It may be the solution to the Great Resignation.

BY MARCEL SCHWANTES, INC. CONTRIBUTING EDITOR AND FOUNDER, LEADERSHIP FROM THE CORE@MARCELSCHWANTES
For Inc.
Photo: Getty Images

The solution to the Great Resignation may be found in the title of a classic leadership book: Lead From the Heart. But let’s face it, the idea of becoming a “heart-led” leader sounds inherently soft and weak.

To the most cynical managers amongst us, it’s interpreted as guidance to be kind and nice to workers — at the direct expense of setting aggressive goals and holding people accountable for achieving them. Lead From the Heart? No thank you.

But we should all be wary of making snap judgments about anything new.

My recent podcast guest, Mark C. Crowley, just published the second edition of Lead From the Heart: Transformational Leadership for the 21st Century and makes the unique case that bringing “heart” into management is no metaphor — and there’s nothing soft about it.

As Mark shares in our podcast discussion — and articulates in great detail in his book — there’s compelling new science that proves human hearts actually play a huge role in motivating performance. It’s breakthrough information that upends how we’ve traditionally been taught to manage. His research proves that the most successful and effective workplace managers now pay great attention to their employees’ emotional experience at work (specifically how they feel), far greater attention than any of us ever believed necessary.

In his book, Crowley outlines the emerging science that shows how the human heart and brain are connected through the vagus nerve, with the heart sending more signals to the brain than the brain sends back. The net effect is that human beings are not as rational as we’ve always believed and up to 95 percent of the decisions we make every day are driven by feelings and emotions.

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