loader from loading.io

TLP481: The New Language of Leadership with Michael Ventura

The Leadership Podcast

Release Date: 10/15/2025

TLP510: Why Your Organization Keeps Getting the Same Results (No Matter What You Change) show art TLP510: Why Your Organization Keeps Getting the Same Results (No Matter What You Change)

The Leadership Podcast

info_outline TLP509: Capitalism Without Ethics Is Just Chaos show art TLP509: Capitalism Without Ethics Is Just Chaos

The Leadership Podcast

Dr. Bill Kline is a professor of business ethics and the Executive Director of the Academy on Capitalism. He argues that capitalism and ethics aren’t separate conversations. They’re the same system. Without ethics, there are no property rights, no enforceable contracts, and no functioning markets. Strip that away and you don’t get capitalism. You get chaos with a price tag. In this conversation, Bill discusses the difference between socialism’s ideals and capitalism’s outcomes. He also breaks down what leaders must do to rebuild trust with younger workers, and why one simple question...

info_outline TLP508: Your Scars Are Your Resume show art TLP508: Your Scars Are Your Resume

The Leadership Podcast

info_outline TLP507: Disrupt or Be Buried: The Mindset That Changes Everything show art TLP507: Disrupt or Be Buried: The Mindset That Changes Everything

The Leadership Podcast

info_outline TLP506: Retention Is Dead: The Workquake Reshaping Talent show art TLP506: Retention Is Dead: The Workquake Reshaping Talent

The Leadership Podcast

Steve Cadigan is a global talent strategist, author of “Workquake: Embracing the Aftershocks of COVID-19 to Create a Better Model of Working,” and LinkedIn’s founding Chief HR Officer. Steve believes the world of work is going through a “workquake” — a fundamental shift that’s breaking the old employer-employee contract. At the core of it is a false premise: the idea of long-term loyalty that neither side can reliably keep. In this conversation, Steve explains why many of the world’s most successful companies have surprisingly short employee tenure, why the workforce isn’t...

info_outline TLP505: Why Leadership Coaching So Often Fails show art TLP505: Why Leadership Coaching So Often Fails

The Leadership Podcast

Will Linssen is the CEO of Global Coach Group, and the author of “Triple Win Leadership Coaching: The Coach’s Guide to More Impact, More Coaching, and More Clients.” In this conversation, Will challenges the traditional model of leadership coaching. Too often, coaching focuses on the leader while leaving the team out of the equation—one reason why team satisfaction frequently remains low even when leaders feel they’ve made progress. Will explains how great coaches assess coachability before the work even begins, why ego is often the biggest barrier to meaningful change, and what...

info_outline TLP504: Why Your Team Is Still Disengaged show art TLP504: Why Your Team Is Still Disengaged

The Leadership Podcast

Mark Crowley’s newest book is The Power of Employee Well-Being: Move Beyond Engagement to Build Flourishing Teams. For more than a decade, organizations have chased employee engagement - through surveys, gamification, perks, and wellness apps - yet the results haven’t improved. Gallup now reports engagement at a ten-year low. Mark was one of the early voices questioning the engagement movement, and in this conversation he explains why the model itself is flawed. We talk about what leaders have been measuring incorrectly, what employee well-being actually means, and why the strongest...

info_outline TLP503: 7 Hidden Beliefs That Sabotage Leaders (And How to Break Them) – with Muriel M. Wilkins show art TLP503: 7 Hidden Beliefs That Sabotage Leaders (And How to Break Them) – with Muriel M. Wilkins

The Leadership Podcast

Muriel M. Wilkins is the founder and CEO of Paravis Partners, host of the HBR podcast, Coaching Real Leaders, and author of “Leadership Unblocked: Break Through the Beliefs That Limit Your Potential.”   Muriel makes the case that lasting leadership change doesn't come from better tactics. It comes from changing the hidden assumptions driving those tactics in the first place. Drawing on research with over 300 coaching clients, Muriel introduces seven hidden blockers—simple, pervasive beliefs that quietly sabotage even the most capable leaders. She explains why high performers...

info_outline TLP502: Never Fire Anyone with Mark Morgenfruh show art TLP502: Never Fire Anyone with Mark Morgenfruh

The Leadership Podcast

Mark Morgenfruh is the President and CEO of GetHRready and author of “Never Fire Anyone: A Leader's Guide on how to Lead People not Companies.” He holds a Master of Human Resource Management from Rutgers University and built his no-nonsense, trust-first philosophy from the ground up. In this episode, Mark dismantles the two most common leadership failures he calls "keyboard cowboys" (leading from behind a screen) and "happy talk" (avoiding the real conversation until it's too late). He makes the case that trust isn't built through programs or policies — it's built by being a normal human...

info_outline TLP501: Failure as Fuel: When to push through and when to quit show art TLP501: Failure as Fuel: When to push through and when to quit

The Leadership Podcast

Steve Taplin is the CEO of Sonatafy Technology, author of “Fail Hard, Win Big: 30 Ventures | 20 Failures | 10 Wins,” and host of the Software Leaders Uncensored podcast.  In this conversation, Steve reveals the partnership that almost destroyed him but vindicated him five years later; why he walked out of a meeting with a Fortune 500 CIO; and the discipline that saved his sanity.  Steve also shares the 24-hour rule for processing failure to help his teams fail without breaking trust or morale. Steve breaks down the practice that taught him when to fight and when to quit. If...

info_outline
 
More Episodes

Michael Ventura is an entrepreneur, author of “Applied Empathy: The New Language of Leadership”, and advisor to leaders at organizations including the ACLU, Google, Nike, and the UN. He has taught emotionally intelligent leadership at Princeton, West Point, and Esalen.

In this episode, Michael explores why our natural childhood empathy fades as adults due to life complexity, cultural conditioning, and survival mechanisms that suppress this innate behavior. He explains how organizational design can create systems where empathy thrives through measurement, rewards, and leadership modeling rather than trying to change people individually.

Michael outlines seven empathetic archetypes that leaders can shift between like gears: the Sage (practices presence), Inquirer (asks great questions), Convener (creates connection environments), Confidant (builds trust), Cultivator (provides vision), Seeker (values self-work), and Alchemist (experiments and learns). He emphasizes knowing when to shift archetypes based on circumstances and people.

He addresses why leaders struggle to guide rather than control, explaining how successful leaders must transition from having answers to asking questions and empowering others. Michael explains empathy's benefits through a GE medical imaging case study where understanding patient experience led to environmental changes that cut pain complaints in half and increased cancer detection by over 10%. 

Listen to this episode to discover how empathy drives retention, innovation, and competitive advantage while serving as both leadership skill and business strategy.

 

You can find episode 481 on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts!

Watch this Episode on YouTube | Michael Ventura on The New Language of Leadership

https://bit.ly/TLP-481

 

Key Takeaways

[02:19] Michael explains that empathy fades as we age because life beats it out of us in some ways.

[05:10] Michael outlines three types of empathy: affective (golden rule), somatic (physical experience), and cognitive (platinum rule).

[07:27] Michael emphasizes that empathy must be embraced and modeled as a behavior from the top all the way down. Michael warns that empathy requires a code of ethics because "sociopaths are good cognitive empaths."

[10:11] Michael clarifies that his keynote's first slide always says empathy is not about being nice.

[13:06] Michael describes seven empathic archetypes as "gears in a manual transmission" that leaders should shift between.

[19:05] Michael advises leaders to ask "How do you learn? How are you motivated?" to diagnose which archetype to use.

[22:18] Michael states "Leaders should only do what an individual or team cannot do for itself" because leaders must transition from having all the answers to asking the right questions.

[23:47] Michael shares that West Point teaches empathy because officers must lead people from "every socioeconomic stripe imaginable."

[29:07] Michael cites retention as a hard benefit, noting it costs "1 1/2 times the salary" to replace someone.

[35:54] Michael shares what he wandered; he's writing a book about moving from "North Star thinking to constellation thinking" for purpose.

[38:33] Michael observes society lost its "emotional commons" where everyone shared the same cultural experiences.

[42:17] Michael advises leaders to start empathy work "where the need is the greatest" rather than organization-wide.

[43:42] And remember...“I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.” - Maya Angelou

 

Quotable Quotes

"Life beats it out of us in some ways."

"We start to see ourselves as the main character a little too much sometimes and forget that there are other characters in the play all around us."

"Do unto others as they would have you do unto them. And the only way you're going to know that answer is if you do two things that most humans don't want to do. Admit they don't have an answer and then go ask the uncomfortable question."

"Sometimes the most empathic thing that you do is say the hard thing or do the hard thing for someone else."

"Stop trying to be the most interesting person in the room and start trying to be the most interested person in the room."

"Leaders should only do what an individual or team cannot do for itself."

"Don't tell people what to do. Tell them what outcome you want and let them surprise you with how they get it done."

"When something is powerful and something is effective, just recognize it can be used for bad as well."

 

These are the books mentioned in this episode

 

Resources Mentioned