""Organisations that fail to hire for and develop positive character among their leaders are missing an opportunity.."

A great conversation with Mary about the crucial relationship between character and leadership, and how it can enable transformation in organisations and organisational culture.

We dive into the 11 dimensions of character with corresponding behaviours and look at the importance for leaders to balance extremes and manage polarities to promote inclusive and collaborative spaces.

We discuss dismantling the assumption of static character and empowering leaders to embrace personal agency in their decision-making processes. Our conversation goes beyond the surface, tackling the subconscious influences on our behaviour, balancing polarities and looking at the various different levers for developing character, as well as challenging biases in different processes and systems.

What is the impact of taking Character into account ? A significant shift in the environment within organisations, calling for a re-evaluation of leadership selection to be more character-centric.

Mary shares her research and experience from running educational programmes with leaders all over the world on Character and its impact on leadership in today's workplace.

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

- Character development can unleash excellence once unlocked, but linking the science of character to leadership is a relatively new concept. Leadership was on trial during the economic crisis in 2008 – the leadership failures that led to the global financial crisis were not a failure of competence but a failure of character.

- What is character? Is it possible to develop character? There is no evidence that character is ingrained and cannot change, but it should not be confused with personality, which is semi-stable (e.g. introvert/extrovert).

- Character is a set of specific behaviours that satisfy criteria, and each one of these behaviours can be developed as a habit. Most of us have underdeveloped character because we don’t know of the possibility to develop it.

- There are metrics, e.g. 11 dimensions of character with 62 associated behaviours, and Aristotle called character practical wisdom – the key facet is that any virtue operates as either an excess or a deficiency, e.g. a lot of courage requires a lot of temperance.

- We need to understand that strengths operate in a dysfunctional way in the face of the virtue vs. vice polarity; operating with a deficiency must be recognised and excess must countered, e.g. tenacity/grit has to be offset to avoid negative outcomes.

- The link between character and DE&I is that understanding character can create a more inclusive environment in which people can thrive. We judge ourselves on our intention and others on their behaviour, but character is about observable behaviour, and our intentions mask our lack of understanding of others’ behaviours.

- The culture of an organisation will reflect the character of the individuals in the organisation: intention and behaviours don’t match up, which is borne out by research on self-awareness. Character supercharges the DE&I agenda and helps us get to our real natures.

- We have personal agency over our character and must form the right habits to develop it. Character brings laser focus to core beliefs and scripts that we are unaware of and that are difficult to overcome, e.g. vulnerability, trust, worthiness.

- There are various levers that create an intention...

"As we navigate the post-COVID landscape, the need for intentionally empathetic leadership has never been clearer.."

Neal and I delve into the profound impact of empathy on cultivating thriving workplace cultures and how we can scale this skill, particularly at more senior levels of the organisation.

Empathy is often referred to as a 'soft skill' but is actually one of the hardest to enact and is more than a soft skill—it’s a strategic advantage. Executives and leaders who embrace empathetic practices are witnessing tangible benefits in business metrics, marketing, and branding.

We discuss debunking common myths about leadership and collaboration in organisations and conclude that it’s time to challenge the status quo and embrace the paradigm shift. Engaging in courageous conversations, addressing conflicts with sensitivity, and creating a shared vision through empathetic confrontation can be powerful and strategic tools for organisational transformation.

Neal shares his experience, insights and research from his book 'the E suite' and from his operational daily life as CEO of Cybercore Technologies.

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

- The shift in work-life balance during Covid saw people and empathetic leadership come first as opposed to empathy being considered a soft skill and not representative of ‘strong’ leadership.

- Executive leaders must seek to apply empathy and openness by understanding context and emotional states and making decisions based on this – it is not about ‘niceness’ and should be reframed as relationship building.

- The concept of business(-focused) empathy is about understanding the people you work with and using it as a tool to help with decision-making, e.g. how to deal with a diseased tree branch that impacts the tree as a whole.

- Strategically impactful decisions for a business involve the deliberate and intentional use of empathy as a leadership skill and lever - empathetic confrontation is linked to collective vision and organisational transformation.

- The most impactful transformations come from a place of safety and understanding the context so that transformation is not combative but involves all parties to solve a common problem.

- Create unity, not homogeneity by creating a level of trust - intense conversations in a trusted and safe environment can be very productive and senior leaders can create the conditions for empathetic discussion by saying transparently what is going on, inviting people to talk to them and creating psychological safety.

- Empathy is not always the solution but personal agency can be leveraged using effective communication, for example, by meeting with people for a disclosed reason; not letting emotional states come into play; monitoring reactions; looking for underlying issues and finding constructive solutions.

- Post-Covid, there is more openness to empathy generally but still many generational differences in terms of what makes a workplace successful, although it is clear that people-first policies affect the bottom line.

- Talent managers have an opportunity to inform leaders of the impact of empathy using bare metrics (e.g. the cost of firing/hiring v. retraining) or demonstrating the proven ROI of empathy.

- Leaders must hold themselves and others accountable and practice empathy until they are conversant in it – if they lend their voice to the conversation, people are more disposed to talking.

- Transformation instigates fear, which thrives in quiet and...

"There can be kindness in telling the truth, and therefore providing a place from which to move forward.."

A great conversation with Paru about being authentic, and defining our own meaning of success. Learning to trust one’s intuition is a skill that many overlook, and we discuss the very essence of authentic leadership, the art of self reflection and how to empower others as you stand boldly in who you are.

Paru shares the trials and triumphs of tuning into that inner voice. It’s about looking back to move forward, reflecting on past experiences to navigate & create the future. This isn’t just about what works in business—it’s about what makes us human in our careers.

Are you ready to lead with authenticity? Are you prepared to break the mould and champion honesty in your professional life?

Paru generously shares her stories, her life experiences, her insights and her wisdom from working with C suite leaders across the globe.

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

- Mission: seeing across multiple functions and profiles and speaking authentic truth in the corporate world - leaders must remain authentic and truth is important for stability.

- There can be kindness in telling the truth, thereby providing a place from which to move forward; many of us have a tendency to bury our heads in the sand instead.

- The ability to spot patterns and predict next moves led to an advisory role, offering help to avoid falling back into old patterns in order to overcome fear and learn how to manage hypervigilance.

- (Self-)reflection helps to prevent repetition of mistakes and sharing vulnerabilities builds trust - in short, being authentic saves time!

- Just as we must encourage introspection and think about who we are, the same also applies for clients - exercises can be for both professional and personal purposes, but the universal truth is that there are no shortcuts.

- Putting in the work brings epiphanies and results, which we can use as a mirror to reflect back, embracing tough lessons to grow and learn.

- Moving from hypervigilance to trusting (one’s own) intuition is where genius happens; we must relinquish that which we hold on to and hold up the mirror to ourselves instead of other people.

- Collating the data we derive from this will show us what happens when we follow our intuition and are ourselves – in the formula of ‘if you do x, I feel y, so I do z’, we can make choices.

- Legacy means the impact we have on the world by sharing personal lessons learned, learning to trust our judgement in others, and offering stories for people to take ingredients from to maybe apply to their own lives.

- How do we know when we have reached 100% (of ourselves)? It is a gradual process, and each challenge helps us dig deeper and find that bit more – we can’t really ever know if we are at 100%, as it is a constant journey.

- It is helpful to be direct with others, to give instructions and information and be who we are - we cannot rely on others to do things for us and need our own backup plan.

- We must find our authentic version of ourself by spending time alone, regularly checking in with who we are today; as we evolve, we are impacted by extraneous factors but once we find it, we must hang on to it!

Find out more about Paru and her upcoming book here :

https://www.paruradia.com/paru