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Isabel, in your opinion, what defines a great leader?

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For me, a great leader has two superpowers.

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The first one is empathy and the second one is adaptability.

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For me, if you only have one of these two things, you only possess 50% of the recipe.

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You might make an extremely delicious cake, but it's not going to rise.

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So you need both. And the reason I say you need both is because, well, empathy, we all know what empathy is for.

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And there is now science behind empathy, right?

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How much it improves productivity and improves employee retention.

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And at the end of the day, it improves profitability by an incredible amount, like 80 something percent, 86% if my memory serves.

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But adaptability, because the way that you lead one person doesn't necessarily, isn't necessarily the right way to lead the next person.

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So you need to be able to adapt your leadership style and your communication style and what you expect out of people and how you treat them just by their preferences, their communication preferences, their behavioral preferences, and how their brain is wired and how they function in the world.

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So I think that you need both. And in my experience, that's pretty much on winning teams, the leader is both, on equal amounts.

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Tell me more about that. What do you mean, if I can give an example, being an empathetic leader?

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We can talk about it in the workspace, we can also talk about outside the workspace, whatever you like to explore.

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What does it mean to be empathic? What it means to be empathic is being having the ability to actually see the other person's point of view and understanding why they think the way they think and why they think that way and how and how it affects their vision of the world.

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So being able to put yourself in their position, in their shoes and say, okay, so as a leader, I had to take a very difficult decision.

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And from now on, task XYZ is going to be done this way. And you have one team member who's resisting that.

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So an empathic leader is going to try to understand why it is bugging and where it's hurting that person.

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So is it triggering something? Is it threatening them in their livelihood or even in their identity?

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And if you're changing, I'll say if you're eliminating a report that Employee B proudly produces every month, maybe they feel under attack.

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Maybe they feel that their job is going to be taken away from them and now their livelihood is threatened because if they lose their job and they don't.

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So if you fail to be empathic and trying to understand that that employee better and saying, OK, so I can see you're struggling with this decision.

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Come in, we're going to talk about it so I can understand why is it that it's this is painful for you.

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So that's what empathy is. And adaptability.

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How does that fit into the equation with like a real life example? I think that would be very helpful.

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Some people naturally are extremely task oriented and some people extremely relationship oriented.

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They actually have a real life experience. So I work with a team of leaders, not too far here locally, and six people, all post-PhD graduates.

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I mean, they're extremely smart people out of the six people.

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Five of them are extremely detailed, oriented, task oriented, data oriented.

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But the sixth person is warm and cuddly.

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She's like fuzzy bear and she's relational.

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She she needs the relationship.

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So she feels like she isn't being understood from the team and from the leader.

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And the entire rest of the team kind of pushing her away because they kind of feel like she's she's having a pet peeve and she's demanding.

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But when we all came together and we understood that and the leader understood that this particular person, you can't talk in bullet points.

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You have to ask her how her weekend was.

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You need to care that she just bought a new refrigerator.

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You don't have to spend after day asking her how she is.

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But on the human level, she is relational.

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She needs that connection before she gets to the data.

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So when everybody understood that the leader first, obviously, but when everybody understood that the leader adapted the way that she communicated with that employee,

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because when she would come in, she would give her a warm smile and a nice welcome and ask her, you know, how was your evening?

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Did you do anything special? Care to share anything about what's going on?

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And she cared about the human because it wasn't the pet peeve. It was a need.

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She needs that in order to show up in her work and actually do the work.

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So adaptability is exactly that.

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The leader, now that she knows she wasn't being picky, it is one of her basic needs.

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Some people, you walk into their office, you talk with the fewer words possible and you talk at bullet points.

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And if you can avoid going into their office and actually send an email, that's going to be better for them.

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But other people, it's quite the opposite.

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And the adaptability as a leader is knowing the difference and changing your behavior accordingly.

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That's what adaptability does.

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That's awesome. I have so many thoughts on that.

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Share, please share one.

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So there's like some things I agree, some things I don't understand, and some things I have questions about.

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OK.

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So in the real life case scenarios, like so I am, for me, I've been blessed with great leaders like Jackson and some other people in my life.

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And also there are certain times where I feel like, hey, maybe it's my job to be accountable for getting my needs out there.

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So if I have an issue, like, hey, I would love to talk to you and ask about you today so that feels me welcome,

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then I'll go talk to someone and mention, hey, that's something that helps me out.

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I feel like I need to take on accountability on my part to do that.

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And to me, I feel like, is that leader's job or not?

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And that could be right or wrong or could be the leader's side.

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And this obviously situations to both ends.

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The other side, me says, on productivity, we live in a very a lot of times we live in a very brutal places where productivity and and being a good employee is important.

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I am blessed that I don't have to deal with that.

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I am blessed not everyone is.

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I have a lot of people come on the show who are like, if you're not producing the right results, it's not easy.

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It's not easy out there so people can get fired often.

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So if a company spending money and resources on that leadership side where they have to adapt to one person's needs,

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well, wouldn't that be profitable for them to just switch that one person out and similar to the fourth one?

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And that's those are the questions that resolve around my head.

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And I know what the answers are probably coming, but I'd love to hear.

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OK, so there's a whole lot of things for me to unpack there.

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So when you talk about adaptability, you I wholeheartedly agree with you.

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The fact that it is the person's responsibility to voice their need and say, hey, listen, and they do need to be accountable.

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I agree with you.

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But you can only voice what you know.

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And and we're at the bottom of all of this is self-awareness, self-awareness from the from the leaders and self-awareness from every single individual in the company.

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Now, self-awareness is very complex.

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So there's a big, big, big, big, big, big study that was done by Dr. Tasha Yurik at Boston University, Harvard University.

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And the her study lasted for a little over four years.

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And her and her team read every single piece of literature on self-awareness ever, like ever, ever, ever.

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And then they interviewed about five thousand people.

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And out of that, they picked out a handful.

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And since self-awareness is so rare, they found like 50 out of five thousand.

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They find like 50 that were actually self-aware.

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And they realized that 95 percent of the time, 95 percent of the people will say to be will declare themselves to be extremely high.

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So have high self-awareness.

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In reality, that number is more like 10 percent.

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Interesting. So how can you voice something you don't know about yourself?

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You can't. Then comes the tricky part, because if you don't know it, how can you expect your boss to know it?

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So in my line of work, this is the reason I decided to work with a psychometric test, because before I meet the leader and before I meet anybody on their teams,

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regardless of the size of the team, I already know how their brain is wired because of the psychometric test.

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And this is not a personality test.

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And as far as psychometric assessments are concerned, they are not all created equal.

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And you have a lot of them out there.

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I know because I've worked with a lot of them.

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And after a few decades of doing this, I landed on one particular desk.

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It's from Switzerland. And it's called Nova.

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And it is actually science based.

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It's not a, you know, well, if you like peanut butter, this is the kind of person you are.

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No, it's how is your brain wired?

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What is your cognitive preference?

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What is your behavioral preference?

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What are your deep core motivations?

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What are your deep core values?

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How do you learn?

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How important is it for you to learn?

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How much recognition do you need, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

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Because out of the questionnaire that people go online to fill out comes out a between 25 to 40 pages report on how their behavior is based.

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Does that mean it can't never change?

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No, that's not what it means.

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But what it does is it gives the individual and the leader the tools to understand themselves better.

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Because once you know this, then back to your point, Harry, then you can be accountable because you know how.

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And every – and myself included, I was the first one.

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The first time I read my report, I went, no, I'm not like that.

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And then you let it sit for a while and you have a debriefing because every assessment comes with a debriefing with a coach, in this case me.

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And when the person reread and put it in context and gave me the bird eye view, I thought, yeah, I am like that.

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I'm forced to admit that I am like that.

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And I do have that need.

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And as far as the assessment is concerned, the low – the high number speaks volume, but the low number speaks volume as well.

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Because there's no wrong answer.

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It's just what is.

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That's the way you are and that's the way you function in the world.

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So when you know this, you can get way ahead of the crowd because you understand yourself.

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And when you understand yourself, you can better serve the other people.

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Does that answer a few of your questions?

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It totally does.

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So I feel like I think I see now I think if almost every company out there can establish a procedure,

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first of all, that helps people understand themselves and how they function and how they perform and how they grasp whatever that assessment is, right?

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And they have a standard, those persons.

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That person has accountability for, okay, this is my standard and this is what I need.

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So if I need to go do something, this is my path to do so.

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They get a path.

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They get a way.

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They have clarity.

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And then the leader has clarity at the same time when they're dealing with that person or any situation involving monomole people at the same time.

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Absolutely.

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And it even goes further than that because it will help the leader do the task distribution.

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So if every month, every single one of your team member has to do a report, I don't know whatever, but a report of some kind.

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But for three of them, out of ten people, for three of them, it's a joy and they're like, oh, give me data.

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And they're all excited because for them, this is where they are at the utmost valuable.

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Then why would you not ask these three to do the ten reports?

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A, the reports would be done more efficiently, more than likely, more accurately.

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And therefore, free up the other seven who you are pissing off by asking them to fill out this bloody report.

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And they're not being attentive because they keep on saying, I hate this report.

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I hate this report.

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I hate doing this report and I can't believe I'm still having to do this bloody report.

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So when you do that task distribution, when you know what the cognitive and behavioral preferences of each of your team member is,

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you can say, okay, so everything that's data oriented, I'm going to give it to these four or these three and everything that's, oh, we need to go do a presentation.

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Hey, I'm going to give it to the people who are naturally good at the public speaking.

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I am inclined to actually like it and value it.

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And in both cases, the employees, you are tapping into their unique ability.

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So they feel valued and they know what they bring to the table.

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And when you know how you contribute to a team and what's that special thing, that secret sauce that you bring to the team?

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Well, you will crawl through glass.

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There's nothing you won't do because you know you are valued, you are heard, you are seen for who you are, for the individual that you are.

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Because in my experience, Harry, individuality truly is all it's cracked up to be.

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And that's very important.

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We want recognition.

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We need recognition.

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We need to know what is it that I bring to the table that nobody else does?

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That is so true.

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I'm thinking of more applications for this.

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I mean, people can even include it before they hire someone.

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Absolutely.

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And you know what?

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I'm going to bring it one step further.

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I have two sets of friends who had me do the test on them and their husbands.

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Because they keep fighting about the same thing.

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And you know, you're married, you know this.

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There's usually in a relationship, in a loving, committed relationship, there's usually one topic.

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Either it's money or it's raising the kids or it's religion or there's something that it's regardless of how much you talk, you just can never see eye to eye.

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There's like always something.

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Well, imagine if you knew how your partner's brain was wired.

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And you knew exactly what to say.

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And it's not being manipulative.

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It is being adaptable.

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It is adapting your language to their understanding and the way they see the world.

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When you want something for somebody, even if you pay them, because long gone are the days where giving a paycheck is enough.

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It isn't anymore.

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So if you want something, you want something to be done, then you need to adapt your language to their communication style.

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And of course they need to be accountable.

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Of course, that is a given.

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Thank you for being here today.

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I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun.

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We'll have more and more engagement as well.

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We'll invite people to participate in the show.

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And thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.