Leading with care

Leading with care without being soft. This is what we'll be talking about today on how to lead the podcast for CEOs, founders and leaders who want clear, practical tools to help them lead well so their teams thrive and results follow. This episode is the first in a new series where we are looking at three essential leadership qualities, which if you're a regular listener, you'll know that I talk about at the end of every episode, care, curiosity, and clarity.

I'm Kate Waterfall Hill, and I'll be sharing more ideas from over 30 years of working in business and leadership development.

Before we dive in, a quick reminder, if you find my take on leadership useful, but want to go deeper into elevating your own leadership skills, all those of your managers do, check my website, waterfallhill.co.uk. There you'll find all my leadership development offerings, my online course, my group coaching program, my team workshops, and one-to-one coaching programs too.

So today we're starting with care. What does it mean to lead with care without being soft? How can you balance empathy with performance? And why does it matter so much in today's workplaces? By the end of this episode, you'll have some strategies you can use immediately, as always, whether that's in one-to-one conversations, a team meeting, or when dealing with conflict.

So let's take a look at what Linda has to say about leading with care.

“Rachel in HR has told me I need to be more caring. Well, I'm the epitome of a caring manager. Only the other day I WhatsApped Alice at about 11:00 PM asking how she was getting on with a pitch check that I'd asked her to do for me last minute. Well, when she didn't reply, I thought, well, perhaps she might be asleep.

So I gave her a ring. Um, turns out she was, communication is the bedrock of a caring manager. So I dunno what Rachel's talking about. I really don't. That's leadership with the heart of ever. I saw it surely. It's ridiculous to say I don't care. Of course, I care. I care deeply about people's wellbeing, especially when it impacts the client deliverables or meeting deadlines, or getting the glory at the board meeting, or indeed getting my bonus at the end of the year.

Of course, I care. I couldn't care more. I mean, sometimes I say I couldn't care less, but I don't mean it. When I made everybody come to the office that day, I bought donuts. When I make people work late, I get pizza. Admittedly, I put everything that I buy for anybody in the company on expenses. So it's actually not outta my own personal pocket, but you know, that's just semantics.

At least I bother to think about it. Well, I think about it and then I tell Alice to go and order the pizza. And some people are so blooming, ungrateful. They're a bit picky about the toppings they get on the pizza. I say, look, everybody's going to have what I like, and that's the end of it. Saves any squabbling you see.

'cause I don't want people to squabble. I care about them. See, I've come full circle. What a caring manager.”

Great stuff. I'm sure we can do better than that. So let's have a look at part one, why care matters in leadership. Leadership isn't just about driving results, it's about the people who deliver those results. The research backs this up.

I know I mentioned Gallup quite a lot, but there's a reason for it. It's a good study. It shows that employees who feel their manager genuinely cares about them, are more engaged, more loyal, and more productive because people don't just want a job. They want to be seen, heard, and valued.

But adds with so many leadership concepts, there is a catch because leading with care doesn't necessarily mean being soft or lowering standards. It means creating the conditions where people can do their best work because they feel supported. perhaps you could think of it like this, care is the soil skills, performance and results of the plants. But without healthy soil, nothing grows.

Now let's move to part two. The many dimensions of empathy. The foundation of care is empathy. The ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It's not sympathy, it's slightly different, but empathy and leadership isn't about taking on everyone's emotions or becoming their therapist.

It's about being willing to step into someone else's shoes, even briefly, to see the world from their perspective. And psychologists talk about two forms of empathy, cognitive empathy, understanding how someone else thinks, their logic and reasoning and emotional empathy. Sensing what someone is feeling even if they don't say it.

Leaders often lead too far one way or the other. Some are highly cognitive, brilliant at analysing perspectives, but maybe a little detached from the human impact, whereas others are highly emotional, picking up feelings easily, but sometimes getting swept away by them.

And the sweet spot is using both, but in a balanced way. For example, a team member misses a deadline without empathy. You might think, oh, they're lazy, they don't care. But with cognitive empathy, you pause and ask What else could be going on here? Maybe they've been swamped with client demands or maybe they're struggling with a process that isn't working.

And with emotional empathy, you notice their tone or body language, they seem frustrated, maybe even ashamed. Together, these insights let you respond in a way that are addresses the root cause, not just the surface behaviour.

Moving to part three, then active listening. One of the most practical ways to show care is through active listening, and most leaders think they listen, but often they're just waiting for their turn to speak or mentally running through the next task. Active listening looks different. It's about giving your full attention not interrupting even if you think you know what they're going to say next. And playing back what you've heard to check, you've understood.

And ultimately paying attention to what isn't said, the pauses, the hesitations, the changes in tone, for example, instead of saying, oh yeah, right. Got it. Let's move on.

You might say, so what I'm hearing is that you're frustrated with how decisions are made And you'd like more input earlier in the process. Is that right? That moment of reflection shows you truly heard them, and often that's enough to diffuse that frustration they might be feeling.

And a practical tip here is in your next one-to-one, aim to only speak for 20 to 30% of the time and let the other person take 70 or 80%. Notice how much more you learn.

Part four then is considering perspectives and a diversity of wiring. Leading with care means recognizing that people are wired differently. Some are detail orientated, some are big picture thinkers. Some are energized by social interaction, and others need quiet focus.

A leader who shows care doesn't try to make everyone the same. Certainly not the same as them. And they adapt their style to bring out the best in each person. So for example, when delegating to someone analytical, you might share data and detail, but when allocating tasks to someone more visionary, you might emphasize the bigger purpose.

And when supporting someone introverted, you might give them space to reflect before asking for their ideas, particularly in a group setting.

Frameworks like DISC profiling, MBTI or strength, scope aren't perfect, but they can help you understand these differences. And the key is to treat people as individuals, not clones. As you'll know, if you've listened to podcast episode 51, you'll know I'm a fan of DISC and my leadership accelerator members have disc profiling as part of their membership.

I find it a really practical tool that supports leadership and relationship building straight away. Here's the danger of ignoring people having different types of wiring. Imagine you've promoted a brilliant technical expert into a team lead role.

The expert is great at the technical aspects of his role. indeed. He's highly task focused, yet he avoids small talk. His team more relationship driven, feels ignored and undervalued, and within months trust breaks down. The fix isn't just replacing him, but helping him flex.

Adding check-ins and moments of connection care means adjusting, not expecting others to bend entirely to you. Please do give new managers support. Maybe offer them training and tools like profiling so they understand that everyone is wired differently and how they might show care in their leadership, communication and interactions with others.

Part five is all about language and tone. Care shows up in how you speak, not just what you say. Tone and language can make all the difference. So someone leaving a meeting might be motivated or deflated, depending on how you said what you said.

Take this example. The Linda, the bad manager character, might say, this report isn't good enough. Redo it. It's blunt, unhelpful, and demotivating. But a better manager might say, thanks for pulling this together to land well with the client. We'll need more detail in section two.

Can you expand that by tomorrow? same message, but framed with care and an explicit expectation, and importantly, a deadline. So tone really matters even more in virtual communication. Emails or slack messages can so easily be misinterpreted. I'm sure you've had it done to you. If in doubt, read your message back and ask, how might this land for them?

Am I sounding a bit too much like Linda? Leaders who write in all capitals or fire off one word responses might think they're being efficient, but to the recipient it can feel dismissive or even aggressive. Care is in these micro moments.

Let's move now to talk about care in conflict because care doesn't disappear when things get tough. In fact, conflict is where it's most tested. It's tempting to swing to extremes, either avoiding the issue to keep the peace or going in hard to get it over with and exerting your influence, telling them whose boss. But both can damage trust. Leading with care in conflict means holding the line firmly but respectfully and maintaining the dignity of both parties. For example, instead of saying You are always late and it's not acceptable, you could try, I've noticed you've been in late three times this month.

When that happens, it impacts the rest of the team who are waiting, what's going on for you, Again, don't forget, it's important with the tone because saying what's going on for you in one tone versus what's going on for you is a different thing altogether. So you're addressing the behaviour, not attacking the person.

You're opening space for dialogue, not shutting it down.

Let's look in an example. I often meet leaders who inherit a team who they didn't recruit themselves. The team might have low morale targets maybe are being missed, people are disengaged, and maybe turnover's high. instead of diving straight into performance management, I urge my clients to start with care run listening sessions to understand the frustrations, adapt meetings to allow quieter voices to contribute, and acknowledge challenges while still holding the team accountable.

Fairly quickly within months, I'd say engagement scores tend to improve significantly, and performance follows. The only thing that changes is that people feel their manager genuinely cares, and that might well be the missing piece of the puzzle.

So now a word of caution. Care without challenge leads to comfort zones. Challenge without care leads to burnout, and your job as leader is to hold both. It's about saying, I believe in you and I expect a lot of you, I'll support you, but I won't let you stay small. That's real care because you investing in someone's growth, not just their comfort.

So be really explicit about your expectations. I want you to take ownership of this. This is yours to take accountability and responsibility for, but also be really clear on how much authority they have in the thing that you've asked them to do.

There are common traps that people fall into when they think they're being caring, and that's toxic positivity and rescuing Taking the first one, toxic positivity. This is things like brushing over difficulties with.

It'll all be fine. This can make people feel unseen sometimes. Care is about sitting with the discomfort and acknowledging pain before moving forwards. I can sense this is really hard for you. What's the challenge here? What are the obstacles? What are the risks? And how can I support you without getting in your way?

And then rescuing instead of supporting. So jumping into fixed problems for people when you delegate something to them and it's not going quite as you wanted, coming in and doing it yourself anyway. And it might feel like you are caring in the moment, but it actually undermines their ownership and growth.

So true care is standing alongside not doing it for them.

I'd like to offer you some reflection questions here just to sit with this and see how it works for you. First of all, when did you last truly listen to someone without interrupting?

Secondly, how could you adapt your communication for different personalities on your team?

Where might you be rescuing instead of supporting? and lastly, what's one way that you can show more care in your next team interaction?

As always, I like to give you some practical next steps. So to put care into action this coming week, first of all, block out 15 minutes for a really true listening conversation with one team member. No agenda, just curiosity. Secondly, pay attention to your tone in your next email, soften it where needed.

Thirdly, identify one individual strengths and find a way to spotlight them publicly.

And number four, in your next tough conversation, frame the issue in terms of impact and how you might together improve the process. It's not about character behaviour or personal performance. It's about what went wrong and what you could change, not who was to blame or who went wrong.

These small acts compound into a real culture of positivity and care.

That's all for today's episode of How to Lead, and this is our first in the series on leading with Care, curiosity, and clarity. Next time we'll be diving into curiosity, why it's a leader's secret weapon and how it can transform conflict and feedback into opportunities for growth. If you've enjoyed this episode, do follow for more leadership insights and if you'd like my personal support, take a look at my website, waterfall hill.co.uk. You'll get more information about my services there.

Please spare a moment to like leave a review and share with your fellow leaders to help spread the word about the How to Lead podcast. It makes all the difference to have your support. Until next time. If you want to be less like Linda, remember that the best leaders are clear on the vision, care about their people, and approach interactions with curiosity, not judgment.

Until next time, thanks for listening.