The Role of Empathy in Leadership with Sarah Feely

**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** (0:17)
Welcome back to the show, everyone. I'm Stephen Sakach here again with my co-host Tullio Siragusa and our special guest today who we'll introduce in a moment.
You know, if you feel like we have a lot of stone age emotions running loose and businesses are organized like medieval feudal empires and using industrial era soulless business practices and all this is getting networked and broadcast and amplified globally through technology and it's outpacing our collective wisdom. You're probably right, I know, but it sounds dark, but I will say that we're seeing more and more leaders talking about empathy and creating authentic cultures where people feel connected and supported and empowered and are living and working with meaning and I love that every week, we are showing how that can be done in tangible ways and our guest today is on a similar path. We are exploring the role empathy plays in leadership and how organizations can create cultures that thrive. So Tullio, introduce our special guest today.

**Tullio Siragusa** (1:26)
It will be my pleasure. Today we have Sarah Feely. She's the Chief Learning Officer of Compassionate Leaders Circle.
Sarah is passionate about helping individuals at all career levels, discover their authentic selves and find meaning at work. She's earned a Master's of Science in learning and organizational change from Northwestern University and is a certified executive and organizational coach. At Compassionate Leaders Circle, Sarah helps organization align business strategy with people strategy by developing customized learning, coaching, leadership retreats and organizational change initiatives. Her experience spans executive recruiting, leadership advisory, cultural transformation and talent development through roles at Korn Ferry and Hillstone Restaurant Group. Throughout her career, Sarah has worked across hospitality, consumer products, life sciences, leadership development and organizational transformation, bringing a thoughtful and people-centered approach to leadership and growth. Sarah, welcome to The Bliss Business Podcast. We're excited to have you today.

**Sarah Feely** (2:37)
Tullio, thank you. That intro, who wrote that?
I'm kidding, it's great. Nice to see you.

**Stephen Sakach** (2:47)
Sarah's usually on the other side of the question. Sarah, before we get started, tell everyone a little bit about the Compassionate Leader Awards, because I think it's a great way to get the types of stories that we like to tell in front of more people.

**Sarah Feely** (3:01)
I love it. Stephen, that's how you and I got connected because you were nominated 25 times. You're doing something right.

**Stephen Sakach** (3:08)
25 times. All right.

**Sarah Feely** (3:12)
Six years ago, the founder and CEO of our company, Laurel Donnellan, had this idea we're entering or we're in COVID. She's like, there are so many people in the corners of their world doing incredible, empowering, uplifting work. Let's celebrate them. The Compassionate Leaders Circle Awards were founded. We've basically crowdsourced hundreds of people and said, nominate a compassionate leader who you know well or who inspires you.
We had them use our compassionate leaders model, which is the seven Cs. Pick a C and describe this person.
Six years have passed and we've had thousands of nominations and gotten to meet all these amazing people all around the world who are doing incredible things and really changing the world in big and small ways, and so that's the CLC Awards. So Stephen, you're nominated.

**Stephen Sakach** (4:19)
I think you said you get to interview around 200 or so a year business leaders, right? I mean, that's a lot, and that's a lot of great stories that people need to hear, because I mentioned all those things at the top of the show, because I think that's kind of the reality that people are in and stuck in day to day a lot of the times. But there's these really great stories out there that I think need to be told.
And you're doing a wonderful job with that, and so much appreciation for what you're doing out there. Receive that. Receive that appreciation.

**Tullio Siragusa** (4:52)
Absolutely. We need to water our guests with each other too. Like those are the kind of leaders we want to talk to as well. It's pretty amazing.

**Sarah Feely** (5:01)
Yeah.

**Stephen Sakach** (5:02)
Sarah, what were you about to say? You were about to say something.

**Sarah Feely** (5:04)
Oh, I was just going to say this concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy is so true and backed by science. And if we keep telling ourselves societally, if we have a collective reality, whether it's true or real, something cannot be true.
But if we experience it is real, it lives is real. And so this idea, if we're telling ourselves a story, like, oh, the world's going to hell. Oh, it's never been this bad. Oh, people aren't innately good. I mean, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We see the world that way. And so to your point, like it is so important to tell these stories because the truth of the matter is, is that people are good. More people are good than not. And there's really good things happening and people need to hear about it.