What makes an excellent leader? Today my guest shares why he believes that leaders who develop their empathy and emotional intelligence are not just better leaders – they become excellent leaders. An excellent leader looks after their own wellbeing by looking after the wellbeing of the people they lead. Markus van Alphen is a leadership psychologist, author, teacher, trainer, organizational consultant, counselor and restorative practitioner.
Today, Markus and I talk about what a leadership psychologist does, what is observational listening, and how it enables leaders to be more empathetic to create psychological safety, reduce burnout, and increase engagement. He shares what makes an excellent leader – and how they never need to motivate anyone! We chat about why leadership is not viewed as a standalone skill, the link between leadership excellence and corporate social responsibility, the impact of toxic leadership on your bottom line, and how to really change a culture by starting with yourself as a role model.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- Your shareholders are stakeholders, but they are only one of the stakeholders. Make sure you consider all of your stakeholders in your leadership practices.
- People often struggle in conversations because they’re too often in their heads and trying to plan the conversation within themselves, not participate in the conversation.
- As the leader, you do not always have to have (or give) the answer to every question. Encourage collaboration in your team by demonstrating that with them. This will help to empower them and help your team learn the skills to solve the next challenges going forward.
“People are always motivated. I don’t even believe that you, as a leader, need to motivate your people. I believe it’s about finding out what motivates them.”
— Markus van Alphen
Episode References:
- Markus’ free course form The Excellent Leadership series: https://excellent-leader.com/start-the-free-course-straightaway/
- The Empathy Edge: Colin Hunter: Disruptive Leadership and Being More Wrong: https://red-slice.com/the-empathy-edge/colin-hunter-disruptive-leadership-and-being-more-wrong/
From Our Partner (keep through 1/31/25):
Download the 2024 Ninth Annual State of Workplace Empathy study from Businessolver: www.businessolver.com/edge
Discover more valuable content from Businessolver on The Benefits Pulse vodcast: www.businessolver.com/benefits-pulse
About Markus van Alphen, Director, Excellent Leader
Markus is a leadership psychologist, author, teacher, trainer, organizational consultant, counselor and restorative practitioner. He is an authority on empathy, emotional intelligence, and well-being. Markus has a master’s degree in Psychology from the University of Amsterdam and a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Cape Town. As a thought leader, he introduces the term Observational Listening, a theme he has written several books about, including The Excellent Leader and The More Excellent Leader.
Connect with Markus van Alphen:
Bureau the Excellent Organisation: https://Excellent-Leader.com
X: https://twitter.com/MarkusvanAlphen
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markusvanalphen/
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. What makes an excellent leader. Today my guest shares why he believes that leaders who develop their empathy and emotional intelligence are not just better leaders, they become excellent leaders, an excellent leader looks after their own well being by looking after the well being of the people they lead. Marcus on often is a leadership psychologist, author, teacher, trainer, organizational consultant, counselor and restorative practitioner. He’s an authority on empathy, emotional intelligence and wellbeing. Marcus has a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Amsterdam, and a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Cape Town. As a thought leader, he introduces the term observational listening, a theme he has written several books about, including the excellent leader, and the more excellent leader. Today, Marcus and I talk about what a leadership psychologist does, what is observational listening, and how it enables leaders to be more empathetic, to create psychological safety, reduce burnout and increase engagement. He shares what makes an excellent leader and how they never need to motivate anyone. We chat about why leadership is not viewed as a standalone skill, the link between Leadership Excellence and corporate social responsibility, impact of toxic leadership on your bottom line, and how to really change a culture by starting with yourself as a role model. It was an insightful conversation, take a listen. Welcome Marcus to the empathy edge to talk to us all about leadership excellence and the role of empathy. So glad to have you here.
Markus van Alphen 02:27
Thank you, Maria. Lovely to be.
Maria Ross 02:29
So I want to start with a little bit about your story. Because I really want to understand, and I’m sure my listeners do, too, what a leadership psychologist actually does, how did you get into this work? And can you define what that field is? For us?
Markus van Alphen 02:42
It’s actually a psychology is all about influence, if you want to put it down to the nuts and bolts, because what do we really want to do? A lot of people say psychologists want to understand people, we want to understand people, but the reason we want to understand them is that we can influence that. So that’s psychology general. And well, my my speciality is who’s been on the front of communication. And after doing some soul searching, I decided, well, what’s what’s really what’s the reason I exist? Why am I here? Why am I on this earth, and it might sound a bit of over the top, but I have decided I exists in order to make the world a better place by making people more empathic and more human. Love it. And from that point of view, that’s that’s the leadership psychology comes in, as one of the things I was thinking about is, how large the impact is of leadership on the well being of the people they lead. And again, this, this whole idea of empathy comes to the forefront again, to me leadership, psychology is about well being. It’s about not so much the well being of the leader or there are also look at that, but especially about the well being of the people, the leader leads. And that’s really what leadership psychology is about, is trying to get behind the psychology of, say, human beings, which let’s face it, the people who work for us are human beings, and how can we make how can we make that bet? How can we make that leadership gets the things done, they want to do, and at the same time, improve the well being of everyone, everybody? Actually, that’s in a nutshell,
Maria Ross 04:34
well, and why do you think that empathy seems like such a new concept in leadership these days? I mean, if really, leadership is the act of motivating and inspiring people to achieve a common goal. Why do you think it’s only recently that we’re talking about empathy as a leadership skill? Well, I
Markus van Alphen 04:53
think for a long time, we’ve lived under the myth of leaders. Not only leaders, but also the whole work environment is rational. That what we do in work is rational we leave our emotions that leads, you know. So I think that that shift really is, is what’s making empathy more interesting. So realizing that that motivation, people are always motivated. I don’t even believe that you as leader need to motivate your people. I believe it’s about finding out what motivates them. And then we’re back on to emotions. And then what do you need to be able to see what emotions and other is experiencing? And be back on empathy again. So I think those three ready together, that they’re formed sort of a circle, which well, I know that this was a part of other research that has been done. It also just shows that companies where empathy is key other companies that also perform better when it comes to the bottom line.
Maria Ross 06:02
Absolutely. Yeah, that’s the crux of my work is really curating that data and that research. So people understand this is not just this touchy feely thing. Oh, definitely. You know, what’s interesting is, you know, when I did my TEDx talk, for example, I talked about tricking leaders into being more empathetic by showing them the business case. And I got some pushback on that, because people, you know, took umbrage with the fact that I was making empathy, this very business focused skill. And, you know, shouldn’t it just be the right thing to do? It should, but the moral imperative hasn’t been enough of an argument for some people to embrace. So we have to be empathetic and meet people where they are and say, Okay, if you’re skeptical about this, here’s why this is something you may want to take a look at.
Markus van Alphen 06:48
I don’t know, I believe it’s an end to end story. It’s not a it’s not an oral story. You know, it’s empathy is good for a lot of reasons. Yes. And again, I come from the well being side that I really, that’s where my heart lies, I want people to experience a good well being also, especially in the room, perhaps. And I also understand this whole principle of why you’re in business. Yes, there is a bottom line and bottom line is important. So yes, and the fact that there are so many people who are also finding out that, you know, we’ve always had this this concept of corporate social responsibility. And there’s this is a professor at, at London Business School, he comes up with this idea, and I’m, I might get the figures wrong. But I think it’s something like 4% per year, better turnover. The companies where corporate social responsibility isn’t just preached, but also practiced. And empathy is, is one of the things that fits very well, with the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility is one of your most important stakeholders. It’s your own employees,
Maria Ross 08:06
right? Your employees, the planet, community, all of it all the other stakeholders, not necessarily the shareholders. Exactly. Your shareholders are also stakeholders. But there are any one. Right? Exactly seven. Yeah, there’s too. Yeah, well, and I think from a, from a lens of sustainability, you Yes, you can get short term success by command and control leadership and not giving a hoot about your employees. But that’s not going to be sustainable for the long term. And so if you’re really in this to generate long term success, and growth, and revenue, and impact, and all the things, this has to be part of it. And it is always such a funny thing that people get promoted based on their job acumen, based on their ability to perform a task or performance skill. And yet they’re promoted into positions where that’s not the job anymore. Their job is to actually lead people, and so that a lot of them falter. And so what have you seen, be a good catalyst to get people to understand that just because you’re good at the job doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good at leading people leading people.
Markus van Alphen 09:21
It’s a very tricky one, because again, this is again, our society as as glorified leadership. And I don’t mean that in a negative sense. I mean, it really, we seem to believe that people who perform well at work will also perform well and to leading others. And I think that error has really been lost to provide proper leadership training, and training leadership skills like any other hard skill. I mean, they taught us a soft skill, making it all touchy feely hands and things like that. I don’t believe That’s true. It’s a skill that can be learned and be taught to be practice, you can get better at it. So I don’t know that that to me is where it’s where it goes wrong as is we should spend more time. Yes, helping people do a proper job.
Maria Ross 10:17
Well, and it’s the investment in your people and providing that ongoing leadership training. That’s not just a nice to have, if you want to reduce turnover, if you want to reduce disruption, if you want to, you know, stop, you know, being able to keep momentum in your organization by ensuring that the people that you put in these leadership positions are adequately prepared for that, then it’s not a wasted budget line item, you need to keep it in there.
Markus van Alphen 10:46
And also, this whole thing, I’m sure you weren’t aware of what they called toxic leadership, and that the people who are toxic are the ones who really are the ones who want those leadership positions, except for the wrong reason. And you know, there’s this awareness of actually what the person you want for a leader is the person with the heart for the people, they lead. And, and that’s, that’s actually what it’s about. I mean, it used to be that if you were, if you were a leader, you were telling people what to do. The, our world has changed. We want different expertise in our teams, which means that the team members are the ones where the expertise, not the leader, the leader is there to support to facilitate to create a safe space in which these people can get on and do what they’re what they’ve been hired.
Maria Ross 11:44
So I want to talk about observational listening, because you’ve talked about observational listening as a tool for leaders to be more empathic. So can you explain to us what observational listening is, and how that helps propel a leader into being more successful? Well,
Markus van Alphen 12:01
it actually begins with what we call active listening skills. These are skills that are often taught in communication trainings, and observational listening as adds layered, which makes those active listening skills even more powerful. And this actually comes from my own practice, in training people and communication skills. But I noticed some people just simply communicate far easier. And for some people, they’re going into a conversation, they just do it, and other people battle. And in trying to see what’s the difference between these two, I came to the conclusion, that’s the people who really get to it easily that the conversations are effortless, other people are observing, they’re observing, very specifically, the the emotions, their conversational partner is experiencing the hair and now, so they are reacting not only to the content, but to the content, plus the emotional, whatever you want to call that emotional level that’s carrying that part. And by sort of just aligning with that emotion, they get into the correct profundity in any conversation. And I mean, it’s not that you always want very deep conversations, no that because you can very, because you’re aware of what you’re observing, you can adjust how you converse with somebody to get just the right depth in the conversation that you can get something that’s fitting for the current situation, current moment in time. So interesting. Observation means listening or observation. Listening really means to me, using as many of your senses as you can, to not only listen to the content, but also to listen to the experience in terms of emotion. So that
Maria Ross 13:57
is so interesting, because I love how you discovered it was this common thread among people who don’t I love how you put it don’t struggle in a conversation. What do you think causes people to struggle in a conversation?
Markus van Alphen 14:12
Often? It’s because I don’t know, I think it’s because we’re in our heads too much. I think we’re so busy trying to think how should I react to this? What should my next question be? Who I’m dating a silence for? Ooh, that’s awkward. So then we’re in our head, we’re actually not busy with our conversational partner at all. We’re busy with ourselves. And you know, as once you get more easy with us, you’ve had my experiences, that using observation, this thing, just cost less energy. It’s just, you can just be there and it’s authentic. It’s it’s not something that you’re putting out. It’s not a trick, right? Whereas I often get the feeling when people do In taught active listening skills that’s being applied. I’m not saying everybody does this, but it’s often applied as a kind of kind of trick in order to get something that. And I don’t believe in tricking people, I really believe that being open and honest, just like you said at the beginning, that this idea that you’re being open and honest, are you saying, I’m trying to trick you into believing that empathy is good for you? By bringing you a business case? Right. I don’t believe that’s tricking somebody. I believe that’s being open and honest. Right. And I don’t think you can practice observational listening as a trick. I firmly believe it’s not possible.
Maria Ross 15:45
Yeah, I love that, because so much of that is about being present. And in the book, the empathy edge, the first step in practicing being an empathetic leader is to practice presence. And that means that the bane of our existence, our phones, our email, notifications, all of these things, we need to have a conversation with someone and be totally focused on that conversation. 100%
Markus van Alphen 16:10
agree. Mm hmm. Oh, I lost some big house house, you’re gonna have a conversation if you’re headed somewhere else. Yeah,
Maria Ross 16:17
yeah, exactly. I feel like you know, when I prep for these podcast interviews, obviously, it’s turned off all our phones turn off all notifications, we should be doing that whether we’re recording or not, oh,
16:28
my notifications are off.
Maria Ross 16:32
Exactly. That’s why you’re more productive. So can you talk to us a little bit more about the link between Leadership Excellence and corporate social responsibility? Because I have so many questions around that, in terms of what you know, what is that link? And can you effectively practice corporate social responsibility if your leaders are not
16:58
up to snuff?
Maria Ross 17:00
So talk to us a little bit about that symbiotic relationship?
Markus van Alphen 17:03
Well, you know, Corporate Social Responsibility is about sustainability. And it is about sustainability. Therefore, it’s not about short term, but the long term, and sustainability of all for all stakeholders. And I think this is, again, we’re coming to this thing of, let’s say you preach Corporate Social Responsibility in your organization, but you don’t practice it. For example, you’ve got toxic leadership in your organization. I’m sorry, it’s just not gonna work. So really, if you, as an organization believe in this concept of corporate social responsibility, then you also know that this is for many reasons that you do this. And if we just bring it back to leadership, just to keep it simple, because I mean, we can go all directions on this way. But just simply our leadership, we know how much it costs us to hire someone, and I’m not talking about the salary, I’m just talking about that whole process of hiring the right person for the right job, cost us a fortune. And quite often we forget, we also should pay attention to retaining that person, because losing that person means that all that investment we’ve put into hiring this person is out the window. So just hiring the right people isn’t enough to also should retain these people. And this is where leadership starts becoming very interesting. Because if you have somebody working for a leader, who is a good leader, given the support is making sure that this person is facilitated and what is needed. These people perform better. They have the less sick days. They don’t have the intention to leave the organization because they’re at the river. I don’t know must I go on to be?
19:09
No, you’re good to me this.
Markus van Alphen 19:11
This is a no brainer, right? All of these things, having good leadership place is sort of the basis for corporate social responsibility. If you asked me.
Maria Ross 19:24
Can you give us some examples of companies and leaders that you’ve worked with that or that you’re seeing in out there that are doing this right, that are walking the Corporate Social Responsibility talk? And what are the traits that their leaders are exhibiting? Well,
Markus van Alphen 19:39
I’m can’t say I have them directly in my network. The people that I see who are doing a good job, are the people who are genuinely concerned about the welfare of the people they beat and genuinely concerned doesn’t mean that everything is touchy feely as as we were discussing the beginning, because empathy actually means or I can put it differently. Empathy is information. Gathering. Yeah, that’s information gathering. If you aren’t, if you are empathetic, you understand what’s going on in that other person. And that makes it a lot easier to just support them in the way that suits them the best. I’m sure you’ve heard of Desi and Ryan’s research about the three basic psychological needs, people have the need for autonomy, the need for mastery, and the need for connection. And, of course, everybody differs in the level to which that needs to be satisfied. Just being empathetic or ready means you know, where a person’s needs to live. And this, again, ties into this whole idea of motivation. I firmly believe if you are an excellent leader, you do not have to motivate anybody, because all you’re doing is you’re aligning with them, you’re supporting them in what they need, you’re giving them an environment in which they are safe, where they feel safe, where they can be happy. Where they are happy usually, is you providing them with the right level of challenge, providing them with the right environment where people can have good connections with one another. Giving them enough space to do their own thing doesn’t have to matter that.
Maria Ross 21:34
Well, those motivations, in essence, that is those conditions are motivating certain people. And so it’s making sure that number one, you’re hiring people that are motivated by that. And number two, that those motivations are in place in your organization.
Markus van Alphen 21:49
And for both of them, you need empathy, for hiring the correct people, and creating that safe space. When we’re talking about companies, you know, when I often get involved with companies where it’s going wrong. So where they come to me, I remember a company came to basically the managing director said to me, well, probably having an arm company, is everybody’s always saying no. And, you know, we’ve got all these beautiful persons is hanging out all over the place with all our our values, our core values, and one of our core values is that we collaborate with one another. And what’s happening is, somebody asked you, hey, please help me with this. And I say, No, I’m not going to help you. Then this was one of these. It was a very strange interview. Actually, I was having this man. Because I was talking with him. And somebody walked in and said, Hey, boss, How did I manage ABC? Remember what it was specifically? And he looked at me, he says, Do this, do this, do this and do that. And the employee walked out. And we continue that conversation. And not much later this this has happened a few times during our conversation. I don’t know what you think. But I’m thinking I understand why nobody wants to collaborate, because everybody’s looking for the boss to answer the question. So the the boss was under a lot of stress, because he was answering a lot of questions. And he wasn’t getting down to doing the things he really wanted to do. Because he was constantly busy answering questions. And this was, perhaps it was an interesting conversation. And by just changing his attitude, and saying, Okay, wait a minute, I don’t have to ask the question. Let the so he had to change his style from being efficient, to being effective. Efficient, is give somebody the answers straightaway, so get on with it. So the issue is solved straightaway. But that short term, long term is going to conversation, this person, help them to discover how to solve this problem. So they don’t have to come back to me for the next question. To empower them. Yes, indeed. So. So the problem was, the funny thing is that the problem was role model behave. And that’s also what I believe, if you’re thinking, how can we really change in this case culture. It starts with demonstrating what you want to see yourself. So be that authentic leader, be that empathic, be that be that empowering leader before you expect anything in that realm from your employees.
Maria Ross 24:51
I love that story. Because I think that that that is so true of when someone from the outside looking in comes into observe a call culture, because leaders are so stressed, and they do have a lot on their plate. It feels like we’re asking them to spend even more time getting to know their people and tailoring their communication and, and inspiring and doing all these things. But that’s actually the work. That’s actually the job. And so taking that step back will spring you forward many more steps than if you keep doing it like you described the efficient way.
Markus van Alphen 25:30
But again, I understand where he’s coming from, because this is the way we’ve been brought up. Mm
Maria Ross 25:39
hmm. And the way that people have found success at that organization. And so until you have a different model to replace how people can find success, they’re going to emulate the models they
25:52
see. Exactly, huh.
Maria Ross 25:56
I love it. So, Marcus, this has been such a great conversation. I want to close with one last question, because you’ve written a few books, you’ve written the excellent leader and the more excellent leader. And at some point in the future, we will see the most excellent leader. But can you give us a few examples that we haven’t talked about maybe two or three? Of what are the traits of an excellent leader? And how can folks practice those skills to embody that? Well,
Markus van Alphen 26:25
as I say, my speciality comes from communication. So I firmly believe the organization is communication. Without communication, there isn’t an organization, so organizing is communicating. So getting into the best communication possible, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the quickest way to excellent leadership. And observational listening is one of the tools I offer in that process. And we’ve mentioned a few of the other things. I mean, we’ve mentioned this, this whole idea of empowering, we’ve mentioned this whole idea of being authentic, of putting the welfare of your people high, in your list of priorities of this is what I should be looking at. I think it boils down to starting with yourself. And we’ve spoken about this as well, you started by being there being the person being authentic being the person you want the people who work for you to be as well. I mean, if we’re asked, What kind of people do you really want working for you? Are people who are open or honest, be prepared to share their expertise. We’re happy to collaborate with one another. These are the things we need, especially in our modern day operations. We’re not just on a production line. And yes, we have production lines there, even on production lines of difference.
Maria Ross 28:01
Exactly. They’ve evolved, we need to evolve leadership as well. It’s interesting that you mentioned this, because and we talked a little bit about another habit being presence. Yes, excellent leaders. But this is why for my new book that’s coming out in September, the empathy dilemma how successful leaders balanced performance people and personal boundaries. The first pillar of being an empathetic leader who’s effective is self awareness. Yeah, because you can’t work to improve and amplify or tone down, what you don’t know is there. And so this idea of understanding your strengths, understanding your blind spots, and also being open to that feedback. So that you know, that’s what we talk about when we talk about vulnerabilities. Are you open to feedback? Are you open to being wrong sometimes, and I had an excellent I’ll link to it in the show notes. I interviewed a guest who we talked about why we need to be more wrong as leaders, because that is the key that humility, humility is not the same as like, I don’t know what to do. Like, that’s not that’s not humility, but it’s that understanding again, the self awareness, here’s what I know, here’s what I’m good at. Here’s where I have some gaps. Communication could be one of them, presence could be one of them. And what are you doing to shore that up so that you can be the most excellent leader you can be which is your your third book that will be coming soon. This was such a delight to talk to you. I want to make sure people know that in the show notes. We are going to link to your free course. The the excellent leadership series is there but there’s also a free course that folks can start right away. I’ll put the link in the show notes. It’s been delightful to talk to you today. We will have all your other links in the show notes as well. But Marcus for folks that might be on the go where’s one place they can connect with you or learn more about your work?
Markus van Alphen 29:58
I think quickest way is to look on my website. It’s excellent. Dash leader.com. I think that’s probably the easiest place
Maria Ross 30:11
great and they can find all the ways to connect with you on on LinkedIn and whatnot. Well thank you so much for your time today and your insights to help us all be excellent leaders and lead with empathy.
Markus van Alphen 30:23
Pleasure, thank you for having and thank
Maria Ross 30:25
Thank you everyone for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you liked what you heard you know what to do, please rate review and share with a colleague or a friend. And until next time, please remember that cashflow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Stay well and be kind.
For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources booked me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
