The Role of Empathy in Business with Karen Price Owen

**Stephen Sakach** (0:00)
They're small boxes of them.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen Sakach** (0:17)
Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Stephen Sakach here again with my co-host, Mike Liwski, and our special guest today who we'll introduce in a moment. So employees who experience genuine empathy from their leaders report higher engagement, stronger innovation, and are significantly less likely to leave their jobs. And one global study found that more than 80 percent of workers who say empathy from leadership will improve their job satisfaction, creativity, and loyalty to the organization today. We are exploring what it looks like to put empathy at the center of business, not just in our personal conversations, but in how we design goals, handle conflict, and help people move from where they are to where they most want to be. Mike, introduce our guest today.

**Mike Liwski** (1:05)
Oh, Stephen, delighted to do so. So our guest today is Karen Price Owen. She's an executive and life coach on really a mission to empower others to navigate the transformative journey from where they are today to where they want to be and where they can be. And Karen's a certified executive and life coach who specializes really in helping people unveil their true potential across all phases of life so that they can really craft a future they genuinely desire. Now, through her coaching practice, as well as speaking and the workshops that she does, Karen's guided leaders, professionals, and even teams through meaningful transformations in both their personal and professional lives. And she believes deeply in the extraordinary power that resides within each individual and really uses empathy, clarity, and practical strategy to help people to design the lives and the careers that they love living. So she's just the perfect guest for us to discuss this topic with today. Okay, so Karen, welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast.

**Karen Price Owen** (2:16)
Thank you so much. Man, I really appreciate that introduction. One of the things that I'm going to talk about in terms of empathy is authenticity. You'll hear me say that a lot today. And so in honor of my own authenticity, I want you to know that I have copious notes because I rely on them. I rely on them quite a bit. So you're going to see me looking down. Don't get upset with me. I'm just being me, okay?

**Mike Liwski** (2:42)
Yeah, absolutely. That's beautiful. But maybe to jump into the topic, Karen, you may tell us, is there some sort of personal connection to the topic of empathy in business, or did it lead to your own journey in coaching and leadership development? I mean, why was it so important for our discussion?

**Karen Price Owen** (3:03)
Thank you so much for asking me that. And absolutely. I mean, I think that the role of empathy led me to the job I'm doing today. And I don't really call it a job. It's more of a calling. So let me tell you a story. Let me tell you my story. I spent over 25 years and probably more, but I don't want to sound like I'm that old, in corporate leadership. And I believed that I had in order to be affected, effective, I had to choose that effectiveness, personal, professional thing over empathy, personal thing, right? So I had to armor up. I thought empathy was something you did after hours with your family and your friends, right? That business required a different version of me, one that was sharper, harder, bulletproof, right? And I don't think that's unique to me, actually. But what I discovered, and sometimes painfully, to be honest, is that this split was costing me and everyone around me. I don't know if you've ever heard about, have you ever heard the name Brené Brown?

**Mike Liwski** (4:10)
Oh, yeah.

**Karen Price Owen** (4:11)
Okay. So I'm going to rely a lot on Brené Brown, but also a lot on Martha Beck. So Brené Brown talks about armored leadership, and I was absolutely wearing that armor. Every single piece you can imagine when I went into the office, I was leading from fear dressed up as strength, right? My teams could feel it, but they couldn't name it probably. So the shift began when that kind of leadership no longer worked for me. I discovered then Martha Beck, who I am certified with. Have you ever heard of her? No. Okay. So you have?

**Mike Liwski** (4:51)
I can't say that I have, yeah, but I'm going to write it down and make sure we-