An Interview With Cynthia Corsetti
You will know the real reasons behind peoples’ opinions rather than just their business rationalizations.
Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of another, is increasingly recognized as a pivotal leadership trait. In an ever-evolving business landscape, leaders who exhibit genuine empathy are better equipped to connect, inspire, and drive their teams towards success. But how exactly does empathy shape leadership dynamics? How can it be harnessed to foster stronger relationships, improved decision-making, and a more inclusive work environment? As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Chad Hattrup.
Chad Hattrup, Ph.D. is the founder and co-CEO of Pathwise Leadership, founded in Seattle, Washington in late 2007. He began his career in the tech industry working in sales and operations, spending five years moving through increasingly complex roles before realizing his interests and talent were inextricably linked to the study and understanding of human Psychology. He pursued and subsequently completed a MA in Clinical Psychology and a Doctorate in Psychology from Saybrook Graduate School. His entrée into working professionally in psychology was as a Sr. Organizational Consultant for top executives, including the former CEO of the Boeing Company.
Chad’s experience in business and psychodynamic psychology culminated in his co-founding of Pathwise Leadership. The Pathwise Program was designed initially to give individual leaders a PhD-level immersive study in psychology. He felt that this depth of psychology was inherently necessary for leaders to affect growth in themselves and others psychologically. Since then, the Pathwise program has gained the reputation of offering leaders a rare level of self-awareness, and the ability to perceive and work with human dynamics. Pathwise has provided this to over 3,000 leaders in Tech, Manufacturing, Education, Law Enforcement, and Healthcare.
Beginning in 2013, trials of the Pathwise program were offered to intact leadership teams within a select few companies. The results of these trials far exceeded all expectations — in addition to the individual leadership benefits, the teams developed the much sought-after characteristic of psychological trust between co-workers and their leaders. Since then, Chad and the faculty at Pathwise have worked with the global leadership teams of many companies, both large and small, to create outcomes whose stories of effort and inspiration match the experience of all involved.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion about empathy, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
The early part of my career involved working in leadership roles in the high-tech industry. Later, as I considered a career change, I continued my high-tech work while attending graduate school, studying psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, developmental psychology, neuroscience, and applied classical philosophy. What I found during this period opened my mind, gave me a depth of perspective, and equipped me with an advanced skill set to focus on the psychological landscape of people and organizations.
I co-founded Pathwise Leadership with Dr. Todd Hollow-Bist on the principle that the most difficult problems leaders face are psychology-based. Surprisingly, there is often a lack of depth in psychology education or training for leaders, which they both want and need.
What truly enlivens me is discovering and collaborating with others around those ideas that have been lost, hidden, or naively ignored — ideas passed down from antiquity by wise teachers who understood the immense practicality of presence and self-knowledge.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
In my line of work, the unconscious makes itself known every day, and it’s always interesting — like someone bragging about being an uncritical person whilst in the midst of criticizing someone or someone who says they are ‘very trusting’ while always asking me if our conversations are recorded. Seeing this and helping to make it conscious is never boring.
One specific experience that comes to mind and continues to inspire me was the first time I was invited to teach a class for leaders at a large law enforcement agency. At the time, I had only worked with leaders in the tech and business sectors, and so I was expecting a very closed, stay away from feelings, kind of group. I was so wrong. I walked into a room of people wearing Kevlar with guns and tasers strapped to their sides, but they were open to learning and grateful, and I was humbled by how disconnected I, and perhaps so many people, are from people in this dangerous line of work. It’s been a passion project for me to help bring greater levels of psychological understanding and self-awareness to law enforcement leaders and connect them on a deeper level with other non-police leaders in the community.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
At Pathwise, we give people and teams a level of psychological knowledge and experience they would not be able to get anywhere else, except maybe by going through a 4–6 year graduate program. I remember a leader who was part of a team that went through the program. He intimated to me during a coffee meeting that the Pathwise program was “Not even close to what he expected it to be, in a good way!”.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
There are two.
The first was during graduate school when I became aware of my personality type and how it can be destructive to others. For the first several years of my career, I worked in tech, and I was also married fairly young in my early 20s. When I started learning about these things in my late 20s, I reflected back on the challenges I had in work relationships and in my own marriage, and I could see how my personality had been the culprit. This was a very big aha for me.
The second is related to the first, but it has to do with the practice rather than just the knowledge. I learned how to be present and in the moment. This practice frees up attention so I can struggle consciously against some of the automatic musings and reactions of my personality. The practice also opened me up to being able to really listen to people and not (as often) react so aggressively when my little ego feels bruised. In autopilot mode, my (our) attention just flows into preconceptions, self-judgements, and unnecessary behaviors. Had I not learned these two things, I doubt that I would be happily married for 26 years nor serve as a mentor for already excellent leaders.
Leadership often entails making difficult decisions or hard choices between two apparently good paths. Can you share a story with us about a hard decision or choice you had to make as a leader? I’m curious to understand how these challenges have shaped your leadership.
Early in the founding of our company, my business partner and I had little kids and not much revenue to speak of to support our families. I took a really interesting internal consultant position at a top Aerospace company, working directly with their leaders. It was a very secure position, but my real love was what my business partner Todd and I were building — Pathwise. Only a year after I took the position, Todd asked me to come back full-time and help. I ended my big salary and benefits to take the full risk again in building Pathwise. At the time, my family thought I was crazy, but it turned out to be the best decision. This still plays out because I am easily distracted by security, company size, and all kinds of external things; yet if I quiet down a bit, I return back to what is most essential and meaningful — these magical moments of help that occur with individuals and in groups, help that seems to come through what I do, not so much from “me’. When I return to that, I’m standing again where I belong. All the rest follows.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define empathy in a leadership context, and why do you believe it’s a vital trait for leaders to possess in today’s work environment?
People run around considering themselves empathic because it’s popular to think so. But actually, it is very rare. It’s mind travel. If I am empathizing with someone, I am exiting my own “me” world and entering theirs. I am experiencing their experience directly. I don’t think of it as something to possess or a tool for leadership. It’s a high-level capacity of human beings, but it is rarely used. This is where the unconscious comes into play. I don’t do it more because I think I already do it automatically. Except in very shocking situations, it’s almost never automatic, it’s more subtle. Paradoxically, it is usually when someone feels inadequate at doing it that they are really on the threshold. The humble ego is uneasy about what it thinks it knows or does. Those curious about empathy, though, could really understand where people are coming from. Also, of course, there are degrees of empathy too.
Can you share a personal experience where showing empathy as a leader significantly impacted a situation or relationship in your organization?
One year, we expanded our business to the Bay Area. I was traveling constantly from Seattle, staying at different hotels and renting cars from different rental companies. I was getting increasingly irritated with our ops person for being inconsiderate and not streamlining things more for me. One afternoon, after a team meeting, I was preparing to give her my feedback. She said, “Can I say something first?”. When she spoke, I don’t even remember her exact words, but suddenly, I saw what I was doing to her in a flash. I saw myself “from her perspective”. I was being demanding and ungrateful for all that she was doing to make my life easier. How wrong I was. That realization shocked me, and I felt remorse. I could say without a doubt that something shifted at that moment and still has permanent roots to this day.
How do empathetic leaders strike a balance between understanding their team’s feelings and making tough decisions that might not be universally popular?
Empathy brings essential information about what a team and its individual members are going through. For instance, if a reorg is announced, it would be normal for people on the team to feel fearful and also resistant. Knowing this, a leader may still need to move forward with a reorg that may even cost some people their jobs; however, they will likely proceed with much more vulnerability themselves and with more consideration of the employees’ need for information and support through the change.
How would you differentiate between empathy and sympathy in leadership? Why is it important for leaders to distinguish between the two?
As mentioned previously, people often confuse sympathy with empathy. If you are high functioning psychologically, then sympathy is just automatic. It’s kind of how we sync up to regular social brain function with each other. For example, if you share with me that you’re feeling stress in your job, then I unconsciously scan my own experience where I also do or did feel stress, and I share it. This syncs us somewhat. The problem with sympathy is it is always superimposing my experience onto yours. At best, my experience can only be proximate to yours and, most of the time, completely different. I think people can be great leaders and go a long way in sympathy.
What are some practical strategies or exercises that leaders can employ to cultivate and enhance their empathetic skills?
Empathy is the capacity of someone who is functioning at a higher level of consciousness than normal autopilot. The greatest threat to empathy in leadership is the fact that people believe that they are already doing it or are good at it. To see empathy as something of a superpower, something to be curious about; this is what helps people to start doing it more. When it happens, it’s very meaningful — when we feel it happening, regardless if we are the giver or receiver of it, we always feel like a receiver of something we wish could happen more often.
How can empathy help leaders navigate the complexities of leading diverse teams and ensure inclusivity?
Our normal functioning is always excluding. We know this from developmental psychology. It is our belief in the ideas, judgments, and moralities of our social groups (whatever they are) that carries us safely out and sustains us in our adult environment. The unconscious enters here, too, because since being inclusive is now popular in many circles, we fail to see that this, too, is not automatic, exclusion is. Inclusion is the natural result of the rare experience of traveling out of my “me” perspective into another person’s experience. When we do this, there is no imperative to include because I already know we are the same.
What’s your approach to ensuring that succession planning is a holistic process, and not just confined to the top layers of management? How do you communicate this philosophy through the organization?
Empathy can play into this too because the idea of succession can be expanded to help people at all levels of an organization to align their careers with what is intrinsically meaningful to them. To sus this out takes empathy on the part of the listener or those in positions to help promote peoples’ careers within a company. So many people care more about being supported in their ability to be creative than they do in their job title or level of power. Yes, some people do care mainly about this, but they have no interest in anything called holistic or anything that doesn’t just elevate their own position. Caring about holism, inclusion, or even empathy is already of interest to someone who is functioning at a higher level of cognitive development. Their primary source of communication is usually their example.
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways Empathy Will Affect Your Leadership”?
1 . You will know how others truly experience your leadership as if you were reporting to yourself.
2 . You will know the real reasons behind peoples’ opinions rather than just their business rationalizations.
3 . You will inspire a more meaningful and higher-functioning culture.
4 . You will be more understanding of people and less frustrated.
5 . You will hire people who are higher functioning like yourself, and this will ripple down into your organization.
Are there potential pitfalls or challenges associated with being an empathetic leader? How can these be addressed?
Some people will think that being empathetic means being weak or a pushover. In leadership, decisions need to be made that effect people. There is a lot of power there. Empathy really brings a greater perspective of the truth of what is happening with the people in order to make a better or more just decision for the whole. In Buddhism, they have a concept called ‘right action.’ It means the opposite of ‘re-action.’ How can we make a decision from a place of greater truth and understanding of what is good for the whole — This was Plato’s great invitation for leaders 2500 years ago.
Off-topic, but I’m curious. As someone steering the ship, what thoughts or concerns often keep you awake at night? How do those thoughts influence your daily decision-making process?
This may not be exactly what you’re asking, but I can say for myself and for so many people that I’ve worked with over the years it is just these thoughts that keep me up at night that are the enemy. For me, they are loaded with useless fears or with undue urgency, so my effort and that which I often relate to others is around how to give these automatic thought processes less currency. They come up during the day too, but they seem less urgent. There are different types, so maybe this is different for some. I find it to be pretty common though.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Influence is relative. I have my little impact. The thing I always forget is to not think or dream about the expanse of my impact but rather to try and focus on the quality of it at any given moment. We never really know the ripple effects of what can happen in one moment, maybe more than a speech to millions.
How can our readers further follow you online?
Follow me on LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadhattrup/
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About the Interviewer: Cynthia Corsetti is an esteemed executive coach with over two decades in corporate leadership and 11 years in executive coaching. Author of the upcoming book, “Dark Drivers,” she guides high-performing professionals and Fortune 500 firms to recognize and manage underlying influences affecting their leadership. Beyond individual coaching, Cynthia offers a 6-month executive transition program and partners with organizations to nurture the next wave of leadership excellence.
Chad Hattrup Of Pathwise Leadership: 5 Ways Empathy Will Affect Your Leadership was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.