Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer, VaynerMedia on empathetic leadership

When we think of what leadership entails, we often resort to a few popular notions, such as strength, decisiveness, and charisma. This model has served us well for many years, but the qualities that define successful leadership have evolved as a result of recent times. More than ever, leaders need to show empathy, humanity and a strong sense of purpose. VaynerMedia is proposing a new approach to benefit teams and organisational goals.

Over the past few months, there have been excellent examples of leadership including positive accountability, adopting a people-first approach and rare displays of emotion which are setting a precedent for the future.

VaynerMedia’s  first-ever Chief Heart Officer, Claude Silver fuses empathy with agency to unlock employee potential and foster a culture of belonging. Between her education in psychology, years as an advertising strategist, and time at VaynerMedia, she’s been studying and influencing human behavior for over three decades. Outside of Vaynermedia, she speaks globally about the need for heart-leadership in today’s workplace and the importance of treating “employees” like people, not numbers.

Her success in guiding client relationships, global brand strategies, operations, management, and culture is driven by an abiding passion for creating spaces in which people can thrive.

In this episode of the HRD Live Podcast, Silver addresses the ways in which leaders can adapt to the needs of their people and use softer skills to guide them through the new landscape, inspiring them whilst showing that it’s okay to be vulnerable. Silver stresses the need for HR leaders to understand that they have the ability to “unlock people,” the importance of connecting to the “emotional landscape” of all employees within a company, plus the urgency of offering an “optimistic and realistic” perspective from within an organization.

Have the changes in the nature of leadership been encouraged by the difficulties of the Coronavirus pandemic, or have they been building up for some time? How do different generations within a workplace have an influence on the way HR strategies in regard to leadership are executed? In what ways can HR leaders best address the mental pressures faced by employees as they undertake their duties?

Discover a perspective on these issues, and more more, in this episode of the HRD Live Podcast.

1:00 – Key points from the presentation

2:45 – The impact of Coronavirus on the development of empathetic leadership

4:35 – The state of empathetic leadership in businesses today

7:18 – How HR leaders can employees into champions

9:00 – Recognizing mental health issues in the workforce today

11:30 – The importance of appreciating humanity in the workplace

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