The Power of Empathy, Humility, and Purpose

María Angelica Latorre

Andrés Neira [1]

Each episode of our podcast leaves us with a feeling of deep admiration and gratitude for the interviewee. Respect for the commitment and conviction with which the person materializes his/her dream; and appreciation for the contribution made to change the world. Through their stories, we have learned about reforestation, electricity, water, education, equity, and biotechnology in Colombia, Mexico, and Brazil.

Our podcast aims to inspire, and with this purpose, we focus on understanding the person: what are their motivations, what is their belief, what their values ​​are. The result? We find that these change agents have empathy, courage, perseverance, creativity in common, but above all, they are consistent between their convictions and actions.

Dear reader, in this blog, we want to share with you some learnings from our interview with Felipe Chajín. We want to share the impact of values ​​such as empathy, humility, and purpose as tools to exercise positive leadership.

1- A lesson of empathy: we can define empathy as the ability to understand and appreciate the feelings and thoughts of another person. I quote a phrase from Alfred Adler: “See with the eyes of another, listen with the ears of another and feel with the heart of another” (Stein, S. J., & Book, H. E., 2011).

In simpler words, empathy is the ability to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes. This ability allows us to understand what, how, and why others feel (Stein, S. J., & Book, H. E., 2011).

Why is empathy so important? Because through this ability, we can transform our interactions from a relationship of adversaries to a collaborative relationship.

This is a powerful tool because it allows us to distance ourselves from situations, be more assertive in our communication and find solutions that were not obvious. Felipe and the other entrepreneurs have taught us how they manage to connect with the communities with which they work and are inspired to find these innovative solutions through empathy.

Likewise, empathy is a powerful tool in the exercise of leadership.I quote Felipe, who shared with us how he joined the family business, starting his career in the production area:

“(The two-year rotation) allowed me to know the business from the inside out, and also this made a lot of the workers to respect me because they saw I was a hardworking, humble, creative person that could bring value to the table.” (impACTivist. 2021, Abril 19). It is precisely in the shoes of the other that allows us to understand the context, build together and make better decisions. Let’s not confuse empathy with being friendly or pleasant (Stein, S. J., & Book, H. E., 2011).

2- A lesson in humility: living in the middle of the age of knowledge leads us to rethink an essential value to be open to incorporating humility, understood as “the ability to recognize that I do not have the whole truth and that by combining the point of view of the others I can build something more powerful. It is a lesson in how humble leadership is exercised” (Schein, E. H., & Schein, P. A., 2018).

Felipe gives us an example of how powerful the exercise of humility in leadership is, are the results that Felipe has obtained throughout his career in the family business and in the ventures he has carried out. We share one of his thoughts:

“We need a second version of capitalism that is inclusive, sustainable, and even regenerative now. And, to achieve this, the only way we have to do that is moral leadership. We need a leadership that is courageous enough to challenge the status quo and to keep going when the bad gets tough, and this is almost always, but also a leadership that is humble enough to know that we, the “educated elites,” don’t have the answers and we need to build these answers with the affected communities that are left out, and we also need to be humble enough to know that we won’t make any relevant change happen by ourselves. We need to work interdependently within the private sector but also with the third and public sectors in these courageous ways” (impACTivist. ,2021, Abril 19).

3- A Lesson on Purpose: Felipe has taught us through his testimony the power of actions directed by purpose. “When you have a bigger purpose, it is much easier to handle the conflict because at the end of the day, you are working for something much bigger than yourself, and it becomes the greatest reason to be able to overcome any difficulty.” (impACTivist., 2021, April 19).

This is how we go through Felipe’s story in the family business, creating the “Fundación Volver” and his transition to new ventures. All this leads us to summarize it in one last concept: Moral leadership. We understand moral leadership as a way of conceiving the world in which, guided by the vision of building a better present, we incorporate values ​​such as empathy and humility into our daily routine, and we incorporate a more transcendent purpose into our vision.

Finally, we share with you the Acumen’s Moral Manifesto:

“It starts by standing with the poor, listening to voices unheard, and recognizing potential where others see despair.

It demands investing as a means, not an end, daring to go where markets have failed and aid has fallen short. It makes capital work for us, not control us.

It thrives on moral imagination: the humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be. It’s having the ambition to learn at the edge, the wisdom to admit failure, and the courage to start again

It requires patience and kindness, resilience and grit: a hard-edged hope. It’s leadership that rejects complacency, breaks through bureaucracy, and challenges corruption. Doing what’s right, not what’s easy.

Acumen: it’s the radical idea of creating hope in a cynical world. Changing the way the world tackles poverty and building a world based on dignity” (Novogratz, J., 2021).