Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Empathic Leader – a conversation with author Melissa Robinson Winemiller
7 Plays2 hours ago
How EQ via Empathy Transforms Leadership for Better Profit, Productivity, and Innovation.
Melissa Robinson-Winemiller is a trainer who operates on a global basis. Melissa believes that in an era where everyone is niching down, empathy is the one thing that benefits the whole human race.
In this episode of The Independent Minds Melissa explains to host Michael Millward what empathy and emotional intelligence (EQ) are.
Michael and Melissa explore why despite evidence of the value added by managers with empathy and EQ skills many organisations still see it as an optional extra.
Their discussion includes an examination of how leadership and management are different, how those differences have evolved since the start of the industrial revolution and what the future of leadership and management is likely to look like.
They compare how industrial organisations and natural organisms are structured and the lessons leaders can take from the differences. Perhaps most importantly they identify how empathic leadership can help any organisation put substance into the phrase:
Our People Are Our Most Important Asset.
More information about Melissa Robinson Winemaker and Michael Millward is available at abeceder.
Audience Offers
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, because as the all-in-one podcasting platform, Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Travel
With discounted membership of the Ultimate Travel Club, you can travel anywhere at trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, and many more travel related purchases.
Fit For Work We recommend The Annual Health Test from York Test; a 39-health marker Annual Health Test conducted by an experienced phlebotomist with hospital standard tests carried out in a UKAS-accredited and CQC-compliant laboratory.
A secure Personal Wellness Hub provides easy-to-understand results and lifestyle guidance
Visit York Test and use this discount code MIND25.
Visit Three for information about business and personal telecom solutions from Three, and the special offers available when you quote my referral code WPFNUQHU.
Being a Guest
We recommend the podcasting guest training programmes available from Work Place Learning Centre.
We use Matchmaker.fm to connect with potential guests If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests or if you have something interesting to say Matchmaker.fm is where great guests and great hosts are matched and great podcasts are hatched. Use our offer code MILW10 for a discount on membership.
We appreciate every like, download, and subscriber.
Thank you for listening.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Independent Minds Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
on zencaster Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:23
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Middleward, the Managing Director of Abbasida.
Introducing Melissa Robinson-Weinmiller and Podcast Production
00:00:28
Speaker
In this episode of The Independent Minds, I am talking to Melissa Robinson-Weinemiller,
00:00:35
Speaker
the author of The Emphatic Leader, How EQ via Empathy Transforms Leadership for Better Profit, Productivity and Innovation.
00:00:46
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production and distribution process so easy.
Recommendations and Promotions
00:01:04
Speaker
Regardless of whether you are an experienced podcaster or just starting out, I recommend that you use the link in the description to visit Zencastr.com and take advantage of the built-in discount.
00:01:17
Speaker
Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencastr is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:29
Speaker
and probably also good enough to share with your friends, your family, and your work colleagues. And if I'm not being too cheeky, also probably worth sharing with your manager.
Melissa's Journey from Music to Empathy Leadership
00:01:41
Speaker
As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Today's independent mind is Melissa Robinson-Weinmiller, the author of The Emphatic Leader, How EQ via Empathy Transforms Leadership for Better Profit, Productivity and Innovation.
00:02:04
Speaker
You may have heard Melissa on TEDx. ah She is a trainer who works on a global scale with clients around the globe. from North America to Australia, including the United Kingdom.
00:02:17
Speaker
Melissa is based in Stillwater, Oklahoma. It's not somewhere that I have ever visited. When I do get the opportunity to visit, I will use my membership of the Ultimate Travel Club to access trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays and all sorts of other travel-related purchases.
00:02:35
Speaker
In the spirit of sharing, I have added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club and travel at trade prices.
00:02:46
Speaker
Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds and say, hello, Melissa. Hi, Michael. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really pleased that you were available. You can tell that I'm really pleased because I think the turnaround between first contact and booking this was very quick.
00:03:06
Speaker
Normally, with all the people who want to be on, it does take a little while. So we are on very quickly and I really do appreciate your time. So thank you very much. Please could we start by you just explaining a little bit about your history and how you ended up becoming a trainer on a global scale.
00:03:22
Speaker
Sure, because it is, I mean, it's not like you say I'm going to go to school to be an empathy person. It's not. was actually a professional musician, professionally trained classical French hornist. One of the instruments that are difficult to hold, isn't it? Difficult to hold, difficult to play, especially when you're kind of the lone female back in the section with all these big guys that, you know, have all these big brass instruments.
00:03:46
Speaker
I loved it. That's what I did for 40 some years. and And I loved it. I mean, I, I performed, I got to perform with like Ray Charles, you know, some, some really cool people. nicey And I also had my depth, my first doctorate and I was teaching French horn, but at a university. So I was a French horn professor, which there's not a lot of those.
00:04:06
Speaker
You found your niche. ah For sure. yeah I ended up in a really toxic workplace. it was It was really kind of a horrible situation. And I ended up having to, by the time it was said and done, within those seven years, I ended up having to leave music altogether.
Understanding Empathy and Emotional Intelligence
00:04:22
Speaker
And then COVID happened. And that was especially hard on the arts and people in the arts. And The thing is, is even as I was doing some consulting with my husband, he's in healthcare. care So we started doing some consulting work and coaching work.
00:04:37
Speaker
I couldn't stop asking what had allowed this other situation to be so toxic, especially something that number one was a university. So if you're going to be able to relate to other people and create, you know, the next generation, that should be the place.
00:04:55
Speaker
But number two, it was music. I mean, this isn't art. This is something people do because they love it. And there's there's some really harsh things about going to conservatory and that sort of thing. But it was music. Nobody's dying.
00:05:08
Speaker
Nobody is, you know, creating great cures. Nobody is pressing forward into the future. So why make it such a horrible, toxic, evil place to be?
00:05:19
Speaker
Passions run high sometimes, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there just was no reason for it. No. So I started kind of doubling down and trying to figure out what had happened and more to the point, what I could have done to either stop it from happening or fix it in the future. Because I didn't want anyone to ever feel the way I felt in that situation.
00:05:41
Speaker
Yeah. So I started doing some more studying and I was doing some some work anyway. And I decided to go back and pursue the business side of things. I'm working on my second doctorate now in interdisciplinary leadership.
00:05:53
Speaker
And the dissertation is on empathy and leadership. So it's something that I am that passionate about and that I think our society needs that bad. I don't disagree with you at all.
00:06:06
Speaker
And and there's there's tons of stuff we can get into, into and around it. But the leadership angle especially, because, you know, leaders are in a position to affect huge groups of people.
00:06:17
Speaker
So if you're going to have people with emotional intelligence and specifically empathy, it seems like a really good place to start. It does. A good place to start, I think, is by defining your definition of empathy and emotional intelligence. So when you talk about empathy, what is it that you mean?
00:06:37
Speaker
this ah empathy is actually a really interesting word because it spans so many disciplines. It spans psychology and philosophy and biology and neurobiology and primatology, developmental psychology.
00:06:49
Speaker
So because of that, there's a lot of different definitions. Like during the time that we've used empathy as a thing, which is actually only since about 1910, there's been different definitions.
00:07:02
Speaker
Wow. The one that really wraps them all up is that it's understanding and connection by taking the perspective of the other. So that's in a nutshell, people think it's about feeling.
00:07:15
Speaker
And there is one kind of empathy. It's called emotional empathy, and that's part of it. But it's not all of it. And that's what gets missed. So empathy, connection and understanding through perspective taking.
00:07:26
Speaker
emotional intelligence defined in 1990. So we've been playing around with this for 35 years. The definition I like the best is the one the original authors of the first article on this actually had.
00:07:39
Speaker
And it's that it's the understanding and control of your emotions and the understanding of others' motivations for action. And that's why I like it, because it's not just something you have, something you use.
00:07:52
Speaker
Yes. When you talk about empathy, you're talking about understanding the perception of other people. It rolls off your tongue so easily, but it's so difficult to do.
00:08:04
Speaker
It is. is. It is. it is But it is learnable. It's a skill, part of it. Yes, everything everything is learnable. Some people will find it easier than others, but it it is ultimately something that you can learn how to do.
00:08:20
Speaker
And if you understand it, you can learn how to do it better. Yes. It is, in many ways. One of those things where we all have an instinctive emotional response to any situation.
00:08:35
Speaker
If you are a leader, regardless of whether you call it empathy or emotional intelligence or whatever way you do you choose to describe it. Part of being a leader is being able to know this is my instinctive emotional response to this situation, but I don't need to share that with people until I have understood the situation and then i can give my opinion about it.
Leadership vs Management: Machinery and Organism
00:09:01
Speaker
Absolutely. That falls under that controlling your own emotion part of emotional intelligence. Yes. Controlling your emotions, understanding your emotions. And so I suppose if you're going to be someone who works with your empathy and emotional intelligence before you can actually do any leadership of other people,
00:09:22
Speaker
you've really got to learn about yourself. You've got to work out how you as a machine, your brain, your emotions, your mind, how all of that works before you start to think about being a leader of other people. Absolutely.
00:09:38
Speaker
Without a doubt. I mean, you don't even need to have me on. You're absolutely right.
00:09:44
Speaker
yeah but i I hadn't thought about it, though, Melissa, until you started talking about it. yeah right And your definitions of empathy and emotional intelligence made me realize that we have to identify these sorts of skills as something which...
00:10:01
Speaker
either we have or we don't have but even if we have we should learn how to capitalize on them in order to then put them into action effectively and i use the word capitalize because that has a business context and i think part of the issue that we face at the moment in 2025 is that although organizations know about empathy and emotional intelligence, it's still very much a nice to have.
00:10:33
Speaker
And yet in your book, with the very long title, you're building the business case for more empathy and emotional intelligence in a commercial environment or any business environment, whether it's not for profit or a commercial or some sort of government organization, you're building the business case for empathy and emotional intelligence.
00:10:56
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Because, I mean, and you said it, for all this time we've thought, you know, this is a nice to have, like it's a like it's a value added kind of thing. And it's not, because it's the very basis of how we interact as human beings.
00:11:12
Speaker
Business at its heart is human beings. It doesn't matter if it's customers or it's employees or it's your board of directors. It doesn't matter if your entire industry is mostly AI.
00:11:23
Speaker
At the end of the day, you are dealing with people. So the more you can connect and interact with those people, the better off your organization is going to be. Yes.
00:11:34
Speaker
It's all down to the relationships. At some point or another, there will be a relationship that you have to manage. Yes. Yep. Why is it then in the 200 years or so since the industrial revolution, which is where managers and were started to be invented, the overseers, think is one of the words that we used.
00:11:56
Speaker
Why is it that only now that we're starting to talk about these sorts of things? I believe that it has to do with how we've looked at management. I would thoroughly enjoy sitting down and having a cup of coffee and flushing all this out with you, yeah know?
00:12:11
Speaker
Because when you're looking at management theory, it goes back a long way, but it did change with the industrial revolution. And the way they look at an organization is as a machine.
00:12:24
Speaker
And the people really are cogs in that machine. And you can plug a cog in, you can take a cog out, you can replace those cogs. But it has to be ah machine that's running smoothly, inputs and outputs, inputs and outputs.
00:12:38
Speaker
But people aren't machines. And that's the difference between management and leadership, because management looks at the organization as a machine. Leadership looks at the organization as an organism, because a machine can't grow.
00:12:52
Speaker
ah machine can't innovate. A machine can't evolve. But an organism can. So as a leader, if you're someone that has a vision that really wants to be able to take this organism, this organization into the future, you understand that it takes more than just inputs and outputs, which means people are more than just cogs that you plug in and plug out and get rid of them when you think they don't work.
00:13:19
Speaker
I like that a lot.
00:13:23
Speaker
This idea that an organization is a machine and a machine is made of inanimate objects, whether it's ah made of steel and it presses, makes a physical product, or whether it's a computer and it controls a process sort of thing.
00:13:39
Speaker
It's a machine and you're quite right. A machine, it just does what it's supposed to do. Organism is something that's living and breathing and ties in with that expression that I hear so many times.
00:13:53
Speaker
our People are our most valuable asset. Yes. When you take that very often, in many organizations, people will hear that and be thinking, well, I don't feel like your most valuable asset.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah. but if you then and Take that idea of people being valuable assets and combine it with the idea that your organization is actually an organism and has cells and can grow and develop. And it does that through its people.
00:14:24
Speaker
Then you start to think about your organization in a completely different way. Yes, and I think in a way that's more appropriate yeah because if you think of an organism, right, it's built of systems.
00:14:36
Speaker
You have the cardiovascular system, you have neurological systems, you have the nervous system, you have all of these different systems that all have to work together to keep this organism moving.
00:14:49
Speaker
If you want it to grow and be healthy and organizations are the same way, you've got all of these different systems that maybe don't even really interconnect, but need to be able to working in tandem to be able to create health for this organism so that it can
Leadership Lessons from Music and Orchestras
00:15:04
Speaker
grow.
00:15:04
Speaker
Isn't that one of the classic forever type issues that organizations face is that people in different parts of the organization do not know very much about each other and end up working in silos.
00:15:20
Speaker
And that then leads to struggles, difficulties, sometimes collapses within organizations. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, if you even if you think of the human body as a collection of systems, it's not like the brain and the heart and the gastric system and, you know, the nervous system are completely disconnected.
00:15:41
Speaker
Because if it did, we wouldn't last very long. That is so true. Now you're making me think of a episode of Fit for My Age, which I recorded with um Yakult. And one of their scientists was explaining to me about how, yeah, all of the information from the brain is communicated to the rest of the body via the nervous system.
00:16:06
Speaker
But when you mentioned the gut, the gut is the only part of the human body which sends messages back to the brain. So I'm feeling very clever at the moment, given your analogy of the the human body as ah an organization built above systems.
00:16:22
Speaker
I'm thinking that when we are managers of an organization, we have the brain and we have all the different organs in the body and the organs wait to be told what to do by the brain. But if we're a leader, then we are also able to receive the information back.
00:16:39
Speaker
from the gut, for example, because the gut is the the center point, is which fuels everything else. And that tells the brain when to stop putting more fuel in or when to actually start putting fuel in.
00:16:53
Speaker
It tells us the brain, I am hungry, feed me, feed me. yeah It's it that analogy between an organization and a human body is that Yes, the body works in this way, but and having had that conversation about how the gut talks to the brain, I can see the difference between how a manager would operate and how a leader would operate and how in order to build and to demonstrate that emotional intelligence and empathy, you need to listen before you speak and you need to listen before you act.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yes. Back when I was in music, one of the things that we would say is that in order to create music, it's 80% listening and 20% noise.
00:17:40
Speaker
I think that's that's true for anything. Because as listening, as you're gathering information and you're understanding what's going on, then you can actually speak in a way that makes sense. You understand what you're dealing with.
00:17:53
Speaker
Plus, just like music, if you want to be able to create harmonies and you want to be able to interact and you want to be able to dovetail things that are coming in and coming out. You have to listen. Otherwise, you just step in the hole and make noise to the wrong kind of noise.
00:18:09
Speaker
So when you're on your French horn in the orchestra and it's the time for the the string section to do their part, you're not sitting back and relaxing. You're concentrating on what you are hearing from the string section, mapping it against what you can see in terms of the the sheet of music.
00:18:31
Speaker
And that's when you know how you're then going to be playing your part. and playing your part at the right time in the right way. Absolutely. Because I'm not just listening, I'm learning.
00:18:44
Speaker
I'm hearing what they're doing. I'm following how they're doing it. You know, if I want to be able to match their tone and I want to be able to match the sound and I want to be able to match the feel and that keeps me from stomping into it like a barbarian attack.
00:18:59
Speaker
And it's the same with leadership. Yes. The orchestra, just to use this analogy a little bit more, is that when you say you have to play your instrument in the same way as everyone else is playing their instruments.
00:19:14
Speaker
So you end up with the the right tone to the music. Yeah, I mean, it's it's more just an understanding of this is how we're doing. It's not like you have to do it like this. It's more that we are doing this and collaborating together.
00:19:29
Speaker
And so to be able to create the best possible product, I want to be listening and learning and understanding and, yeah, precisely have that perspective taking so that I can take this collaboration to the next level.
00:19:43
Speaker
It's very difficult to operate an orchestra without the conductor. Not necessarily. I've seen an entire orchestra do Beethoven's Third Symphony pretty much without a conductor because they would listen and they would collaborate.
00:19:56
Speaker
And there's there's this synergy that comes from being able to work together. In fact, that's an example that I use for leaders that I have seen an orchestra do, you know, 45-minute symphony on their own by listening.
The Impact of Empathy on Business Success
00:20:12
Speaker
They would have been better with a leader, but they could do it.
00:20:15
Speaker
But if you've ever seen a conductor practicing like in front of a mirror and just flapping his or her arms, it's actually kind of pathetic. The orchestra survives way better on its own than the leader does. That's a good point as well.
00:20:27
Speaker
But I'm wondering about how this symphony started. There must have been somebody who conducted the start of it. Probably. Well, in that case, the principal violin stood up and just gave the downbeat to get everybody to start and then sat back down.
00:20:40
Speaker
That's a form of conducting. Well, that's a... It's debatable. We'll agree to disagree on that one. How's that?
00:20:50
Speaker
We'll agree to disagree, but I think the the point is that, yes, teams can operate independently. If everyone knows what their job is and how that job needs to be done and the standard that it needs to be done to, the teams can operate without any leader.
00:21:07
Speaker
That's almost like a sign of... a good leader, a good leader can go away on holiday and be confident that everything is still going to carry on.
00:21:18
Speaker
If they manager is probably who's managing the process and managing the machine, maybe might not have the same sort of freedom to not be there.
00:21:32
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. And they probably don't want to. I mean, those are those that are are very heavily on the management side of things sometimes are a little afraid to allow, to give up any control or to, you know, lessen their grip at all.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yes. Well, a manager is managing administering the process as part of the organization. ah The leader his has a different type of relationship with the team. There is more empathy.
00:22:03
Speaker
There is more emotional intelligence. So that there's also more opportunity for team. members of the team to feedback, to have conversations with their leader.
00:22:16
Speaker
So you've also got the empowerment aspect, which then leads to even more innovation as well, I suppose. Absolutely. I mean, there's there's data out there that, so there was a study done by Ernst & Young, and they were looking specifically at the end of the Great Resignation and why people were leaving.
00:22:35
Speaker
And they wanted to know about empathy, but empathy in these organizations. You know, how what's the effect? What does it do? What are people's perceptions? And what they found, and this is actually where the title of my book came from, is that when leaders used empathy, they increased productivity by 87%, innovation and creativity by 86%, and profit by 84%. Those are big numbers. Yes.
00:22:59
Speaker
And that's a solid business case because this isn't Melissa's opinion. This is Ernst & Young's. Yes. And they have the data to back it up as well. Part of me is wondering what, as an employee, I would be experiencing and feeling when you're on the receiving end of empathy and emotional intelligence from your leader.
00:23:21
Speaker
What does it feel like for the employee? Generally, they're a lot more fulfilled in their positions. They feel heard and like they're contributing as opposed to feeling like they're kind of on the outside watching. They don't feel orphaned.
00:23:34
Speaker
You end up losing a lot of the cliques and the, you know, where you'll get groups of people that are kind of wrestling for control kind of thing. Basically, it's it's a humanization of these organizations.
00:23:47
Speaker
They feel like they're doing the best that they're doing. you know, within this organism that they can as a collaborator, yeah which is important for a place that you're going to be for a major chunk of your life.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yes, yeah. A third of your day will be spent in in a work type environment. yeah It is worth finding one where you can actually feel that sort of positivity about being there.
00:24:11
Speaker
Yeah, positivity about being there.
The Future of Empathetic Leadership in a Tech World
00:24:14
Speaker
yeah I do get the feeling in many ways that we're sort of like on the cusp of something new in the way in which people work and how that work is coordinated.
00:24:26
Speaker
What do you think about the future of leadership I could not agree more. i I really think with the advent of AI and things that don't have empathy, big data, big tech, that the people that have empathy and emotional intelligence and these human-to-human skills are going to become the craftsmen, as far as leadership goes, of the future, because they're going to have a skill that AI can't provide.
00:24:55
Speaker
If empathy is understanding and connection through perspective taking, AI can't take anybody else's perspective and it does not understand or connect. So the people that can actually harness the skill are going to be the ones that are going to lead us into the future.
00:25:09
Speaker
The managers will do great with AI because it's inputs and outputs. The leaders are going to be supercharged. What a great way to end our conversation, Melissa. That's ah really brilliant. I've enjoyed this no end, and I hope that we get the opportunity to have another conversation very soon. But for today, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time.
00:25:31
Speaker
It is my pleasure. This has been a lot of fun. And I meant what I said. I bet you and I could have a really good conversation over probably a couple cups of coffee. That would be good. yeah We'll book that into our diaries. But today, thank you. I'm looking forward to our next conversation.
00:25:46
Speaker
Thank you very much. I appreciate it, you and your audience and getting people to think independently because we need as many independent thinkers as we can get. That's true.
00:25:57
Speaker
That's true. I am Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Melissa Robinson-Winemiller, the author of The Emphatic Leader, How EQ via Empathy Transforms Leadership for Better Profits, Productivity and Innovation.
00:26:18
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. One of the key things for managers, leaders is to stay healthy. And one of the best ways to stay healthy is to know the risks early.
00:26:31
Speaker
That is why we recommend the health tests from York test, especially their annual health test. The annual health test from York test provides an assessment of 39 different health markers.
00:26:44
Speaker
The annual health test is conducted by an experienced phlebotomist who will complete a full blood draw at your home or workplace. And hospital standard tests are carried out in a UK AS accredited and CQC compliant laboratory.
00:26:57
Speaker
You can access easy to understand results and guidance to help you make effective lifestyle changes anytime by your secure personal wellness hub account. As you would expect, there is a link and a discount code in the description.
00:27:12
Speaker
I'm sure you will have enjoyed listening to this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Melissa and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:27:25
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:27:29
Speaker
And hopefully you'll want to share the link with your friends, your family and your work colleagues and potentially with your manager as well.
00:27:38
Speaker
Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think. Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.