviting her audience to practice at least one of these principles in their leadership journey.

Keywords

💡Leadership

Leadership is the act of guiding and influencing others towards achieving common goals. In the video, Liz Theophille discusses two contrasting styles of leadership: one that relies on power and fear, and another that leads with empathy and understanding. This distinction emphasizes the importance of compassionate leadership in fostering trust and collaboration within teams.

💡Psychological Safety

Psychological safety refers to an environment where individuals feel secure enough to take risks and express their thoughts without fear of negative consequences. Liz highlights that creating a psychologically safe workplace is crucial for encouraging experimentation and innovation, as it allows team members to voice their ideas and concerns freely. The script underscores this when Liz mentions the need for feedback to understand different perspectives.

💡Servant Leadership

Servant leadership is a philosophy where the leader prioritizes the needs of their team members and helps them develop and perform as highly as possible. Liz embodies this concept by actively listening to her team, showing compassion, and seeking their feedback, demonstrating that leadership is not about power but service. Her commitment to serve her team is illustrated when she chooses to inform the affected employees about organizational changes personally.

💡Experimental Mindset

An experimental mindset encourages individuals to embrace trial and error, understanding that failure can lead to growth and innovation. Liz emphasizes the need for leaders to foster this mindset within their teams to promote creativity and adaptability. She shares her past experience of micromanaging, realizing that it stifled her team's ability to experiment and innovate.

💡Fear of Failure

Fear of failure is the apprehension about making mistakes or not meeting expectations, which can hinder performance and open communication within a team. In the video, Liz observes this fear among her team, noting how it led to blame-shifting and a lack of transparency. By addressing this fear, leaders can create a more open environment where team members feel safe to share their failures and learn from them.

💡Trust

Trust is the belief in the reliability and integrity of others. Liz points out that a lack of trust between her company and the client led to significant challenges in the project. She emphasizes that leaders must build trust not only with clients but also within their teams, which can be fostered through transparency, open communication, and supportive actions.

💡Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, which is vital for effective leadership. Liz advocates for leading with the heart, indicating that empathetic leaders can better connect with their teams and address their needs. This is illustrated when Liz chooses to personally communicate with employees about layoffs, recognizing the emotional impact of such decisions.

💡Communication

Communication is the process of sharing information and ideas, crucial for team collaboration and success. Liz stresses the importance of open communication in creating a psychologically safe environment. She highlights her experience where poor communication led to misunderstandings and a lack of engagement among team members.

💡Feedback

Feedback is information provided about performance or behavior, which is essential for growth and improvement. Liz mentions the significance of soliciting feedback from her team as a way to foster an environment of openness and support. By valuing feedback, leaders can adapt their approaches and better meet the needs of their teams.

💡Transformation

Transformation refers to significant changes made to improve or innovate within an organization. Liz recounts her experience leading a major transformation project that involved consolidating data centers. This narrative underscores the challenges and emotional complexities involved in managing organizational change, particularly regarding the impact on employees.

Highlights

Leaders can come from various backgrounds, including parents, business owners, and siblings.

Leadership can be characterized by power, hierarchy, and fear or by openness and compassion.

Liz Theophille shares her experience of leading a failed transformation program and the issues with team dynamics.

The investigation revealed a team that was fearful of speaking up and blaming each other.

A significant issue was the boss's lack of awareness of team dynamics and failures.

Liz emphasizes the importance of encouraging an experimental mindset in teams.

She reflects on her evolution from a technical expert to a leader who empowers her team.

The importance of psychological safety in fostering an environment where team members can take risks is highlighted.

Liz recounts a challenging experience of laying off 400 employees and the humane approach she chose.

She advocated for meeting with each affected employee to explain the situation, contrasting with typical practices.

Leading with the heart involves considering the emotional impact of decisions on others.

Liz emphasizes the role of feedback in creating a culture of psychological safety.

Being a servant leader means being receptive to feedback and willing to adapt as a leader.

Liz encourages leaders to create environments where experimentation is welcomed, even with failures.

She concludes with three actionable insights for leaders: encourage experimentation, foster psychological safety, and practice servant leadership.

Transcripts

Transcriber: Beibei Jiang Reviewer: Tanya Cushman

Leadership.

Who here considers themselves a leader?

Maybe you're a parent, or you might be a business owner,

or what about an older sibling?

Or maybe you just want to go around the world,

telling people how you're going to solve all the problems.

But what kind of leader?

Is it someone that really leads with power?

Maybe it's hierarchy?

Maybe it's fear.

Or are you a leader that is open-minded and leads with the heart?

Today, I'm going to share with you

what it's like being a leader that leads with the heart.

Many years ago,

I started a new role in a new company.

And one of my first assignments was to lead an investigation

for a transformation program that had gone extremely badly.

The client was very upset with how the company was performing,

and in most cases, we had lost trust with the client.

When I met with the team that were leading the program,

I noticed that they had a fear of speaking up

and of talking about many of their mistakes,

and they spent most of their time blaming each other.

Now, when I talked to the boss,

he said I really didn't understand what was going on

and the team were not sharing with me what was happening.

Now, I was very surprised by his reaction.

And when I met with the client,

the client said, "I don't want to meet with him anymore."

Now, the team,

when they continued to speak with me,

I noticed that they had a fear of failure and speaking up.

And I also noticed

that they really thought that the boss was not present,

didn't attend steering meetings,

and more importantly, didn't really care what was going on.

When I handed in the report when I completed the investigation,

the first thing my boss said:

"Liz, who's responsible for this, and who should I blame?

Who should I fire?"

Now, I was very surprised by that question,

and I asked him,

"What do you think your part was in this colossal project failure?"

And his response was "It surely has to be the team."

Now, it's very interesting that during such a program,

the boss would blame the team.

And I remember in the discussions,

I said, "How do you know the team?

Do you know what they do?

Do you spend time with them?

Do you ask them questions?"

And he said, "All the time."

But it was very clear that he wasn't present.

Now, have a look at this picture.

My name is Liz Theophille,

and I'm the chief technology and digital officer

to a large global healthcare company.

I grew up in an environment that really focused on strong leadership.

But I believe to become a leader that leads with the heart,

you need to encourage experimental mindset,

you need to provide psychological safety for teams,

and, also, you need to be a servant leader.

But I grew up in an era, in a culture where leaders were feared

and not necessarily respected for what they knew.

That was during difficult times,

but I believe there's better ways of leading.

Now, you've probably noticed

that I have an extremely strong Scottish accent.

Right?

Yes, I grew up in Scotland.

But I don't have all the mannerisms of a Scottish person.

I'm more like this.

I'm very proud,

I'm strong, and I'm determined.

But I recognize

some of the mannerisms of my boss and the team in myself,

especially when I was a young leader,

when I started off.

I was very technical.

But when I started to evolve from a technical expert

into leading teams of technical people,

I used to micromanage.

I used to check on everything that was happening

because I knew many of the solutions and the answers.

And I'm sure that was very intimidating

for the teams.

But I know that there is a better way, by leading with the heart,

where you can motivate and inspire teams.

There was an occasion

when I was leading my first technical team.

I had someone in the team that was extremely strong technically.

But he was quite introverted in nature.

And in many occasions, he loved experimenting with technology.

And he didn't share some of the things he was doing.

So I actually thought he was playing around.

And when we sat in meetings and discussed what the deliverables were

and what we need to expect from him,

he didn't really speak up,

he didn't say much.

So I started to think

that he wasn't paying attention to what was going on.

When I sat with him during reviews, he didn't say much,

but he asked me a lot of questions.

And because I was very technical, I would answer all the questions.

But I realized that I was stifling his creativity and his innovation

because I wasn't giving him enough time to think.

I know better now.

I don't want to intimidate teams by not listening

and creating what I would call "an experimental mindset,"

where you can take risks and you can experiment with technology.

There was another time

when I had to lead

one of the most complex and hardest transformations

I've ever done in my career.

I was a leader at that time of what we called "global data centers."

These are large technical centers where we have computers and so on.

And I remember I had three major regional data centers:

one in the UK, one in Germany and one in France.

One of my tasks was to consolidate all of those data centers into one.

And of course, we chose France.

(Applause)

I wouldn't clap yet.

(Laughter)

Now,

that meant that I had to let go

close to 400 employees.

These were employees that I worked with in the past.

I grew up with them.

We had lunch together.

We sometimes went out together.

We solve problems together.

But I had to let 400 people go.

And I remember when I met with HR

and we had the conversation about how we go about this,

they said, "Liz, don't worry.

It's our job to take care of that.

We will meet with them, and we will give them their letters."

Now, I was very, very shocked by this process, being a new leader.

And I said,

"That is a very inhumane, cowardly and faceless way

to manage employees

that have worked for the company for such a long time."

And I said to them,

"Is it okay if I meet with every single employee

and explain what's happening?"

Now, they found that quite strange.

They said, "Liz, that's very unusual.

But we'll allow you to do it if you feel that you can do it.”

So I sat down with every employee,

and I explained the context

of why we were rationalizing in consolidating the data centers.

I also talked about many of the objectives

and what it meant for them.

And it was very hard.

During that process, I started to think,

How can I be credible?

I'm sitting there telling my colleagues

that they're going to leave the organization,

and I'm still there.

So I decided to go to my boss, and I said,

"Once this transition is complete, I will leave the organization."

Now that's what I call leading with the heart.

It's very important

that you consider the other person's situation.

And in fact, my boss told me that there was a promotion waiting for me.

But I still decided to leave.

(Applause)

So - thank you.

(Applause)

Let me talk to you

about how you manage what I call "psychological safety."

I talked about leading with the heart,

but in order to experiment, you have to take some big risks.

And it's important while you're taking those risks

that you create an environment of psychological safety.

I typically do that

with allowing my team to give me feedback,

because that helps to understand the other point of view.

And that helps them take risks

because they know you're going to support them.

So psychological safety is absolutely critical:

it's critical to create a safe environment that allows you to experiment

but also allows you to fail and learn.

But feedback sometimes is very hard as a leader

because you think you're strong.

But being a servant leader

means that you're able to take the feedback,

and it also means that you're able to change.

So I believe in being that servant leader.

So if I can just leave you with a couple of things

from my presentation.

I hope it demonstrates how you can lead with the heart.

So I have three things,

but you only need to choose one of them.

Because I would like you to practice one of them.

So first of all,

encourage an environment where you can experiment

and have an experimental mindset.

But that means you will have many, many false starts

but also many failures.

But cultivate and embrace an experimental mindset.

Number two,

create an environment of psychological safety.

You will be amazed at how open, honest and transparent your team will be.

They will share many things with you.

And last but not least, be a servant leader.

Listen, show compassion, ask for feedback -

because it truly helps you develop as a leader.

I hope that helps you to lead with the heart.

Merci beaucoup.

(Applause)