The Role of Empathy in Leadership with Alberto J. Ortiz

**Stephen Sakach** (0:00)
Let's see it all over here.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:04)
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** (0:18)
Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Stephen Sakach here again with my co-host Tullio Siragusa, and we've got a special guest today who we'll introduce in a moment. So leadership today requires more than strategy and execution, it requires connection. And 92% of employees say empathy remains undervalued in leadership, according to the State of Workplace Empathy Report. Even though empathy directly impacts engagement, retention, and performance. So in industries that serve local communities where trust and relationships are essential, empathy becomes even more critical. And today we are exploring the role of empathy in leadership, what it looks like in practice, especially in the framework of a franchise business, and how leaders can use empathy to strengthen both culture and business results. Tullio, introduce our special guest today, it is the day after Tax Day here, and we're so happy to have him on. After hitting that deadline, he said he had people working 2 or 3 a.m. in the morning last night.
Yes.

**Tullio Siragusa** (1:28)
Pleasure to introduce our guest, and I just learned something new today, that today is New Year's Day.

**Alberto J. Ortiz** (1:34)
Happy New Year.

**Tullio Siragusa** (1:38)
If you're in the tax business, today is New Year's Day.
Our guest today is Alberto Ortiz, he's the CEO and president of ATAX. Alberto brings 18 years of experience in the tax industry, including a decade at H&R Block, where he held leadership roles such as district general manager, regional director and vice president of Latin Apparitions. He supported more than 2,700 offices in that role. Today, he leads ATAX, which is a tax business service franchise focused on serving local communities, guided by a mission of having fun, improving lives and a vision to become the largest tax franchise in the United States by 2032 Nothing but lofty goals here. Alberto, welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast. Looking forward to learning from you today.

**Alberto J. Ortiz** (2:25)
Thank you both.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:27)
So, Alberto, empathy is a word that's kind of often used, and I'm glad, thankfully, more so lately than, you know, decades ago.
But it's not always maybe clearly defined for people. In your experience, you know, leading large teams across different markets, how do you define empathy in leadership or what does it look like in action for you?

**Alberto J. Ortiz** (2:50)
Yeah, great question. And I will go back to one of my best mentors and leaders that I had several decades. She was, she really helped me understand the difference for me between empathy and sympathy. And she was very empathetic and understanding, getting to know her team. That to me has always been very important on building relationships with my teams, building relationships and now with our franchisees, is getting to know them, understand and understanding where they are from, and not being with them in the misery or in those downfalls, but truly understanding and listening to what is the concern, what are they're going through. And not only I come from a franchise or, but I also have been a business owner, I've been in their shoes, so I understand what they're going through, and how do they have that perseverance, which is to me one of the most important elements of any business owner to really overcome obstacles.
But I think the more that you are hand in hand working with them, and you're by their side, but not commiserating with them, then truly being there to support them and help them be successful.

**Stephen Sakach** (4:17)
Hey, let's empathize real quick with what they were going through yesterday. Tell me a little bit about what is those last many hours of a day on Tax Deadlending?

**Alberto J. Ortiz** (4:28)
It is in some cases 24 hours a day. So we had several of our largest offices that they start early in the morning, and they are until midnight, right? Because taxpayers had until midnight to transmit those last minute returns. And our franchisees are amazing. ATAX pros are amazing. Our support team is just gothsend.
We have several team members in the East Coast, and they were up to two and three in the morning, because we have franchisees in the West Coast. So anytime they need something, it's like the last thing you want is your support line not being there. So I'm very thankful, very grateful for our amazing support, and our amazing franchisees creating fanatical fans out there.

**Tullio Siragusa** (5:14)