The Art of Caring Leadership

If your people know you care about them, they will move mountains. Employee engagement and loyalty expert Heather Younger outlines nine ways to manifest the radical power of caring support in the workplace.

Heather Younger argues that if you are looking for increased productivity, customer satisfaction, or employee engagement, you need to care for your employees first. People will go the extra mile for leaders who show they are genuinely concerned not just with what employees can do but with who they are and can become. But while most leaders think of themselves as caring leaders, not all demonstrate that care in consistent ways. Your employees will judge you by your actions, not your intentions.

Based on Younger’s interviews with over eighty leaders for her podcast Leadership with Heart–including Howard Behar, former president of the Starbucks Coffee Company; Judith Scimone, senior vice president and chief talent officer at MetLife; Garry Ridge, CEO and chairman of the board of the WD-40 Company; and Shawnté Cox Holland, head of culture and engagement at Vanguard–this book outlines nine ways that leaders can make all employees feel included and cared for. She even provides access to a self-assessment so you can measure your progress as a caring leader. But this is not a cookie-cutter approach: just as Monet and Picasso expressed themselves very differently, each leader should express caring in his or her own unique, personal style.

Younger takes an often nebulous, subjective concept and makes it concrete and actionable. Leaders have the power to change the lives of those they lead. They shouldn’t just want to care, they should see caring as imperative for the success of their employees and their organization.