Jaime Hunt, a veteran higher ed marketing leader, consultant, speaker, and author, joins the show to talk about the principles of empathy-driven leadership she outlines in her new book, Heart Over Hype.
Jaime and Jarrett discuss:
- Common misconceptions about empathy and why it’s not about simply being nice
- How psychological safety directly impacts a team’s ability to generate innovative ideas
- What it does and doesn’t mean to bring “your whole self” to work
- Tips for understanding your own leadership style
- And an exercise you can use to begin applying empathy-driven principles in your own work.
This was a fun and thought-provoking talk that’s relevant to anyone in a position of leadership who wants to unlock their team’s full potential.
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Transcript
Jaime Hunt HEML Podcast
[00:00:00] You are listening to the Higher Ed Marketing Lab. I’m your host, Jarrett Smith.
Jarrett Smith: Welcome to the Higher Ed Marketing Lab. I’m Jarrett Smith. Each episode, it’s my job to engage with some of the brightest minds in higher education, in the broader world of marketing to bring you actionable insights you can use to level up your marketing and enrollment performance. Today’s show is about empathy driven leadership, a style of leadership that my guest says is essential.
If you want to foster a culture of smart risk taking and innovation. Her name is Jamie Hunt. She’s a veteran, higher ed marketing leader, speaker, consultant, and the author of a new book called Heart Over Hype, transforming Higher Ed Marketing with Empathy. I. We discuss common misconceptions about empathy and why it’s not simply about being nice, how psychological safety directly impacts a team’s ability to generate innovative ideas.
What it does and does not mean to bring your whole self to work. Tips for understanding your own leadership style. In an exercise you can use to begin applying empathy driven principles in your own work. This was a fun and thought provoking conversation that I think will be relevant to anyone in a position of leadership who wants to unlock their team’s full potential.
So without further ado, here’s my conversation with Jamie Hunt.
Jamie, welcome to the show.
Jaime Hunt: Thank you. I’m so happy to be here.
Jarrett Smith: Well, I am real excited to talk about your book, heart Over Hype. It’s a great read, and I know you’ve been making the podcast circuit and, uh, everybody I know on LinkedIn and out there in the Higher Ed world is, is talking about your book .
Hopefully we can dive into maybe a few aspects of your book that maybe you haven’t had a chance to talk about in other places. But, um, before we get there. I wanna talk about the origin of your book [00:02:00] and, I gotta say it was so poignant and I thought very appropriate by the way, for a book called Heart Over Hype because you led with heart, like right out of the gate .
So would you mind telling us that story?
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so I opened the book talking about my experience of taking care of my dad when he was in hospice. So at the time I was, um, A CMO and Vice Chancellor at Winston-Salem State, and my dad was diagnosed with cancer in June and he ended up passing away in October. And I spent about six or eight weeks in Minnesota helping my mom with taking care of him.
He was in a nursing home, but you know. He still, we wanted to have family with him for like 12 hours a day or more, as much as possible. And in that experience, I really learned how important empathy is. I could see that he felt like the agency had been taken away from him, that he was sort of at the whims of [00:03:00] the people who were taking care of him.
Um, when it was time when he had to go to the bathroom, you know, it, it took. Waiting for people to come and, um, return him and, you know, do all these things. Um, he didn’t. He lost his voice in that process. And so it felt really important to me to make sure that he was heard and had some agency and had a sense of humanity through that process.
And for me, it was just like this giant spotlight on how important empathy is. And a lot of people think of empathy as like being nice. Um, but I see it and, and I talk about the different forms of empathy in the book, but I see it more as being able to see something from somebody else’s perspective. And.
His perspective was that he was dying, he was scared, he was in pain, he was unhappy, and he had no control over anything. And so for me to be able to see that, recognize that, and give him a little bit of choices in the moments, um, I think [00:04:00] hopefully my hope is made his experience of that transition a little bit easier.
Um, but then I was also able to apply that empathy to my mom. And realized some of the, the anger that she was showing towards his caregivers was coming from a place of fear as well, toward my sisters, towards the caregivers. Um, recognizing that, you know, the CNAs were seeing patient after patient after patient, and they were tired of.
Changing bedpans and whatever. Um, and it just really highlighted for me how important empathy is. And so when I was trying to figure out a hook for, how do I tell my unique perspective on higher ed marketing and what I think we need to do, I went back to that and that experience and thought, you know, this is really the story.
The story is really about how we can actually see. The people that we’re communicating with make them feel heard, make them feel like they have agency in this process, and also convey to students that it’s not, we’re not just talking about facts and figures. We’re talking about vibes, for lack of a better words.
We’re talking about care. We’re talking about them as human beings the most. The biggest choice of their lives, short of who they may choose to partner with, um, for their, their life journey and, and making sure that they feel seen in those decisions. That we acknowledge the anxiety that comes with that.
That was what sort of sparked the, the hook for the book, if you will.
Jarrett Smith: Now most of the book is really about, uh, empathy driven marketing, and there’s a ton of great examples and exercises, and you do such a good job of sort of explaining the principle and then, okay, here’s how you could actually realistically apply this.
How do you define empathy driven leadership and how much you contrast that with other ways of approaching leadership?
Jaime Hunt: Yeah. So I think again, it people have this misperception that I’m talking about. You’re just a nice boss, and that’s not at all what I’m talking about. And a lot of people have asked me, um, how do you balance empathy with accountability? And I think empathy requires accountability. So when I talk about empathy and leadership.
I mean, being able to see the decisions that you make, the choices that you make, the way that you lead the team through the lens of understanding that everybody on your team is a unique human being with a complex and messy inner life, and a complex and messy outer life. And so, um, being sort of like.
Unilateral with your decisions without taking into account even what people may feel or think as a result of those. So there’s some exercises in the book designed to guide you through maybe you’re doing a reorganization of your department, how, how can you think about how people might react to that?
How can you think about what people might be afraid of when you do that? And that will help you shape. Your announcement of that change or the way you roll out that change in ways that will hopefully get people through it, um, and through their [00:07:00] anxiety more quickly. So in no way am I saying. Just do what your team wants you to do.
Right? But I’m saying, see from their perspective how those decisions may, um, impact their inner selves. Um, I also think that if you are seeing from somebody else’s perspective, you can kind of, um, predict what they may. What their reactions to change may be and frame it for each individual person in the way that responds to those reactions.
You know, so some people are really, you know, like change is gonna take them, they’re gonna need to process it. Um, you’re gonna want to, you know, tell them that you’re thinking of making the change, and then give them time to process that. Don’t expect immediate reactions and other people. You’re, you’re gonna want their immediate reactions to things there.
Maybe they’re very quick processors or there are people who need to process verbally, and you need to give them the space to be able to do that. Um, so just adapting your leadership style to [00:08:00] what your team needs as individuals and not just applying this one size fits all for everybody to it.
Jarrett Smith: You know, as you were talking, I, I wrote down the little note of unique human beings, and this is something we talk about in our company a lot, which is. People are, aren’t checkers pieces, they’re chess pieces. And you need to understand that, um, you know, people, as you say, like move psychologically, emotionally in different ways, and you really have to be attuned to what that is for your individual team members.
Jaime Hunt: Right, right. Well, and I think too, it’s, um, making sure that people have that space to be able to take risks. And if you are somebody who kind of treats people like they’re just a cog in a machine, they’ll start to behave like they’re just a cog in a machine. Um, and that’s something I think, uh, hinders a lot of innovation, um, and, and, and is really problematic.
Jarrett Smith: [00:09:00] So that kind of is a good segue to another thing that you talk about in the book quite a bit, which is this notion of psychological safety and that that’s sort of a big unlock for innovation and creativity within organization. Why do you believe that that’s sort of a, a foundational element?
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so I talk a lot. Um, I, I actually speak to a lot of cabinets and boards about leading through change and leading innovation, and one of the things that I really stress is that in order to really drive change and drive creativity and drive innovation, we have to be open to. Accepting risk, and we have to be open to embracing failure as part of the process of finding and developing these breakthrough ideas.
And I think if you are having a space where people are afraid to take risks, where people are, feel like there’s gonna be a punitive reaction, if something doesn’t go as expected, they’re not gonna come up with [00:10:00] those ideas that are really out of the box.
And so if you have this environment where people feel like they have to tiptoe, their best ideas are gonna be kept away from your organization. And I think about, um, I was just talking with a friend who. Has, uh, has a boss that’s super dismissive of these crazy ideas and it’s, she’s like, I’m just done.
I’m done. I’m not bringing any more ideas to this person. And that is such a shame, and it’s so easy to break that trust and to lead to that psychological sense of unsafety. Um. Every single action that we take either builds or takes away that trust. And so I think if leaders really understood what’s at stake, that innovation is at stake.
If creativity is at stake, they would be a lot more careful with how they give and provide feedback, how they handle brainstorming. I mean, I think about, and I tell this story in my book, um, I had just started at Winston-Salem State a couple years or a couple months [00:11:00] earlier, and we were trying to talk about rolling out the strategic plan and it’s.
Rolling out a strategic plan is usually the chancellor in a room with a bunch of people who have to be there. ’cause they’ve pressured the, the a, the VPs to make their whole teams come and they’re standing at a podium and whatever. And I was like, I mean, what if we did like, kind of like a big splashy, almost like a TED Talk type of event?
And the dean of the, one of the colleges, we made eye contact and he was like, yes. And it was like this huge. Like huge improvise improvisation happened there. The chancellor absolutely could have been like, what are you talking about? This is not how things are done. But he let us just go absolutely wild.
And we ended up with a rollout event that people had FOMO because they missed out. It was a packed house. We had the band, we had the dance squad, we had the cheerleaders, we had guest speakers, special lighting. I think we might’ve even had like smoke. How many [00:12:00] times have you heard about a strategic plan rollout where people are like, oh, I’m so bummed I missed that.
Jarrett Smith: Never. Never. This is a first.
Jaime Hunt: But he really created that psychological safety the whole time I worked there. That’s the most innovative. I’ve been in a job. I mean, we did stuff that schools were not doing yet. Um, stuff that some schools still aren’t doing. Because he was just like, yeah, just riff off of that. Do do the crazy thing.
Um, and if it fails, just learn from it and what a gift that was and what benefits that paid off for the institution.
Jarrett Smith: When I think of risk taking and higher education, these are two things that sometimes feel like oil and water, and WI guess, why do you think that is? Because hearing your example to me, even if it is an edge case, proves that it doesn’t have to be that way.
As an industry? How do we, how do we do this better?
Jaime Hunt: So I think there’s a couple factors that keep us [00:13:00] as an industry from doing that. One is I think that a lot of boards are not creating psychological safety for their, for the presidents. Um, so they’re may be politically appointed. Um. In a way that’s not necessarily as favorable to higher education. So that leaves the president or the chancellor feeling more iffy about taking risks as well.
I, I think that there’s, we have not invested in growing leaders in higher education, and so I think people tend to be like, I started out as a coordinator and then my boss left, so I got my boss’s job and then their boss left. So I got that person’s job and now I’m. You know, whatever. And we have not invested in training folks.
I think it’s like, oh. How much training do you need to lead a team to be psychologically safe? Apparently a lot
Jarrett Smith: A good amount.
Jaime Hunt: because it’s not happening. I also think that there’s this feeling of, um, [00:14:00] if, if a VP for example, doesn’t feel that they’re psychologically safe, they may not feel as comfortable giving their team psychological safety because they, if.
Their team fails and then they fail, then their leadership might be, you know, punitive to them. So I think there’s a lot of reasons it doesn’t happen. Um, I just, you know, if there’s any presidents listening to this, you know, please think about where your university could be if you were had a little bit more risk tolerance and a little bit more of a sense of, you know, we’re gonna take a big swing and if we only get 70% there.
We’ve tried and we’ll learn and we’ll grow. I love the leaders that are like, I like iterating. I like, you know, break things and learn from it.
Jarrett Smith: Yep. We just had a, a, um, annual planning session with one of our clients and, what I really credit their team with is saying, Hey, we’ve [00:15:00] got a theory about where we are and what we need to do, and, you know, we have buy-in that we’re looking at that we’re not missing anything super important here.
But this may not work out the way we think it is, so we’re gonna, to your point, take a big swing. We’re gonna take a calculated risk and we think is well-informed and has a good likelihood of working, but we don’t know for sure. And a year from now, if we revisit this and it’s not working out like we thought it would, we’ll figure it out from there.
, as a partner looking in from the outside, assisting with different aspects of this. Um, is so refreshing and exactly, exactly what you’re talking about, and I think it, especially in our world right now, that is so fast moving, so dynamic, things are changing on a daily basis.
Maybe like 20 years ago, you could have like the five year plan. Now it’s like, let’s make a plan for the next six months and see how it goes.
Jaime Hunt: Right. Well, I was just talking to a board yesterday and I said you need the people who are doing the [00:16:00] work of the now. But you need to have some people who have their eyes on the horizon and are looking three to five years ahead that are futurists that are helping you do the things. Now, that will mean you’ll be able to respond to market changes.
In three to five years, or honestly, in the world we live in now, it’s probably one to two years. Um, but you have, you have to have a mix of both.
Jarrett Smith: Yeah. To kind of build on what you just said, , you need somebody that looking, that are looking ahead over the horizon and sort of gaming out, like, where do we want to be? Where do we to go? And then maintaining that flexibility in the short run.
It’s um, it’s not that you need to have a perfect plan that goes perfectly. It’s that just the, the idea of planning and then realizing that we don’t know everything and. Bob and weave as we need to.
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, a hundred percent and, and I think that if we were able to do those two things, create psychological safety and have some group of people looking to the future, I think we’d have much more successful organizations.
Jarrett Smith: Do [00:17:00] you have a way that I might like self-audit or self-reflect as a leader or manager to sort of gauge, am I already cultivating an environment of psychological safety or do I have some work to do here?
How would you guide me on that?
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so a couple things to ask yourself. First is. Am I getting input on the ideas I put on the table? So if you are in a, if you’re a leader and you put ideas on the table and everyone is just saying, oh, that’s brilliant, or, sure we’ll do that, and nobody’s, um, challenging them, nobody’s pushing back or asking questions, nobody’s riffing off of them saying like, oh, I like that.
What if we also, if nobody’s doing that, if it. It’s just, okay, we’re gonna do your idea. You don’t have psychological safety. I guarantee there’s no leader that knows all the things. There’s no idea that’s perfect that comes from just one person. So, you know, make sure, audit and think to yourself, am I having that experience?
And then, then another way [00:18:00] to kind of reflect on is, are people bringing me crazy ideas? So not just are they bringing me ideas? Are they bringing me something that sounds kind of like. That’s a little wild, right? And, and then if they’re not, is that a function of, you know, they, they’re lacking the resources to think outside the box?
Or is it because you’ve been shooting down ideas? Um, and then try to, when you’re in those brainstorming, try to tell yourself, um, if something’s not gonna work, I’m not gonna say That won’t work. I’m gonna say yes and I’m gonna learn from improv and say. Oh, that’s a really interesting idea. Um, what would you think if we did this that might fit our campus environment better or that might.
You know, and, and really be asking questions versus just saying no. And I, I think too, if you’re sitting in meetings and everybody looks disengaged and everybody kind of is making eye [00:19:00] contact with each other and rolling their eyes in the meetings, you don’t have psychological safety. You have people who are really tired of your BS, for of a better term.
Jarrett Smith: So. Okay, let’s say, uh, it is not that bad. Uh, people aren’t rolling their eyes and they’re like, oh God, here we go again. But I, I’m listening to this and I’m realizing, you know what? My team really. They do seem like they kind of accept what I’m saying, a little too uncritically or you know, they’re not really bringing a stream of interesting out there ideas to the table.
Would you recommend anything, any places I might look, any stones I might turn over or things I might consider adjusting in my relationship with my team to maybe help with that?
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so there’s a couple ways you could go. One thing I think if you are comfortable and you have, you know, at least a, a relationship where you feel like this is possible, saying like, Hey, um. Am I, [00:20:00] does it seem like I’m open to your ideas? Um, and asking those questions that might not be possible in every scenario.
The other is to actually invite that feedback. So when you put an idea out there, say what do you think? And probe that. If everybody’s just sits there and is like. No, that’s fine. You know, like, no, really, I really want your input on this. Really stress that, you know, your insight, your expertise, applying that to this idea is gonna make it better humble yourself.
Say, I know this isn’t the best idea. I need your input. It’s gonna take a while. Because if people are not pushing back on ideas or not, um, expanding your ideas. If they’re not gonna trust you just after one time of doing that, it needs to be something that you just keep on trying and really, really put that effort in to quiet your own self, like dictator and, and just say, I have this idea. What do you guys think? And stop talking. I remember, [00:21:00] um, I did a student journey map, um, project when I was at Winston-Salem State. And part of it was like assessing where the problem points were, where the pain points were, where the challenges are. And um, I invited all of these, um, admins for these offices, so the directors and like the front desk person for these student facing offices into a meeting.
Um, and then I said. I’m gonna let you guys brainstorm. I’m leaving the room. I don’t want you to feel like Jamie Hunt has the answer to this. There’s a reason you’re here. I want you to tell me what I need to know, but I’m gonna, you know, let somebody from my team take those notes and we’re gonna, you know, let you open up and you guide this conversation and.
People were like, oh, I thought this was gonna be Jamie Hunt dictates what we do. You know, so giving that, you know, here’s my idea, you guys go make it be what it needs to be. Um, is another way you could do it.
Jarrett Smith: , it sounds like you were cognizant that even [00:22:00] just me being in the room, even if I didn’t say anything, might stifle the conversation a little bit.
People hold back or edit, and so I’m gonna step out physically. So you are literally unsupervised say whatever you want.
Jaime Hunt: Yeah.
Jarrett Smith: That that’s something that you know as, . As a leader, you can sometimes lose sight of the fact that when people are talking with you, it’s like, I don’t feel like I have anything at risk in this conversation.
So they must not either. And that is so not the case. And that power dynamic that is working back there. So I just, I just love that idea of like, I’m gonna set you up, I’m gonna tell you what I need, and then I’m, I’m gonna let you do your thing.
Jaime Hunt: A hundred percent. I mean, it changes the dynamic being in the room. And I think back to early career and if, you know, brainstorming in front of the VP versus not in front of the vp, brainstorming in front of your boss’s boss, [00:23:00] um, you know, those were the meetings that you went to just like, I need to be impressive.
I need to be whatever. And it just, it doesn’t. That locks up a part of your brain and. So, you know, removing yourself from that can be a really viable solution to solving that problem. And then your role as a leader isn’t to give all the answers. Your role is to set a vision and guide it. In the direction it needs to go.
So if somebody comes back to you, this happened all the time when I was at Miami University, I would charge a group, they would come back with something, and then I would offer input based on my expertise, but then based on what I knew about the institution and some of those higher level conversations that we’re having, having, um, and then say, you know.
This is great. You know, can we tweak this to respond to this or whatever, and like really refining it together. But the initial concepts for so many things came from that team. Or I would present, you know, this is my [00:24:00] wild back of a napkin idea. I. You tell me what if this is possible and how would we execute this wild idea?
And they can then go have the freedom to be like, you know, we’re gonna take this wild back an napkin idea and take it even farther. Make it even wilder. Um, and then you always have to recognize when people do that well and celebrate when that’s done well, you know, be like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
This is even better than what I was thinking of. Really reinforce that like. You are valued because you offered this creative or innovative, uh, extension of your idea.
Jarrett Smith: Mm-hmm. You know, I remember one time listening to a client giving our agency feedback, this was years ago. And it felt like he was kind of nitpicking a little bit. Well there’s, this is off and this is off. And he was like, Hey, my feedback is super specific and I want you to take that as a compliment because.
99% of this is on the [00:25:00] money and now we’re just like snipping at the edges to get it right there. And I’ve taken that comment and sometimes when I’m , I’ve got a bunch of little things, I’ll tell the team, I’m about to give you a bunch of very specific feedback. And that’s a great thing, um, because the vast majority of this is right where it needs to be and great job.
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, I love that.
Jarrett Smith: How, do you have any like greatest hits? Like, here’s how I like to frame feedback or things that you, little things like that, that you found like work well well for you.
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, I mean, I think seeing feedback as an opportunity to do a little coaching is, um, a good way to think about it. So, you know, if you’re offering feedback, doing it through the lens of I’m trying to give some advice to someone, or I’m trying to hone this piece. I wanna do this and provide enough context for what my feedback is that they learn from it and can use that in their future [00:26:00] endeavors.
You know? So I think thinking about it as, as more like a coaching than a. Feedback session I think is helpful. I think always starting, you know, that it’s kind of cliche, that sandwich method of like, start with, it’s good, give the feedback end with it’s good, but there’s a reason why that’s, that’s like a cliche.
I think that’s actually really good. You know, really setting the table for this is phenomenal. I think that there, you know, this is so close to where it needs to be. Uh, exactly what you said. This is, you know. Trimming the edges to make it perfect. And, uh, but again, this was fantastic. Like I’m really, I’m really proud of what, what you’ve brought here, if it’s truly abysmal, look a little bit to yourself.
Did you give the right guidance for this project? Did you set this project up for success? Did you explain enough about the details and the context of the project? And if not. Perhaps the reason it’s not great is your fault. Um, and so, you know, look a little bit inwardly and maybe you’re [00:27:00] leading with, you know what, I think I maybe wasn’t clear with this project.
So let me talk through some of the, the ways that, you know, this didn’t quite meet what I was looking for, but I’m taking ownership that perhaps I didn’t explain well enough what I was looking for. Even if you feel like you did. That’s not a bad way to, to frame up the conversation because it puts the onus on you versus on the person listening, and that makes them less defensive.
Jarrett Smith: Right. Yeah. ’cause you still want them to be able to receive what you’re saying and be able to act on it.
I kind of want to shift gears a little bit. You mentioned this idea of bringing your whole self to work . What does that mean to bring your whole self to work? And do you draw boundaries around that?
Jaime Hunt: Yeah. Well, and I think, um, you know, somebody asked me about this and, and pointed out that it’s really difficult for certain groups to bring their whole selves to work because, um, you know, people of color have been told that maybe, um, the way that they dress or the [00:28:00] way that they wear their hair, or the way that they speak, or the way that they fill in the blank.
’cause we’re awful as human beings. Um, that those things are keeping them from, you know. Keep them from being their full, authentic self as at work. So I wanna acknowledge that right off the bat. But what I really mean by bringing your whole self to work, I mean. The, the passions that you have in your personal life, are there ways that you can bring that passion to the work that you do?
So I just talked to someone yesterday whose, um, passion is creative writing and they’re really interested in love creating, and I’m trying to figure out how she can. Unlock that in her work self. So how can she get as excited about creating the work that she’s creating as a higher ed marketer? How can I get her to apply the skills that she has as a marketer to, um, or has as a creative writer to the work that she’s doing, um, feel like, make it feel like.
Her quirks and her [00:29:00] personality that she has outside of work can inform the work that she does in the office. Um, I do hear from people like, um, I have a, I have a friend. Um, I, I won’t call him out ’cause he might be embarrassed, but we are disagree on which one of us is the weirdest person. Um,
Jarrett Smith: I love that.
Jaime Hunt: He, he would bring his weird self to work and that often showed up with out of the box ideas because he was kind of this goofball, um, in the very best way.
Um, in terms of boundaries, always, you wanna stay professional if your passions are not work appropriate. Don’t bring those to work. Um, don’t be constantly cutting jokes or cutting up or whatever. So, you know, set boundaries around behavior that fits within a, a context of, of a workspace. And if there are parts of your life that are tender or something that, you know, maybe you’re struggling with infertility and you don’t want everybody in the office to necessarily know that about you or understand, you know, why you’re emotional or, or.[00:30:00]
Whatever. Sometimes, you know, you don’t have to share all of that with people. Share it with the people that you feel comfortable being vulnerable with. And I will say, um, I have heard feedback from people who say, I feel comfortable with my boss sharing some of these aspects of myself, but not with my whole team or not with other people on the team.
You know? So I think that’s. You know, it’s important as a leader to see when there are others on the team that maybe report to you that are stifling that for their teams and doing what you can to kind of coach them away from that.
Jarrett Smith: So you have a chapter called Find the Leader that you’re meant to be. You. Talk about some different styles of leadership . But, uh, just as importantly, you kind of tee up some questions you might ask yourself as a leader to understand your yourself and your own style better.
, are there any questions that are your favorites or ones you might suggest to us of like, if we wanted to do a little [00:31:00] self-reflection to understand our own style better.
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so, so I talk a lot about what types of positive leadership style that you can have and, and we’re talking about people, you know, you can be the inspire, you can be the coach, you can be the harmonizer, you can be the anchor, the collaborator, the listener. Um, and, and all of those are important, but trying to understand which one you are and how to like, hone up the skills that you need.
A big question, I think is how do I want people to feel after they interact with me and. If you asked yourself just that question and then reflect on how you interact with people and sit and maybe journal, Hey, I say, said this to my team. How do I think that made people feel? I feel like I. That question alone might shift how you lead.
Um, and then understanding like what are your values? What do you value, what do you stand for as a leader? Is it, you know, you value [00:32:00] collaboration, you value integrity, you value creativity, something else. But really asking yourself, what are my values? And am I showing up in that way? At work, there are so many decisions that I made as a leader that I stopped and said, is this.
On brand for me, or is this not on brand for me, and by brand, I meant like the culmination of my values and what I said. I believed in what I wanted to reflect to people and like if I take this action is that. Within those, and if I say this, like this, is that within those, and it was constant. It’s constantly on my mind as a leader.
And so I think just those questions alone and really reflecting on them will make you a better leader.
Jarrett Smith: You know, as you were saying that, I kind of, uh, looped back to the beginning of our conversation. We were talking about psychological safety. I. Because I think sometimes there may be situations [00:33:00] where I’m not sure how people felt when I delivered certain remarks, but if you have a psychologically safe environment where people can give that candid feedback upwards, and maybe you had an impact that you weren’t even aware of on somebody.
Then they’re more likely to pull you aside and say, Hey, I, I want you to know, like, this is how this landed with me. Whenever I’ve gotten that, it’s always like, oh, cringe inducing. Like, oh, I hate, like, I hate hearing it. But at the same time I’m like, that’s a good, that’s a good sign that someone was willing to kind of go out on a limb.
Jaime Hunt: For for sure. And I think about the time I had to lay off a whole department and the next morning I set up an opportunity for the entire staff to come meet with me. And I said, I’ll answer questions until you run outta questions to ask me. And then afterwards I asked all of the, the leaders that reported to me, how did that [00:34:00] land?
Um, and got some really candid feedback on that. And, and that’s exactly like you, if, if I didn’t have the psychological safety of those. Team leaders that reported to me to tell me honestly, um, I, I wouldn’t grow, I wouldn’t be able to say, oh, okay, well then I’m gonna just reinforce this particular part of that message because that wasn’t heard the way I intended it to be heard.
That kind of thing.
Jarrett Smith: In the book, you have a number of practical exercises. You have ’em for empathetic marketing, you also have ’em for empathy driven leadership. Do you have like a favorite exercise that you kind of would recommend folks consider?
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so my favorite one in the leadership section is the empathy driven decision audit. So we make decisions all day, big, small, medium, E. Everything’s a decision. Um, and this audit really. It encourages leaders to pause and have some intentionality around their choices and what those choices, emotional and practical consequences might be.
I mean, I think [00:35:00] a lot of people don’t think about the downstream comp consequences of some of the decisions that they make, and so with this audit, you know, you just start out by defining, this is the decision that I’m trying to make. So maybe it’s a reorganization, sharing a change in the project management process.
Um, updating some policies around remote work, whatever, fill in the blank. And then you’re gonna identify who are the audiences that this is going to impact. So it might be individual team members, the whole unit, um, maybe other audiences on campus. And then you’re gonna ask yourself some really intentional questions.
How will this decision impact emotionally? How will it impact them? Practically, what challenges might this decision create for people and how can we address those challenges? So you’re thinking, you know, are they gonna be excited? Are they gonna be relieved? Are they gonna be ans uh, anxious? And then is it gonna make their day-to-day life harder, easier?
Are they gonna, are we removing barriers that are gonna create new ones? Are there any unintended [00:36:00] consequences? I cannot stress this enough. What are the unintended consequences that might come from this? And then using that to kind of shape not just how you make the decision, but then how you communicate that decision.
And if you are like a VP and you have some AVPs that you trust a lot, I would encourage you to do some of that step of asking the questions with. Them. ’cause they’ll know their teams more deeply than you do. So is there someone on the team that’s gonna be just really resistant to this? Or is there someone on the team, maybe you’re changing a remote work policy.
Like are they gonna have to change their childcare because of what. What this decision is and how are we gonna address that? And then I always think bouncing off as many people as possible, those unintended consequence questions is really important because I can think of a lot of things. You can think of a lot of things that’s twice as many unintended consequences that have been thought of.
And, and I think about, you know, [00:37:00] one tiny little misstep in a decision can lose you. The trust of a team, if you’re not thinking about those unintended consequences.
Jarrett Smith: Jamie, this has been a great conversation. If folks want to go check out the book or want to connect with you directly and, and maybe carry on the conversation, what are the best places to do that?
Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so I’m on LinkedIn all the time. Uh, Jamie Hunt, J-A-I-M-E. Um, so you can find me there. The book, you can find all the different places to buy it at heart over hype book.com. Um, it’s available on so many online bookstores. If you don’t like Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Books, chop.org book is a million. Um, and I’m super happy to connect.
You can also email me at Jamie at Solve higher ed, and that’s J-A-I-M-E. So happy to connect with people.
Jarrett Smith: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today, Jamie.
Jaime Hunt: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed [00:38:00] it.
