Abstract
This article examines and promotes the benefits of heart-led behaviors for personal and professional development, its relation to producing work at an optimal level, and how managers and people in supervisory roles can utilize these behaviors to establish a foundation rooted in integrity, uncolored opportunity, and positive support and direction. It spotlights authentic human interactions and how they help remove egotistical and limiting thoughts and behaviors which could decrease work productivity and negatively impact other attributes such as collaboration, creativity, and resiliency. This work further argues that humans desire and naturally possess heart-led engagement and leadership skills, regardless of whether they are conscious or unconscious of it. However, when recognized, and if activated, heart-led engagement and leadership can maximize the human experience, personal and professional opportunities, and instill a feeling of meaning and purpose.
Introduction
In the corporate and business world, performance is valued and highly esteemed. Employers, employees, and leaders are often rewarded or paid based on their level of performance. People receive bonuses for reaching a certain level of performance and are fired from their jobs for not performing or producing well. Traditionally, in the United States, many people work forty hours per week and then spend the other 128 hours complaining about the forty hours. If we spend the usual eight hours a day at work and then the regular eight hours of sleeping, we are left with only eight more hours, for example, to cook dinner, share in family time, explore the outdoors and the adventures of nature, spend time with the kids or help them with their homework and conflicts. However, we may have found the time to watch our favorite television shows, scroll on social media, watch the news, gossip, have a beer, or talk about work and “what we do” before we realize it is Monday and time for the forty hours to begin again. Long story short, we then show up to work desiring more fulfillment. After hours, days, months, and years of working, we begin to plan our mini escapes such as vacations, meditations, church, and yoga retreats. But these mini escapes do not do us justice or bring the peace we crave. If so, it is very short-lived. Its time and reward are temporarily felt compared to the time and effort we put into the forty-plus hours at our jobs and within our careers.
Therefore, we may suffer because the You within is not being naturally ignited. In these cases, stress begins to rise, and feelings of burnout are approaching. In Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 Report, 49% of U.S. and Canadian employees were stressed out (Gallup, Inc., 2024). There is no foundation of reality within. Reality for us is the forty-plus hours work week, rushing and hurrying around town with the kids, paying the bills, and waiting for retirement. How could this be our reality when we (humans) created it and made all of this up?
These are systems and processes we allow to form for us, the internal and external habits that shape our lives and future. We often remain in our heads and minds, going over all of our thoughts while forgetting or overlooking the heart space. We start to lack purpose, question self-worth, and wonder about our overall meaning for and of life. In 2023, global employee engagement stagnated, and overall employee well-being declined. Both measures are at or near record highs, and their lack of improvement is notable as they followed multiple years of steady gains. The result is that most of the world’s employees continue to struggle at work and in life, with direct consequences for individual and organizational productivity (Gallup, Inc., 2024).
Heart-led engagement and leadership go beyond pressing issues and demands of things such as profit margins, sales, ratings, and fame, but emphasizes maintenance of a healthy and balanced focus that fosters an environment where empathy, compassion, and nobility are at the forefront. This type of engagement and leadership prioritize the well-being of each other. Until we can understand, accept, and practice heart-led engagement and leadership personally and professionally, we will forever crave more meaning, value, joy, purpose, connection, productivity, and success.
Success?
As humans, we want to be successful. Success is a natural feeling and goal that we seek. However, we may have the wrong impression and definition of success. Is success earning a million dollars? Is it doing what one loves to do? Can we earn one million dollars and enjoy the process simultaneously?
The day we are born, we enter a world of chaos after spending months inside the womb. We then begin to move from one box to the next, where we spend and live our lives. These boxes include the hospital room, the car, the house, the bedroom, the school, the classroom, the dormitory, the office, and then ultimately, the casket. Our connection to our innate intuition and senses diminishes. We connect more with the external and outside world than with the spirit and intuition inside of us. We overlook the heart while glorifying the mind. We seek intellect and ignore natural intelligence. We allow soft skills and who we truly are to suffer while praising hard skills and what we do to become who we think we are. Therefore, our feeling of success becomes inconsistent and eventually declines and suffers. Ideally, while we can, we plan and participate in mini escapes to help us find solace, comfort, and release. We buy passports, go on vacations, find religion, meditate, and attempt to find anything else to decrease or eliminate the stress in our lives. Heart-led engagement and leadership reiterate purposeful living, working, elevating ourselves, and consistently supporting the feelings and notion of success. Let us look at the benefits and a simple truth that may inspire us to activate heart-led engagement and leadership.
The Truth
We can never be what we do. Hard skills are just that – what we do and not who we are. Who and what we are is human. As humans, we have the ability to inspire, be inspired, and create. It all starts with the heart and its naturally intuitive experience with feelings and emotions rather than the mind. The heart allows the mind to connect with that feeling and emotion to facilitate and carry out a specific action via the body if we desire or choose. I like to believe and say that the heart is the boss, and the mind is the employee. You can fill the mind with knowledge and facts and then recall that learned information. The heart knows that success cannot be pursued, but must ensue one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself (Pearsall, 1999). It has a level of wisdom that the mind cannot naturally and organically possess alone. Therefore, when humans interact authentically, meaning without the judgments, overly self-centeredness, and fears of the ego, they are coming from and leading with their hearts. In addition, their minds can positively join, even when disagreements and different perspectives are being expressed, to reach a welcomed connection, conclusion, and or solution. This joint connection is how collaboration, creativity, and productivity simultaneously and naturally occur. Heart-led engagement and leadership are directly connected to purpose and something greater than oneself. It instills compassion, self-motivation, and confidence, while embracing unity and community. It is an undeniable connection that can embody and include all humans, regardless of the industry, career, job title, or job position. It is inclusive, not exclusive.
Furthermore, we all desire a level of achievement. To get there, we must commission the heart. In the book, Lead from the Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21st Century, author Mark Crowley states that if we empower the heart, we can maximize human potential (Crowley, 2022). It is the foundation for success.
Benefits
Engaging and leading with the heart has myriad benefits. First, it establishes a higher level of motivation and dedication. One person can inspire and motivate others to perform at their best by genuinely caring about their growth and success. Sometimes, this instantaneously boosts the morale of the entire environment, helping to create a positive experience for everyone involved. This caring from leadership generates empathy and understanding for other team members. It can change their perspective on challenges that are more solution-focused than problem-focused, which helps create and maintain an inclusive environment. An inclusive environment can increase productivity and profits, improve engagement and value, attract more and potentially better team members and overall talent, enhance innovation, and allow teams to improve at problem-solving. Heart-led engagement promotes authenticity, providing the freedom for people to be more open and communicative, making way for optimal performance. Team members can be proud of their work and accomplishments.
Moreover, what I find most beneficial of heart-led engagement and leadership is the resiliency that it builds. It creates a capacity to withstand challenges and difficulties and provides the perseverance to go beyond them and reach success. Heart-led engagement and leadership represent the inner strength and purpose of overcoming obstacles with courage and trust while limiting stress and avoiding burnout.
Conclusion
We all are in the business of people. Regardless of the industry type or career choice, people are our first level of business. Professionally, these people include our team members, colleagues, and clients who we work with and serve. Maximizing the human potential of our team will help maximize the impact and potential of our clients. To do this effectively and efficiently, heart-led engagement and leadership must be the motto that drives the mission and vision and helps fulfill the organization’s strategic plan.
Positive employees make better decisions, are more creative, and productive, and have better interpersonal skills. Positivity is also good for employees because it enhances well-being and personal success. This, in return, benefits organizations because employees appreciate their company’s efforts to improve their well-being; the result is greater loyalty and commitment. Leading with heart-led engagement is how we thrive best. We need a heart-run world rather than a brain-run world. To everyone's benefit, managers within companies and organizations should make the environment an excellent place for everyone involved.
References
Cabrera, E. F. (2012). The Six Essentials of Workplace Positivity. People & Strategy, 35(1).
Crowley, M. C. (2022). Lead from the heart: Transformational leadership for the 21st century. Hay House, Inc.
Gallup, Inc. The State of the Global Workplace Report. 2024.
Pearsall, P. P. (1999). The Heart’s Code: Tapping the wisdom and power of our heart energy. Harmony.