Innovation is not only interesting, it’s crucial for business growth. Peter Drucker said that “Business has only two functions: marketing and innovating.” Teams in companies all around the world are required to be “innovative.” However, this is easier said than done.

While the human element of the innovation process is the most critical, complex, and dynamic part, it’s often overlooked when teams are laser-focused on product development. 

Having a lot of ideas does not mean you’re an innovator. Innovating is not an individual effort; innovation is an outcome from a multitude of actors. I define innovation as “a valuable new idea put into practice/ practical use, shared, scaled and sustained to transform the ways we live and work.” Without all these steps, ideas and inventions are just “nice-to-haves,” not transformative innovations.

According to KPMG’s benchmarking research into innovation (2018, 2020), deeply human qualities are regarded as the main obstacles to innovation: office politics, turf wars, and lack of alignment. This, again, underlies the human – even personal – nature of innovation. The energy that runs through the process of innovation is profoundly human. Having produced several innovation summits, coached, and interviewed countless executives and entrepreneurs, a model for coaching the innovativeness emerged. 

A model of six concepts that begin with the letter C helps to identify the areas where competency is crucial for innovative individuals and teams. It’s people who keep creating and whose collective energy keeps the innovation process alive. I call it “innovativeness.” Human innovativeness is about “applying creativity in service of innovation.” 

Personal Conditions for Innovativeness: Curiosity & Courage

Without curiosity, without somebody asking, Why? Why not? What if? We would have stayed in caves. In an interview for my research, Nora Denzel, who was the CEO of Redbox, said that she has to learn the most important questions quickly in her role as a turnaround CEO. It’s an art to be curious and to ask good questions.

Curiosity is the quality of the brave. It takes courage to create. Innovating is about exploring the unknown, making bets, and taking risks. It can also be exhausting and make people fearful.

Relationship Conditions for Innovativeness: Communication & Collaboration

A teams internal communication skills become crucial when they are working under financial and time pressures. The long-term success of innovation hinges on communication – internally and externally.  

Innovation is not something that’s born in isolation. Innovations are outcomes of co-creation, but collaboration is not easy. When communication and collaboration fail, the innovation process is doomed. Creativity thrives in inclusive and brave environments. 

Organizational Conditions for Innovativeness: Collective Intelligence & Culture

Companies where people actively share knowledge, skills, and energy are at an advantage. Various crowdsourcing and collaboration platforms that help employees, customers, and other stakeholders to contribute, harvest, and nurture ideas are invaluable. Besides aiding in communicating and collaboration, they’re useful in trend and pattern recognition. These are the seeds for new thinking and innovation.

Organizational culture either nourishes innovation or kills it. Much of the culture is invisible; among others, it consists of thinking, beliefs, assumptions, and values that drive decision making. Furthermore, an organization’s innovation culture can be witnessed in the way people talk and how people are rewarded (or punished) for their efforts – successes and failures. There is a vast difference between posting a motivational slogan for innovation and implementing practices that support innovation. 

Most people agree that innovation requires excellent analytical and technical skills to prototype, test, and learn from feedback. However, rarely enough attention is paid to human life energy, our emotions, that sustain the excitement about the process – even when our hypotheses don’t pan out. It’s human emotions that either energize or suppress each of these six conditions – or energize or suppress innovation.  

According to research by McKinsey (2019), “Innovation, at its heart, is a resource-allocation problem; it’s not just about creativity and generating ideas. Yet too many leaders talk up the importance of innovation as a catalyst for growth and then fail to act when it comes to shifting people, assets, and management attention in support of their best ideas.”

Therefore, instead of considering the six C’s as optional “soft skills” they must be regarded as essential conditions that require serious attention and allocation of proper resources. Strategically increasing skills and competency to fulfill the six conditions dramatically increases the innovativeness quotient of teams and organizations. 

Good communication is key to securing partnerships. Here are a few tips for how you should go about it.

If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s easy to focus on selling products or services and forget about the larger picture at hand. Selling your product is only a small part of your business, and building relationships is equally, if not more, essential for long-term growth and sustainability. Good communication is key to securing partnerships with other actors in your sphere, whether customers, employees, vendors, or investors.

1. Over-communicate

This sounds like a bad thing, but it’s not really. You should never be afraid to communicate too much. Keeping your partners and contacts informed is critical to a healthy business relationship. Regular status updates and reports in your projects or other collaborations will save your partner the time of asking for updates and help assure them that you’re working with their best interests at heart. 

Perhaps most importantly, this approach will keep the element of surprise out of the equation. You’d want your vendors to let you know ASAP if there was a supply issue or some delivery block up, so make sure to let all your partners understand what’s happening at your end, too. 

A healthy heads up is critical to management and keeps problems under wraps before they balloon out of control. This will give your partners confidence that you’ll let them know if and when a problem arises in the future, which will improve trust overall in the business relationship and pave the way for future deep collaboration.

2. Keep Your Commitments

Being true to your word will go a long way towards building trust between you and your partners. If you say you’ll deliver something by a given date, you need to get it done. This sort of commitment to your work is often rare in the business world, and people will take note. Once partners and customers know you’ll meet your deadlines, they’ll realize that you’re worth working within the long run. It also helps to build a little bit of goodwill in case of any other mishaps or mixups on your end.

As a general rule, do the best job you can all the time. That way, your partners will be more accommodating when stuff does fall through the cracks (because it happens to the best of us!).

3. Honesty

Honesty in business relationships is perhaps the MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE you can have. If you stay honest with your communication and dealings, you’ll earn trust more than through any other factor, guaranteed. Clients, vendors, employees will be able to tell if you’re attempting to twist the truth. They may not know the truth, but it’s relatively easy to tell when someone is weaseling out of something. 

More importantly, once someone gets a negative vibe about you and your business, it’s almost impossible to change their mind. The modem market is too competitive to take that chance, anyway.

By the same logic, don’t be afraid to tell someone, “I don’t know.” Don’t hedge, just be straight up. Everyone likes a straight shooter. People will appreciate your honesty in these situations, even if you aren’t telling them the good news, particularly if you follow up quickly with a promise to find an answer to whatever questions or concerns they have. That said, don’t make a habit of saying, “I don’t know,” either!

4. Keep in Touch

If you don’t nurture your business relationships, they’ll dry up just like any other relationship. If you’re always at the forefront of someone’s mind, they’re much more likely to think of you when new opportunities arise. 

Remember: social media isn’t just for scrolling! 

Social media tools can make it incredibly easy to stay in touch, even if you’re just sharing posts and commenting. All told, just make a point of keeping yourself on the radar of as many people as possible, and not only will you maintain your existing relationships, but new partnerships and opportunities will start to come your way.

5. Share Share Share!

It’s worth noting that no one likes a resource hog. In a healthy partnership or relationship, both parties should share their knowledge and resources. For example, loss prevention and asset protection are essential for many businesses. If your brand specializes in security products, you’ll give even greater benefit to your clients and partners if you share your expertise and know-how in business security techniques, regardless of whether or not the simple act of sharing that knowledge leads to a sale.

6. The Personal Touch

A business relationship that exists entirely on text messages, Slack, and email will never be as secure as one that is based on personal, face-to-face interaction. Look for as many opportunities as possible to meet your partners in person, whether socially at a coffee shop or golf course or some trade event in your industry. It’s all good. Face time is more beneficial than you know. These experiences will dramatically deepen the quality of your relationships and benefit you BIG TIME in the long run.

How often do you take the time to think about yourself — your desires, hopes, and goals — in the context of the wisdom of the ages? Here’s leadership advice and insight from 9 people who did exactly that — and became wildly successful.

01 Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austrian-American bodybuilder, actor and politician

“No matter what you do in life, selling is part of it. People can be great poets, great writers, geniuses in the lab. But you can do the finest work and if people don’t know, you have nothing! In politics it’s the same: No matter whether you’re working on environmental policy or education or economic growth, the most important thing is to make people aware.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

Back when Schwarzenegger was just starting out, he stood at a heavily frequented plaza in Munich in his bodybuilding briefs and asked a friend to call a few journalists and say: “You remember Schwarzenegger, who won the stone-lifting contest? Well, now he’s Mr. Universe, and he’s at Stachus square in his underwear.” A couple of editors thought that was funny enough to send photographers. The next day, he was in all of the newspapers. Schwarzenegger went on to become one of the most famous people in the world. Wherever you go, people know his name, know who he is. Above all, he owes his unique career — as a bodybuilder, movie star, politician and entrepreneur — to his sales talent. After he first became successful, lots of bodybuilders tried to follow in his footsteps. Some of them even had more muscles than he did, but none of them were as good at selling themselves. That’s why you don’t know their names — but you know Schwarzenegger. 

Some people think it’s enough to be good at what they do, because quality is bound to rise to the top eventually. That is simply naive. If it were the case, Mercedes could have stopped all of its advertising and PR decades ago. Warren Buffett is a brilliant investor, but he knows how important it is to sell his performance. That’s why every year in Omaha, he and his partner Charlie Munger turn his company’s annual general meeting into a huge show — a kind of capitalist Woodstock. Then there’s Madonna, who all experts agree is only an averagely gifted singer. How was it that she became the best-paid singer in the world for so many years, earning hundreds of millions of dollars? Because she understood better than her rivals how best to sell herself and build a brand. The British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson confesses: “I have spent so much of my life being happy about promoting myself and Virgin. Advertising, publicity, promotion — call it what you will — works. There is so much competition in the world that if you have something to sell, no matter what, you have to get it noticed.”

02 Coco Chanel, French fashion designer

“Money is the key to freedom.” — Coco Chanel

Do you despise money? Do you associate it with negative concepts such as egotism, materialism, and greed? Or do you associate it with positive concepts such as energy and freedom? The successful fashion designer Coco Chanel said: “Money that is earned is merely material proof that we were right.” She considered money a key to freedom and a symbol of independence. What does money mean to you? If you don’t have any, maybe it’s because you mentally reject money? If you don’t like money, money won’t like you either.

03 Jack Ma, Alibaba founder

“If you only regret the fact you failed, but not the reasons for it, you’ll always be in a state of regret.” — Jack Ma

It is often said that experience makes one wise. This isn’t true; if it were, then most people would be a lot smarter than they actually are. Experience only makes you wise when you analyze it correctly and draw the right conclusions from it. This includes, above all — as Alibaba founder Jack Ma says — understanding the causes of failures and setbacks. Anyone who doesn’t understand these causes will continue to make the same mistakes. “Mistakes have to be made today in order to grow and run better tomorrow,” Ma says. “Just don’t keep making the same mistake.”

04 Stephen Hawking, British physicist

“Disabled people should concentrate on things that their handicap doesn’t prevent them from doing and not regret those they can’t do. In my case, I have managed to do most things I wanted.” — Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease of the motor nervous system. Doctors predicted that he would live for only a few years. Not only was he confined to a wheelchair, he also lost his ability to speak and had to use a speech computer to communicate verbally. Despite everything, he became perhaps the most famous scientist in the world, was married twice, traveled the world, met leading scientists and politicians, and wrote international bestsellers. The key to all this was his inner attitude. Above all, he saw the positive sides to his disability. In his autobiography, he wrote that because of his disability, he did not have to give lectures or teach first-year students and did not have to participate in tedious and time-consuming committee meetings, but could devote himself fully to his research. How much can you achieve if you succeed in taking the same attitude to problems and difficulties?

05 Catherine Kaputa, American marketing expert

“Despite things we’ve been told like, ‘talent wins out,’ the reality is more that ‘visibility wins out.’ Talent and ability are important, but visibility alone may explain the difference between a professional who is in demand and earns a large salary and another professional who is just getting by. The truth is that people who have a reputation outside the company’s walls have more value.” — Catherine Kaputa

People who are no good at self-marketing think it unfair that they earn less and don’t get considered for promotions. They probably also say they are no good at putting themselves center stage and are always ready with examples of grandstanders who are not particularly competent but are good at promoting themselves. In fact, performance is always the basis for success in the long run. Braggarts may sometimes be successful for a while, but not in the long run, because other people realize at some point that appearances are deceptive. In truth, people who are not able to showcase their achievements in the right light and make themselves a brand are lacking a key skill in getting ahead in professional life. As long as you don’t change your attitude on this issue and refuse to develop strategies to increase your visibility, you will have to live with others passing you by.

06 Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks

“So many doors slammed on me that I had to develop a thick skin and a concise sales pitch for a then newfangled machine called a word processor … I sold a lot of machines and outperformed many of my peers. As I proved myself, my confidence grew. Selling, I discovered, had a lot to do with self-esteem.” — Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz came from a working-class background and worked his way to the top. He started as a door-to-door salesman, a job that forced him to develop self-esteem and a high tolerance for frustration, essential prerequisites for his overwhelming success as an entrepreneur later on. A thick skin and confidence — these are the two single most important qualities a good salesperson needs. The first lesson any salesperson has to learn is how to cope with rejection. Never give up, no matter how often you hear the word “no.” To be good at selling, you have to be the sort of person who enjoys transforming a prospective customer’s “no” into a “yes” rather than accepting it as a final answer. And don’t get frustrated if your offers are rejected more often than they are accepted. Your tolerance for frustration is a decisive factor in how much you will earn in sales. Confidence and self-esteem are also important because in the end you’re not just selling a product, you’re selling yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll have trouble convincing others to believe in you.

07 Native American Hopi tribe proverb

“The one who tells the stories rules the world.”

Have you ever noticed that politicians and entrepreneurs who are great speakers are usually also great storytellers? The same applies to good salespeople, who can always tell good stories to their customers. When a company offers its shares for sale to the public for the first time, investors expect the company to have a good story to tell. Pupils and students prefer to listen to teachers or professors who succeed in packing information into good stories. And whole nations form an identity based on the dominant narrative of their history. Why is this the case? Because most people find it much easier to memorize stories than abstract theories. A vast majority of us don’t think in theories; we prefer to think in stories. If you want to convince other people, then you’ll need to package your message in a good narrative.

08 The Talmud

“Who is wise? One who learns from all.”

There are many different people who have something to teach you. Watch other people — the successful ones and the ones who fail. You can learn from both kinds by figuring out the reasons why the first group are successful, and the latter fail. You can learn even from those you consider yourself superior to in one regard, for example intellectually. They might in fact be streaks ahead of you in other ways. Constantly trying to lecture those around you will make you far less successful than being keen to learn something from everybody you meet.

09 David Ogilvy, British advertising guru

“I always tell prospective clients about the chinks in our armor. I have noticed that when an antique dealer draws my attention to flaws in a piece of furniture, he wins my confidence.” — David Ogilvy

How can you gain other people’s trust? If you try to hide your mistakes and weaknesses, you’ll find it hard to get others to trust you. We live in an age of skepticism. People are less likely than ever to trust those who promise them the moon. If you tell your customers about any faults in the products or services you’re offering them, they’re far more likely to give credence to the promises you make about their advantages and benefits. Every time you disclose a weakness of your own accord, you’re making a deposit in your trust account.

If you want to thrive in the new world of work, you’ve got a lot to learn—and a lot to unlearn. Ed Hess suggests you make quitting those outdated (and harmful) leadership behaviors your resolution for the upcoming year. 

The times they are a-changing, and so is the nature of our work. And as our familiar world crumbles around us (thanks, COVID-19) — and technology keeps snapping up more and more of the tasks humans have always done — we’ll need a whole new set of skills. And that means leaders have some nasty habits to break.

If you’re looking for a good resolution for 2021, don’t focus on new things to start doing. Instead, vow to quit some old, counterproductive leadership behaviors that don’t work in today’s world.

The new world we’re entering has flipped everything upside down. The skills, mindsets, and ways of being that were once prized and sought after have become liabilities. And yet too many leaders can’t seem to get with the new program.

It’s like we have an Industrial Revolution hangover. On some level, we know command and control don’t work anymore. We know we can’t boss people into being engaged, innovative, and collaborative. We know fear doesn’t motivate. And yet, we just can’t help ourselves from falling into old, counterproductive leadership habits.

To greatly simplify this message, we must all be able to continuously learn, unlearn, and relearn by adapting to the world’s reality as it evolves. This is not easy, considering our inherent ego-driven need to defend what we think we know. It requires a whole new way of being and a whole new way of working, which requires a whole new way of leading.

Here are seven bad leadership behaviors to quit doing in 2021:  

QUIT telling people what to do. Command and control work well when you’re running a factory. In that setting, you expect people to be cogs—to do rather than think, problem-solve, and connect. In the Digital Age, though, you’ll need to lead people whose jobs require innovation, creativity, and emotional engagement. You cannot coerce or command people to do these things. Instead, you must create the conditions that enable them. 

QUIT scaring them into submission. Fear is an effective motivator when you need people to comply mindlessly. The problem is, if employees are afraid of negative consequences (from verbal abuse to being fired), they won’t take risks, suggest new ideas, report problems, critique others’ thinking. A company that tries to motivate by fear can’t become an “idea meritocracy,” where the best data-driven idea or judgment wins, regardless of rank, compensation, or power. 

QUIT thinking you’re so smart. Pre-Internet, the more you knew, the more valuable you were. In school, the higher your grades, and fewer your mistakes, the “smarter” you were. That is old-school “smart,” and it’s a liability in an age that requires constant learning, unlearning, and relearning. You’ll never be able to store in your head as much information as a computer, and you will not have fast, perfect recall like a computer. 

Leaders and employees alike need to be good at not knowing rather than knowing. That takes humility, which is the opposite of a big ego.

QUIT pushing so hard. In less complicated times, hard-driving, Type A leaders thrived. The needed results were clear, and leaders could push (themselves and others) until they were achieved. In a global economy rife with uncertainty and ambiguity, nothing is clear. Rather than driving results, leaders must slow down and foster engagement so people can work together to find solutions. This means leaders must exist in a state of inner peace — and help employees do the same. 

QUIT making snap decisions. In the past, when the leader’s word was law, making decisions quickly and enforcing them was a strength. Not anymore. The best leaders can slow down, engage with others, and listen with a nonjudgmental, open mind. They know that the kinds of high-level conversations that need to happen take time to unfold. Innovation and exploring the new is a process where the answers change as you learn. 

QUIT pitting employees against each other. Back when companies were military-style hierarchies, it made sense to compete for the boss’s favor. Leaders often encouraged such internal competition because it drove individuals to compete against each other. But now, in the Digital Age, high-functioning teams should trump individualism. What you want is collaboration in an “idea meritocracy” setting. 

Leaders need to create environments that result in caring, trusting teams where employees are naturally motivated to work together and help each other.

QUIT discouraging messy emotions. Back when employees functioned as human machines, emotions were unnecessary. In fact, they were liabilities. Employers expected people to leave their humanity at the door. Today, the opposite is true. Positive emotions are at the heart of learning, connecting, collaborating, and creating. They’re the building blocks of caring, trusting relationships. Great leaders will have to “get” and value the power of emotions. And they’ll need to make a point of showing employees they see and value them as unique human beings.  

In the Digital Age, our human uniqueness will depend on our emotional capabilities and how we manage our emotions. It will not be “all business.” It will be all about people and enabling the highest levels of performance in concert with technology.

Becoming a Hyper-Learner isn’t easy, but it is doable. It’s all about unlearning skills and behaviors that no longer serve us. I think most will agree that creating workplaces where people can thrive, grow, and become their best selves is worth the effort.

As executive director of Content and Implementation at education technology company Curriculum Associates, I’m familiar with distance learning challenges, hybrid schedules, and the juggling act teachers, students, and families perform every day.

In addition to coaching educators on ways to engage students in distance learning this school year, I’m also supporting education very close to my own home – at my dining room table, in fact – where my two daughters are attending class.

Given this unique lens as both a parent and someone who supports educators, I’d like to share my top tips for others trying to work and support at-home learning through these challenging times. 

●     Embrace the crazy. Every day will be different and present its own set of challenges and opportunities for you and your family. That’s life: it’s messy and continually changing. Lean into the chaos and make peace with the fact that things may not always go as planned.

●     Failure happens. From personal experience, I can tell you that sometimes you will fail at balancing working from home while simultaneously helping your children learn virtually. These mistakes will provide an extreme dose of humility. Take them in your stride, learn from them, and move on.

●     Mornings are your friend. I know it can be tough to get up early, especially on cold winter mornings, but it’s essential to have time just to yourself each day. As my girls have gotten older, they tend to sleep later, so I get up before them, my wife, and even my dog to exercise, meditate, and prepare for the day ahead. Taking this small amount of “me” time does wonders in starting each day with a positive attitude.

●     Schedules are helpful—sort of. Manage your children’s school weeks to the best of your ability, realizing that there will be days when your schedule will fall apart at 8 a.m. It’s helpful to have a copy of their schedules on hand to anticipate lunch breaks and other free periods and try to be available if possible when they aren’t learning so you can have their food ready and be there to help with any school (or life) questions.

●     Carve out your own space. Set aside your work area, whether it is a corner of a room or your own office, to help you focus and get work done. Enforce a “no action figures allowed” policy with signage if needed. Making an effort to have your own dedicated space, no matter how small, will help you stay on track and be more productive.

●     It’s all about teamwork. Look for your helpers, both those in your home and on your team. I am fortunate to have an incredible wife who I lean on heavily to help me navigate trying to work and lead conference calls while also helping my daughters with their studies. I also have team members who understand when I need to turn my camera off to prepare pb&j sandwiches for lunch. Speak up if you’re feeling overwhelmed, and reach out to family, friends, colleagues, and partners to help out and for advice.

●     Stay thankful. While this situation isn’t what anyone was expecting, make time for gratitude for things large and small. You’re likely spending more time with your children than you ever were before, so take advantage of this rare opportunity to get to know the fascinating little humans in your life even better. Reframing this time as precious has helped my perspective immensely.

●     Find reasons to laugh. Some days may make you want to tear your hair out, but at the end of the day, remember that this situation isn’t going to last forever. Try to find humor in the frustrating and ridiculous moments. Did your dog jump on your lap during a meeting and bark loudly to be let out of the room? Did your child decide a Zoom call was the best time to show off her new dance routine? Did someone in your house yell, “I have to use the bathroom” at the top of their lungs, just as you hit the unmute button on Zoom? These will be the “can you believe…” stories your family shares for years to come.

●     We are all improvising. Finally, while it can be helpful to consider advice from others, know that there’s no fully-baked expertise on how to parent and work through times like this. Every week – heck, every day – is a learning process, and flexibility and grace will serve you well. Forge the unique path that works best for you and your family, trusting in your ability to do what’s best for your personal and professional wellness.

Wondering how to become a better leader and encourage more emotional engagement in your workplace? The secret is in convincing your brain to let your heart take the lead.

You’ve had to take care of yourself and your family throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, but your responsibilities go far beyond your four walls at home. As a business leader, you must also help your team and business navigate this shifting, uncertain landscape. It’s a huge challenge — especially when you can’t connect with employees in person.

If you’ve experienced the roller coaster of emotions, the fear, and the insecurity that have resulted from this, you’re not alone. It’s hard not to slide into negativity or mental paralysis. But at this moment, you only have to answer one question: A year from now, how will you evaluate your leadership response? It’s a serious question.

For me, I’ll know that love was my guiding compass. I’ve chosen to love my team, support my clients and friends, and give my family 100% commitment. It can be tough to stay optimistic, but it’s the best way to make it through these uncertain and unsteady times.

Thankfully, that hard work translates directly to business success. Recent McKinsey & Company research findings revealed four times the job engagement among workers whose organizations have shown supportive, pragmatic coronavirus responses. That’s tangible evidence that leaders who lead with love are onto something that can make a world of difference.

Bumps in the Road to Leading With Love in the Workplace

Although leading with love in the workplace is fundamental at our company, it can be a foreign practice at other businesses. Why? For some leaders, the learning curve is relatively steep. They’re adapting and changing so much already that adding another task to the mix seems daunting.

And vulnerability? It can be challenging to show. Plenty of people adopt a “strong” persona during tough times, perpetuating the illusion that they’re invincible. Ironically, employees want to see more than strength; they want to know that leadership shares their fears and insecurities.

On top of everything, executives and managers actively searching for ways to be a better leader find it challenging to figure out how to make deep connections over Zoom or on the phone. If you’re worried that distance is the ultimate barrier to connection, fear not — I’ve cried with team members and clients on UberConference lines, sharing the hardest times in their lives while building trust. These experiences have only strengthened our bonds and increased our trust.

The Advantages of Emotional Engagement in the Workplace

Making compassion and commitment part of everything you do creates a ripple effect: Team members become motivated to go the extra mile. Regardless of what happens, they know that you’ll get through any challenges together — and that no one will be left behind.

When emotional engagement in the workplace is consistent, it becomes part of your cultural fabric. Everyone speaks the same language. Team members know their guiding compass and can use it to guide their decisions. They’re kinder and more eager to collaborate because you were willing to establish core values built on openness, empathy, and vulnerability.

How to Be a Better Leader Through Love

The biggest challenge facing leaders today isn’t the pandemic; it’s knowing how to lead people through it. If you’re eager to try something different and see your team on a more human level, try these five techniques:

1. Make a genuine effort to understand your team.

You’ve likely worked on your listening skills a lot since COVID-19 began. Don’t stop now. Take time to hear and understand what your employees are experiencing. Then, give honest feedback to facilitate positive momentum for them and the company. Spend time talking about your employees’ concerns and problems (including those that are personal). That way, you can brainstorm creative solutions together.

2. Accept that we all have flaws.

No one is perfect — including you. Spend less time hiding who you are and more time showing your true self. At the same time, accept others for who they are with grace instead of trying to fix their flaws. No one on your team should feel like they can’t contribute because they’re worried about being wrong. Instead, leaders who lead with love empower people to act authentically.

3. Be brave enough to have tough, vulnerable conversations.

Leading with love in the workplace doesn’t mean you can’t be upfront with people or that you have to let constructive feedback fall by the wayside. You can continue to create a safe space while remaining in charge of your company, pod, squad, or department. Just remember to approach everything from a caring standpoint. Being brave enough to have tough, vulnerable conversations is about giving constructive feedback and coming from a place of understanding the situation or any challenges being faced — and working to reach solutions together.

4. Show appreciation without expecting anything in return.

According to research from the University of Pennsylvania, workers enjoy a 50% higher success rate when their leaders show gratitude. This makes perfect sense: If you reward (verbally or financially) the good things that staff members do, they’ll do it again. Additionally, other team players will emulate the practice.

5. Be a coach, not a critic.

Now is the time to be a thoughtful mentor. Coaching will produce more innovation, and innovation is what your business needs to remain competitive in a shaky economy. Mentorship has another positive side effect: The most talented superstars in your organization will embrace leading with love in the workplace as they embark on their professional journeys for years to come.

Everyone wins when you embrace a love-first leadership style. Engagement soars. Collaboration grows. Turnover plummets. It’s not too late to ride the wave of this fantastic ripple effect — you simply have to put your heart front and center.

Steve Jobs was wearing jeans and sandals under a black graduation gown as he stepped to the podium to deliver Stanford University’s commencement address in June 2005.

It was quite a scene, with some 23,000 faculty members, alumni, newly minted graduates, and their parents jamming the floor and bleachers of the school’s football stadium. After all, who better than this icon of personal technology, the legendary entrepreneur who started up Apple Computer—soon to be the world’s most valuable company—to tell them how to capitalize on their prestigious college degrees? 

What was Jobs’ message to the overflow crowd? That a top-notch education, or brilliant track record, would not be enough to save them when, inevitably, a crisis turned their best-laid plans upside down. 

It’s a crucial lesson for all of us whose businesses or careers have been upended by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Lesson #1: When Crisis Strikes, Focus on the Future 

Jobs told his audience that it would be their ability to create anew—rethink, reimagine, and reinvent the future—that would ultimately shape their long-term success. 

As was the case when Jobs was forced out of his job at Apple. 

“I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have happened to me,” Jobs said. “It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my life. The heaviness of being successful was replaced with the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything.” 

Over the next five years, Jobs introduced a revolutionary new computer operating system called NeXTSTEP, which became a critical building block of the internet. He also purchased and reinvented Pixar, a small computer graphics company, turning it into an animation company that launched a lucrative new era in filmmaking. 

As Walter Isaacson noted in his biography of Jobs: “He was a master at putting together ideas, art, and technology in ways that invented the future.” 

“Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick,” recalled Jobs. “Don’t lose faith.” 

Instead, start creating the future. 

Lesson #2: Creativity Is a Verb 

Prolific creators of all kinds have a vastly different understanding of creativity than many of us. 

From deep experience, they know that, contrary to what we’ve frequently been told in classrooms, books, consulting sessions, or TED talks, creativity is not a spark of genius, a personal trait to be emulated, or the unique domain of specific organizations or teams. 

Instead, it’s the result of a series of verbs, a strategy of actions, that any of us—whether we’re a business leader, manager, or career professional—can learn and apply to better surf the waves of the COVID economic crisis and position ourselves for future success. 

The experience of another iconic American creator who was faced with a triple-header crisis gives a taste of the strategy. 

Lesson #3: Pay Attention to the Evolving Market 

In the 1920s and early ‘30s, three consecutive crises barreled down on Walt Disney’s business and career track when he initially tried to get started in Hollywood. 

First, Universal Pictures finagled him out of the rights to his first major cartoon character and hit movie. Second, theater owners refused to show films he subsequently made. Finally, and you would think this would be the last straw, the Great Depression struck. 

But through it all, Disney focused on an observation that only he, among filmmakers, had made about the quickly evolving movie marketplace: audiences of all ages, especially children, loved seeing cute little animals with human characteristics and personalities.  

As Disney put it: “Unless people can identify themselves with the character, its actions will seem unreal. And without personality, a story cannot ring true.” 

Making this observation while in the throes of crisis was the first step, the initial act, in Walt Disney’s creative strategy—the underpinning of a process that led to the invention of Mickey Mouse and the subsequent launch of Disney’s entertainment empire in the depths of the Great Depression. 

Wrote one chronicler of the times: “Mickey Mouse became the one thing people could smile about. His indomitable spirit, as well as the technological advances that Disney displayed in those first cartoons, struck a chord with movie-going audiences. People became invested in Mickey Mouse. In rooting for Mickey, audiences were cheering their own success, as well.” 

The worse the economy became, the more Mickey was in demand. And by 1938, when there was light at the end of the tunnel, Mickey was credited not only with spreading joy, but with concretely assisting America’s recovery, as the production of hundreds of Mickey Mouse branded products—from wristwatches to playing cards, pencils, marmalade, breakfast cereal, table covers, and bracelets—helped to reopen factories, and provide thousands of new jobs. 

In a time of deep national crisis, like today’s COVID-19 pandemic, Walt Disney observed the evolving marketplace, and with this as his starting point, built a global business like nothing the world had seen. When he was asked, as he often was over the years, how he first began creating his entertainment conglomerate, he was known to respond: “I hope we never lose sight of one thing—that it was all started by a mouse.”   

Keep this front of mind as your business begins turning the page on the coronavirus crisis: a savvy observation, perhaps one that only you or your team will make, could change the shape of your future. 

The son of Martin Luther King Jr. shares his insights on how your family can grow and sustain a mission-aligned leadership culture that transcends the next generation and beyond.

Martin Luther King III describes what family leadership looks like against a landscape of global problems:

Where to focus family leadership efforts. There are monumental world issues that we should focus on as a society. Climate change is among the most important because if our water and air are polluted, then everything else is for naught. If we don’t find ways to address it, we’re going to all be in trouble.

Second is the eradication of poverty in the world and certainly, within our own nation. Our nation has an inordinate amount of poverty based on the amount of resources that exist here. My parents used to talk about the eradication of poverty, racism, and I’d say violence – although my dad used to call it militarism. Those triple evils are where leadership-oriented families must focus. 

The King family’s leadership focus. Society has embraced a culture of violence. It’s in our cinemas and in the gaming industry targeting our children. It’s in our homes as domestic violence. Leaders have to think about how to create a culture of non-violence because non-violence is sustainable. Our culture cannot sustain itself if we continue to operate this way.

If we can live a day in peace, why can’t we live a week in peace? If we can live a week in peace, why can’t we live a month? If we can live a month, why not a year? And if we can achieve a year, why not a lifetime?

So many people look to the United States for leadership, but we are the most divided we’ve ever been. We can’t focus on one political interest — we have to look at what serves humanity. Leaders need to help communities get above the noise and think at a different level. 

As a family, we are focusing on peace, justice, and equity. While that’s furthering the legacy of my parents, it’s also the legacy of our family in general, and our 11-year-old daughter is working with us on it, too.

Role of individual leadership in moving the needle on world problems. Start by deciding what kind of society you seek for yourself and your family, and then identify where you can make a contribution. Some of us are concerned about the climate, so they should focus there. Some are concerned with police brutality, so they should focus there. Some are concerned with reproductive rights, so they need to engage and get involved there. All of us have a contribution we can make.

Importance of listening to young people. The truth is that young people are leading the rest of us. The Parkland students are a perfect example. They worked very hard to mobilize people around the country so that the needle can move on responsible gun legislation. These young people are totally engaged and leading us. I haven’t seen a movement like that since 1963 when 3,000 kids were arrested
in Birmingham attempting to desegregate the city.

Then we’ve got young people like Greta Thunberg leading us around climate issues. And even younger children like Little Miss Flint leading us around the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.

I go to schools and ask kids what they are worried about. Too often, they say they’re concerned someone will come into their school and shoot them. Think about that: Our children have to practice what to do if someone comes into the classroom shooting at them. Our society has accepted a culture of violence. Instead of focusing on eradicating violence, we are focused on teaching our children how to cope with it.

I’m inspired by children and how easily and naturally they take action. Unfortunately, adults don’t tend to get involved until they are affected by it directly. When there’s a catastrophe, we get engaged. But the kids are showing us that we can get engaged at any time. Adults just have to learn how to disagree without being disagreeable.

On encouraging a culture of leadership within families. I’m always telling my daughter, Yolanda, that she has to be authentic. She’s been around leaders in her family for generations — parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, and uncles — we’re all involved. But I tell her she has to find her own authenticity. You don’t have to be like us. Be your best self. You’ve got to find your way.

She got a chance to speak at the March for Our Lives, and she went way beyond what I would have said because I am regimented by the laws of our land. At the event, she said she had a vision, her own dream (see sidebar, “Yolanda Renee King: I Have a Dream, Too.”) We did not help her with this speech or give her any guidance. She said, “I know what I want to say.” 

Lessons learned from my daughter. From day one, she’s had an interest in homelessness and poverty. I never pushed her, but I’m thankful she has this interest. Families that lead let their child be who they want to be. And what if your kid is not focused on being their best self? Exposure is everything. Every kid has a gift, and when they find their gift, they are motivated to work on it because it’s what inspires them. 

Yolanda knows what’s happening and why there’s a need to focus on U.S. poverty. If a kid comes to school hungry, they won’t have the energy to do anything. Principals tell me they have many transient students. There are apartments out there where you get your first month’s rent free, so after that, they move. They are constantly moving because they can’t afford to stay, and the kids never get a chance to adjust. Many in our society are completely unaware that these kinds of things are going on. How do we inspire kids to be leaders until we fix these problems?

Some time ago, I visited a school in Sudan. The school was in a tent — in fact, the whole place was a tent village. Our sponsor provided us with a shiny black Mercedes to drive out there. We got out of the car, and the kids started running out and pointing at the car and then running back in and bringing out more children and pointing at the car. And I thought, “Wow, materialism has even made it out here to these kids in Sudan.” But then I realized that the car was so shiny they could see themselves reflected on it. They had never seen a mirror before and were seeing images of themselves for the first time.

You may think you know what’s going on, but it’s all a matter of perspective. American kids often don’t realize how bad other kids have it. Exposure helps them realize, and then from that comes the desire to help others. Parents want to protect their children’s innocence, and that is preeminent. But we still need to let them grow up. Leadership-oriented families expose their kids to things so the kids can embrace the problems and become part of the solution.

Hardest thing about living a consistent life of  leadership. Most challenging is staying authentic in a nation where everything is quickly changing. You have to maintain your values and not let society change who you are and who your family is. But you do have to compromise to stay relevant.

We are focused on creating partnerships to align people and families who can help us with what we want to achieve. That’s what it’s going to take. No one person, no one organization can do all this work. It’s going to take a collective.

That’s what leadership is about — building this collective of collaborators. My dad would have called it creating the beloved community. And that’s what my wife and I, and even Yolanda, are focused on right now: creating these collaborations to continue the legacy and unfinished work of my parents.