An Interview With Cynthia Corsetti
You’ll spend time differently. When we lead with empathy, we recognize that our effectiveness as leaders comes from the relationships that we build with our team. Building relationships takes time. So you’ll find yourself having more 1:1s with team members while also keeping blocks open on your calendar so your team can get the time they need with you for support and ideas.
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 Katie McLaughlin.
Katie is an executive coach and business consultant with over 15 years on the inside of high growth companies like Wayfair, Upserve, and Rocket Lawyer. The last 7 years, she’s leveraged her expertise in change management, learning, and business in consulting roles across 4 firms. She’s collaborated with over 25 companies as they navigate the changes their organizations face across software implementation projects, acquisitions, and culture. In 2020, Katie founded McLaughlin Method, a boutique consulting firm focused on improving company culture in mature tech companies through actionable, interactive, empathy-building programs.
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?
I started my career in nonprofits and education administration before entering the startup/tech world where I found my sweet spot in my career. I left college with loads of theatre training and a passion for sharing the life lessons from theatre with others. Then I stumbled into the fun world of technology and software startups. I say “startup” but at the point where I joined these companies, they frequently had more than 150 employees. But they wore the term startup as a badge of honor for how they were moving quickly and looking to create a different kind of company culture.
After spending more than 10 years in technology startups working in people-related roles — from training, talent, sales enablement and change management, I realized that I was leveraging my knowledge of human behavior from my theatre training. I’ve had success coaching employees, developing managers, and executing training and change management programs that get results. I started my business McLaughlin Method to apply all of my skills across business while using theatre-based methodologies and techniques to create thriving company cultures that fuel business success.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
During my years of consulting, I was sometimes brought onto projects that were on complex topics that were new to me. I remember one project for a big player in the financial industry where I really felt like a fish out of water. I’d never studied these complex economic and financial topics, but I was there to do a job. I made it my mission to not let this be a blocker to me supporting this client. I paid extra attention in the conversations and asked a ton of questions. I could’ve made the choice to pretend like I knew what we were talking about, but that wouldn’t have supported my client. Instead, since I asked all these questions to try and understand these complex topics. I even got them thinking about how they could communicate their ideas better. It ended up being one of my favorite projects. I’ve turned asking questions into a superpower.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
The passion driving my company, McLaughlin Method, is a deep passion for people and creating happier, healthier workplaces. I have seen and felt the joy of people seeing their own potential, using their skills in new ways, and being fully accepted for who they are at work. But I’ve also seen the flip side. There’s been too many promises made by companies to create a workplace where you can be your authentic self, to then have the experience of toxic leadership, bullying, and other forms of workplace hurt. I am on a mission to stop this workplace hurt and transform the ways that we all relate to each other in the workplace.
One of my favorite clients was a small company of about 40 people. They all had drastically different roles and education, and that created a tension and conflict where some folks felt “better” or “less” than others. We did one of my theatre exercises designed to help others “step into” the roles of others, and it was remarkable to see the aha moments happening on their faces as they saw how hard each other works regardless of their role or education.
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?
Empathy has been a top skill for me as a leader because it has enabled me to connect with people at varying levels within a company and also with folks that don’t share my identities or values. These are often relationships where conflict can easily arise, and I have found that empathy allows me to put aside potential conflict and focus on the people: their needs, ideas, and perspectives.
I’m proud to be someone who is great at managing to a deadline. It definitely comes from my theatre background and the “show must go on” attitude. In theatre, you can’t move back performances because tickets have already been sold (plus: there’s huge financial and reputational consequences if you do). So! I’ve always applied these lessons to my business projects allowing me to be proactive in planning, building in contingencies, and addressing needs to gather more resources, trim requirements, or advocate that we accept a change of scope that still meets the overall business need so we can deliver on time. It doesn’t get recognized often, but it is something that I am proud of and has definitely built the confidence of my colleagues in working with me.
In the fast-paced tech world where I’ve spent most of my career, the ability to improvise and stay nimble to change has been a crucial skill to support my career growth. Sometimes it has felt like a constant brainstorm (which I love), and I’ve been able to quickly see things from different perspectives to come up with creative ideas and pivot fast when something needs to change.
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.
The hardest decisions I face in leadership always center on PIPs (performance improvement plans) and terminations. I love people and see the potential in everyone who comes to work for me. I invest a ton of time and energy into my team members, so it’s always an incredible challenge when someone consistently isn’t improving their performance. Before I give a PIP, I level with that person about how their performance isn’t meeting expectations, coach them to make change, and give them space to share with me where the disconnect is. The struggle hits me, after many times of reiterating that I’m invested in them succeeding, where they close off, and they can’t make the improvements needed. Any time this has happened, I use that experience and learnings to be even more proactive in communicating expectations, establishing that relationship of trust and honesty, and hope that helps the next person who might be struggling.
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?
Empathy is often described as “putting yourself in someone else’s shoes” or feeling what someone else is feeling and then expressing that empathy through action and words like “I understand what you’re going through” or “I’ve been there.” The pitfall of this attempt at empathy is that we can never understand what someone is going through — each of us have unique identities, experiences, and perspectives that create our emotional experience. If we say “I understand…” or “I’ve been there”, it comes off as fake and performative rather than vulnerable. Empathy in leadership is a skill similar to emotional intelligence where we learn to recognize the potential feelings someone might experience in the workplace and invite others to elaborate about their experience so we can support them.
Can you share a personal experience where showing empathy as a leader significantly impacted a situation or relationship in your organization?
When I was coaching customer service reps, we listened to a call with a rep who immediately dove into self-criticism and negativity about their performance. Was some of their feedback accurate? Yes, and it also indicated that this person felt uncomfortable and lacked confidence. I took a moment to let them know that coaching sessions aren’t just about listing what was “wrong” or “needs fixing” but it is also an opportunity to celebrate the things you’re doing well. I took a moment to name a few positive behaviors that I observed on the call and the rep immediately brightened, smiled, and sat up straighter. It enabled us to have a much more relaxed conversation, and we both walked away with a better relationship with each other, and they felt better about coaching sessions.
How do empathetic leaders strike a balance between understanding their team’s feelings and making tough decisions that might not be universally popular?
There’s a difference between making an unpopular decision while acknowledging the impact on your team versus making it with no regard for the team’s feelings. It’s unacceptable for leaders to say “it’s just a ‘business’ decision” because the reality is that every decision we make as leaders is also a people decision. Our people need to act on, adopt, and follow through on their work based on the decisions we make. So our first step is to consult our teams on the impact of possible decisions so we make our decisions with more holistic inputs. It might not change the decision we make, but it is a more informed decision. Our next step is to communicate to our teams the reasoning behind our decisions so they understand how we value them and acknowledge the impact that these decisions will have on them.
How would you differentiate between empathy and sympathy in leadership? Why is it important for leaders to distinguish between the two?
I’ll get right to it: sympathy is pejorative. I personally hate the word and the idea. We have to remember that empathy doesn’t have to be just about feeling the same feelings as someone else. It is also about recognizing and acknowledging the feelings of others. Empathy is a powerful relational skill for leaders. We can relate to what they feel or experience, but we can never truly “know” or “understand” what someone else feels or why they feel it. The key is giving ourselves an opportunity to consider a scenario from their perspective and ask ourselves what we might feel as a result. That’s where relating starts to happen, and it can be a powerful opening to an authentic conversation with our team members about what is happening and how decisions or situations are impacting them. That said, empathy can also be about positive emotions like celebrating or empowering our team members.
What are some practical strategies or exercises that leaders can employ to cultivate and enhance their empathetic skills?
Love this question. Because yes, empathy is a skill. And skills can be developed, practiced, and learned. Empathy is about feelings, right? Our vocabulary to describe feelings is lacking — especially in the workplace where we’re battling the inculturation of “emotions don’t belong at work”. We’re also obsessed with “professionalism” and “saying the right thing.” Feelings come from within us physically as well as mentally. So I focus on experiential exercises for empathy that don’t require “words”. Think of that adage “an image is worth a thousand words.” We use our bodies to create images of how we really feel about something, and share those images with others. For example, if you had to respond to a prompt like “how do you really feel when you have to announce bad news to someone?” — start to notice how your body feels. Do you start to shrink or close off? Maybe you want to hide? Or you might feel like you have to dig deep and go to battle. Create an image using your whole body to express that feeling without words. When we start to get real with how something makes us feel, we generate an openness to how others might feel the same or differently.
How can empathy help leaders navigate the complexities of leading diverse teams and ensure inclusivity?
Research has shown that empathy is one of the proven ways to combat bias, which is the biggest blocker to inclusivity and helping a diverse team to thrive. One of the reasons I love these image exercises is that when we respond to the prompts as a group at the same time, we see how, despite our differences, many of us experience situations with similar emotional responses. It starts the empathy journey for us to break down our assumption that “we’re so different,” and we start to see our diverse team in a different light.
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?
Succession planning is usually seen as a part of addressing the operational risk to the company if key folks leave. It’s a CYA activity and is a trap for our biases and assumptions to run rampant. Only choosing the top performers as potential successors, or people we like the most. Instead, I link succession planning heavily with career development. This way, everyone is involved in and contributes to the plans to ensure that our organization has the future skills and leaders that we need to be successful. As leaders, we get new ideas of who might grow to fit certain roles, and we empower our team to see themselves at our organization beyond their current role. It’s a win-win!
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways Empathy Will Affect Your Leadership”?
1. You’ll see your role differently. Historically, the leader’s role was to command and control the people we lead. This leaves no room for empathy or the human experience. It’s still present in our work today as we focus on data, metrics, and performance. When we leverage empathy, we ask questions behind the numbers and see ourselves as responsible for the development and engagement of our team members.
2. You’ll spend time differently. When we lead with empathy, we recognize that our effectiveness as leaders comes from the relationships that we build with our team. Building relationships takes time. So you’ll find yourself having more 1:1s with team members while also keeping blocks open on your calendar so your team can get the time they need with you for support and ideas.
3. The relationships you build with your team will be stronger. As you spend more time with your team and build relationships based on empathy, your team will see you as a trusted leader who “gets” them. You’ll see them coming to you to report issues, get advice, and celebrate wins. It makes delivering feedback easier because you and your team trust each other are working towards everyone’s best because of that foundation you’ve laid.
4. It will feel easy to motivate your team. When you lead with empathy, you naturally get to understand what makes your team get annoyed, frustrated, and avoid work. You’ll be able to address motivation issues by tapping into things that get them excited, and by addressing something from the perspective of things that matter to them.
5. You’ll navigate conflict and deliver unpopular news differently. When we’re struggling to exercise empathy, conflict and unpopular news are often things that we avoid because we don’t want to “deal” with people’s feelings or reactions. Empathy makes it easier to proactively reduce conflict and the impact of unpopular news because of your ability to connect with your team. When we understand why conflict and resistance happens, we’re able to name it to our teams, provide a space where they can have reactions, and get support from you to engage in the conflict productively.
Are there potential pitfalls or challenges associated with being an empathetic leader? How can these be addressed?
I see two big challenges as leaders build their empathy skills and attempt to use them in the workplace. First: being too emotionally involved in their team’s feelings (and often their lives). Second: getting triggered by the emotions their team shares with you. You’re too emotionally involved as a leader if you’re acting almost like a therapist for your team or let your empathy make excuses for consistent behavior or performance issues from your team. Being an empathetic leader still creates space for holding others accountable to their commitments and the impact of their actions on the team as a whole and their individual performance. You’ll notice that you’re triggered by your team’s emotions if you find yourself avoiding conversations, shut down when someone shares their feelings, or you yell / argue / blow up at someone. These behaviors kill any connection that you might have gained with your team. It’s important in all scenarios that we do our own work to understand how certain scenarios impact us so we can make conscious, intentional choices of how we will engage with our teams that are in service to those relationships.
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?
Usually, I’m thinking about big picture things and how to keep things moving strategically. It can sometimes cause me to question what actions are most important for today, so I end up taking time during my morning to ground myself in the things within my control that can make the biggest difference on my business today. It helps me focus on both the urgent and the important things so I don’t find myself only working on one or the other.
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. 🙂
I firmly believe in the ripple effect. Each interaction we have with any person has an impact on the people that they interact with, and so on. If we can transform our awareness to the impact of our actions, we can make a conscious decision to choose how we interact with others. This can make a huge difference in lives we never thought we could impact. For example, if we were to take a beat before having a snap comment at someone, we’d be preventing hurt in that individual who will take that interaction, learn from it, and pass it on to others in their community.
How can our readers further follow you online?
I publish blog articles on my website www.mclaughlinmethod.com or follow me on LinkedIn.
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.
Katie McLaughlin Of McLaughlin Method: 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.