ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
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ILI: History Makers Leadership Podcast
Ep. 74 | Christlike Leadership: How Empathy Outperforms Control
What if your leadership moved beyond control to compassion-in-action? In this episode, Daniel and Norival trace the shift from Frederick Winslow Taylor’s “scientific management” to a biblical, people-first approach fit for today’s teams. You’ll hear why the old fishbowl, command-and-control mindset breaks down in modern workplaces—especially in an AI-shaped future—and how Christlike empathy, servant leadership, and transformational leadership create healthier culture and better outcomes.
They unpack a practical continuum—pity → sympathy → empathy → compassion—showing that empathy matters most when it leads to action. Real-world stories bring it home: Chick-fil-A’s retention, a public company staffing chaplains, and the power of inviting frontline insights. You’ll also get field-tested takeaways you can use today: ask, “Am I leading to be needed—or for others to succeed?” create safe opportunities for others to lead, practice agenda-free conversations, model sincere dependence on God, and sharpen active listening with thoughtful follow-up questions.
If you lead in churches, nonprofits, or the marketplace, this episode equips you to replace micromanagement with trust, empowerment, and genuine care—so people flourish and mission moves forward. Tune in to gain practical tools for empathetic, Christ-centered leadership you can put into play this week.
Join a community of leaders who are ready to change history and make an impact in this world. When you take part in ILI training, you will discover how ILI's Eight Core Values will help you transform your leadership. Discover more at ILITeam.org/connect.
Well, norval, I'm really excited to talk to you a little bit. I know we both love reading and just learning about different things. Not long ago, I was learning about a leader, frederick Winslow Taylor. He was actually an American mechanical engineer and he really became popular in the height of the Industrial Revolution. He developed a system that he called scientific management of all things, and really he understood that in this burgeoning growth and development of the Industrial Age growth and development of the industrial age he understood that there were key opportunities for improvement in productivity within the team and within the employee base, and so he developed this process of just looking at every single detail. He would look at how many turns of a screwdriver does it take for this one screw to go in? And then ask the question should it have that many turns, should it not? What does it need? And then you know, purchase screws accordingly. Or he would measure how many degrees does a body have to turn in order to grab the tool, to then turn back and put it in right. And it was in the space and time that he was leading in. He was helping factories develop increasingly profitable and productive spaces and timelines.
Speaker 1:But as I look at the impact of Taylor. Today, I can't help but see that it seems that it's continued in this phrase that we often call like command and control styles of leadership Leaders who are looking at the minutia of every single nook and cranny or even looking at just levels of detail that are really outside of their ability to be the expert in the room or beyond what's ultimately necessary and overall. I'd love to have a conversation today about how command and control leaders are really missing a mark. They're missing Christ-like leadership in some aspects of it, and how they're really setting themselves up for long-term failure, because I think we're living in a time where you just can't be successful as a command and control leader anymore.
Speaker 2:Well, even back then, it's interesting You're describing all of these. What do you call scientific yeah, scientific management Lead management, and I'm thinking I'm having images of Charlie Chaplin in his old movie, that's it Turning a machine, and then he goes home and he just keeps doing that overnight because individual workers were treated as another cog in the machine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and therefore you know how many degrees they had to turn or not to pick up the tool mattered. Yeah, and that had to be determined. You said something in our pre-conversation that it's true. If you're on the factory floor, you're in your workstation, and usually there's a in Brazil we call it the aquarium, like the fishbowl there's a, there's, there's a place where the managers and the engineers are up top and they have a general view. That's why you know he. He did that because in his mind, the, the, the, the subordinate doesn't have the full picture. They have a little piece of the puzzle, but he does, he knows everything. Therefore, he commands and he controls, and the world has changed.
Speaker 1:Oh, man has it.
Speaker 2:Today, not even even. Not today, even 30 years ago, even maybe 40 years ago, years ago, even maybe 40 years ago, because that's when things started, when the whole command and control started to become a little obsolete, if you will yeah. And then came other situational leadership models, and then, finally, servant leadership, transformational leadership and all of that in which the individual is no longer a cog in the machine. They are an individual.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think there's such a temptation again, when you're in a position of leadership, you're not there by accident, you have knowledge, you have skills, and you have knowledge and skills likely related to the tasks being done by the people at hand. Right, I mean, I look back at Taylor and I go. He was a mechanical engineer. He understood how these factories were functioning, he understood the details involved in that process. But I think that we're increasingly living in a day and age and a time where the nature of our work has changed, the nature of the individuals we're leading has changed, and the way in which people interact with one another has shifted, will increasingly be a part of gosh, our church culture, our workplace culture, our nonprofit culture. Whatever our structure for leadership, there's going to be an increased value in leaders who lead with a sense of empathy, leaders who lead with a sense of Christ-like servant-heartedness, leaders who understand that authenticity in the relationship is of greater value than just about any other element in their leadership arsenal.
Speaker 2:Well, I suspect, daniel, that if we could build a time machine and go back to the 1800s and lead, even on the factory floor at at the height of the industrial revolution, yeah, with with more empathy and considering people as people, yeah, not as pawns or cogs, I keep repeating that, but it's. It is to look at an employee or a subordinate as a cog in an otherwise mechanical machine. No wonder it came from a mechanical engineer, so he saw it as a machine. But people are not machines. People have feelings, people have problems, people have ideas.
Speaker 1:Well, and people have value because they're made in the image of God and as believers, we can't divorce ourselves from that knowledge, so that, no matter what our context for leadership and I love that you pointed that out, because you're right If we went back to the 1800s with a framework for empathetic leadership, really we could come at it and say look, we're simply trying to practice the love, care, affection, attention that Jesus offers to people because we follow in that way, we follow in that practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but even from a pure, let's say, productivity mentality, there are studies that show that an empathetic leadership is linked to higher productivity, better performance and retention. You know, one of the beauties about servant leadership is that a servant leader that really values people in a company has a significantly lower turnover employee turnover, turnover, employee turnover. We're all familiar with the American quick service restaurants chain called Chick-fil-A, and they're Christians and they practice a biblical model of servant leadership in their business have over. They have thousands of stores valued in billions of dollars and yet, uh, they are. They practice a type of leadership that is empathetic, that is, listens. And the last I heard, the last I read, they had the lowest turnover, employee turnover, uh, or the highest employee retention, uh, in the industry, in the restaurant industry, which is a volatile people, people move back and forth and they jump from restaurant to restaurant. They are able to maintain employees, uh, long term, yeah, for many reasons, but one of them being that empathetic leadership.
Speaker 1:Well, I think their example is so important and so valuable because you know, I have a background in hospitality and managing restaurants and I can attest you worked at Chick-fil-A, didn't you, I did.
Speaker 1:I did. I was a general manager with Chick-fil-A, but even before that, when I was with another restaurant company, we saw the incredible turnover. We lacked a lot of that retention and so a lot of time, energy and effort was expended trying to maintain those things. But that empathetic leadership that understands that they're a real person with a real story, on a real journey and that we have the privilege to come alongside, serve, equip and give meaningful opportunities for service or meaningful opportunities to participate in the work of the body of Christ or gosh, if you're an employer, to give them meaningful work in the midst of that All of those are extensions of that empathy.
Speaker 1:But there's another group that we've worked with before. That is a huge. It's a publicly traded organization that so has seen the value of empathetic leadership that they've actually hired chaplains for every 150 employees in their 20,000 employee organization. So they have 20,000 employees for every 150 employees. They have a chaplain whose job it is to simply be there to answer hard questions to help navigate those difficult moments in life.
Speaker 1:And they have seen unbelievable transformation in their people because, whether that employee is a believer or not, they have somebody to go to when their kids are just going nuts, or their marriage is falling apart, or they just don't know how to have that hard conversation with their boss or their best friend, and they're struggling with addiction. They have somebody to go to, but all of this because a leader sat there understanding wait a second, I can't be in a command and control structure. I want to be empathetic and I want to reach out to the people that I'm leading, the people that I have influence over, with that kind of empathy and attitude. Norval, you did this in our pre-conversation. I think it'd be good. Help us unpack a little bit. What's the difference between empathy or sympathy or pity? Walk us through that a little bit, because we've used this phrase now a couple of times and I don't want us to lose sight of what is empathy here.
Speaker 2:Well, it was an interesting continuum that I read in the Harvard Business Review that talks about you go from pity to compassion in terms of how you respond to people in need, is able to listen and have a conversation with the employees at moments of personal crises that have nothing to do. A lot of times have nothing to do with the work, right right, but they affect the work, without question. So, you know, if my marriage is falling apart, my productivity is going to reflect it, although a true servant leader is not doing, not serving, because they want productivity, that's right, it's like a side effect. But it talked about four responses to people in need Okay, the first one is pity, okay, and pity says oh man, I feel so sorry for you know what this person is going through and you need to turn around and go away.
Speaker 1:So pity. I'm a definite outside observer.
Speaker 2:Outside no involvement. Okay, you know, I feel sorry for them, right, okay, then the next one is sympathy. Okay, sympathy comes before empathy, and sympathy is about I feel sorry for them.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:But I still don't do anything. I really am sympathetic to their emotions, their feelings, their crisis, their situation. Then empathy is, I feel, with them. So empathy is very important, but it's also dangerous because it can weigh on you, and a lot of leaders suffered greatly after the pandemic because they were empathetic and, all of a sudden, the weight of 20 or 40 or 100 employees that were going through health crisis were losing relatives were having to stay at home and not be able to work, or that we're.
Speaker 2:I mean, we know that mental illness skyrocketed during and after COVID and we still haven't recovered from it yet. And so all of that pure empathy would still, and sometimes paralyzed because of the weight of it. And then the next response is compassion. And compassion says what can I do for you, what can I do about it? So compassion is, there's that shift to action and I love.
Speaker 2:When I talk about compassion, I love to go to Jesus because there are a number of well. I guess we should go to Jesus in just about everything. Number of well. I guess we should go to jesus in just about everything, but with compassion. Because I love how there are several instances in the gospels where the the bible uses the word compassion that jesus had compassion. Like in matthew 9. Jesus had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless. That's right. Uh, like sheep without a shepherd. When he healed the son of the widow going out of that village of Nahim, he says he had compassion on them. But here's the thing Every statement of compassion is followed by an action. Another example of compassion is in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan had compassion on the guy that was the victim. So, therefore, but there's always, action follows, and that's the importance. I love this idea that empathy is a lever that should push us towards compassion, which is we do something about it.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's why we call it empathetic leadership, right, the idea is that, like Christ, because as you walk through those four things right, pity, sympathy, empathy and compassion I look at pity and I immediately thought of Matthew 9, right, what did he do? He saw the people like sheep without a shepherd right and he understood man, they are hurting, like they need that kind of shepherd leadership. He sits down with his disciples and says look, not only do I see that and I feel for that, I'm now going to invite you to understand. Wait, this is a harvest field that is ready. There aren't enough workers in that harvest field. And then chapter 10 begins with and they went out as the answer to the prayer that they had just prayed. They just prayed for workers in the harvest field, and then they went out and did it.
Speaker 2:I love to preach that and I always say the challenge. I want the challenges for us to be the answer to our own prayers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and that's, and that's the beautiful invitation that God gives is to be the hands and feet of Jesus to the people around us and, as, as Christian leaders, no matter the context for our leadership, the hands and feet of Jesus are are not command and control hands, because he was the king of all and yet nor of all. He washed the disciples feet and he said if you want to be the greatest, you must be the servant of all. And so this man that that had full authority and the, the, the um, the, the required uh, character and and righteousness and everything else that could actually do it, righteousness and everything else that could actually do it righteously he himself set that aside and endured the cross. So, as a Christian leader, we have to look at that and go wait a second. He actually was equipped to be a command and control leader, but his example is one of Christlike empathy and servant leadership. That, gosh, it's got to be framing and forming for us as Christian leaders today.
Speaker 2:That is true, and another model of leadership that I love to look at, which was what I studied in my own doctoral dissertation, is transformational leadership. And transformational leadership as proposed by George McGregor, burns and Bruce Evolio back in the 90s and Burns has passed on by Evolio is the one who kind of continued with the heritage today talks about authentic leadership, the idea of a transformational leader, that there were four behaviors that transformational leaders behave towards people and all four of them are empathetic, okay, that the transformational leader treats people individually and considers and invests in people individually through coaching, through mentoring, through empowering, through. They talk about management by walking around, and you know in that example that we talked about, the fishbowl up there on the plant is the manager that does not manage from the fishbowl Right, but who is walking the floor station to station you know, helping solve problems with the individual workers in their station, instead of looking from the top and just watching how many degrees they were turning to get their tools or not.
Speaker 1:That's right, well, and that's a kind of leadership that's practicing empathy and is really considering the people over their position. Right, because you know, any leader that's sitting again watching from the fishbowl looking down is going to be able to see some things, but they're going to miss so many of the important details. And the woman or the man who's sitting there with the task in their hand, they have insight, they have understanding, they're literally doing the work, they have value to add to the conversation about how to make this thing better or how to improve it. But sometimes we can be in a mental or emotional state where we value a person's position more than the person themselves, and so, as empathetic leaders, we've got to be in a position to really again individual consideration, understand the person, see the person.
Speaker 2:Understand the person, see the person and give them not only opportunity but invitation to participate in the thinking. It's that funny statement that I heard from Truett Cathy from Chick-fil-A again, but I don't know exactly where it comes from but that when you hire labor, you hire the hand. You're paying for their hands. You get the brain for free if you're, if you have, if you, if you consider that person as an individual and you let them contribute ideas. That's, that's for free. You're really getting that. And there are. There are story after story of unexpected contributions from the plant floor or from the janitor or the maintenance individual who all of a sudden comes up with a marketing idea that makes a difference for the company.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite of those stories. Just really quickly, a board of this company. They're sitting down, revenues are way down. They're at their wit's end, right. You can just kind of imagine this room. It's in like the 50s and so late in the evening they're there late because numbers are down and they're trying to figure out what to do. You can almost like imagine the smoke-filled room, all the tension, all the anxiety. And because it was so late, the one of the janitors was was making their way through and uh, you know, he just kind of uh, sneaks quietly into the room right while they're meeting he's trying to empty some of the trash. And uh, one of the guys is like, look, if we can't find a way to raise our revenues by 20 this year, we're going like we're not going to have enough, we're going to close. Well, he's employed there, so he has an interest, right, as a janitor.
Speaker 2:He's definitely invested in it. Oh yeah, the plant goes down, he goes down with it he goes down with it.
Speaker 1:And so he just seepishly kind of raises his hand and they all kind of pause and look at him and he goes what if they sold toothpaste? They sold toothpaste. He said you know, a whole lot of folks don't really measure out their toothpaste. What if we just made the toothpaste opening 20% larger? They'd use 20% more and then we'd be able to sell 20% more product. And they all just kind of looked around the table and went wait a minute, that might work.
Speaker 1:And they did and it worked, it worked and they stayed in business and we all use more toothpaste because of that we all do right.
Speaker 1:Every time I put it on my toothbrush now I can't help but think of that story, and maybe it's urban legend kind of thing. But the point is, when you have a good team, culture and we've all heard culture eats strategy for breakfast when you have that kind of a concept, you're going to end up receiving some of those great ideas. And it's the empathetic leader, it's the leader who has rejected that command and control structure and really stepped into that Christ-like leadership, servant leadership and transformational leadership. When they step into that space, they're going to begin reaping the benefits of the creativity and ingenuity of the people. Remember, ingenuity and creativity are characteristics of God himself. He created all things. He is the. You know Thomas Aquinas, he is the original creator, right? And so you reflect on that and you remember wait a second, if every person's made in that image, they have that ability. How do I unleash that? Well, as a leader, we're gonna be best positioned to unleash that when we're empathetic, when we understand where they're coming from and we give them that space.
Speaker 2:So, and Daniel, what are a few pointers? Like, I got leaders listening or watching us and saying okay, where do I start?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the first question that I've got to ask myself is am I leading to be needed or am I leading for others to succeed? Because, as a command and control leader-.
Speaker 2:Wait, wait, wait, wait. Say that again. Say that again, because I think that might be you know, when you're preaching you say if you forget everything that I've ever said, remember this.
Speaker 1:That's so good. Listen, I think the question I've got to ask myself if I'm leading to be needed, or am I leading to be needed, or am I leading to be needed, or am I leading for others to succeed? If I'm leading so that I am needed, the consequence of that is I'm at the center of it, I'm in a command and control kind of context. When I've delegated, when I've mobilized, when I have unleashed authority and responsibility together for the people, I'm actually enabling context for them to succeed. And then my job becomes not as the manager of all of the tasks, but rather as the breaker down of barriers that are preventing the individuals from accomplishing what they know they need to do and want to do.
Speaker 2:And you know what's interesting, Daniel, that I've observed in my leadership every time I empower the people to be their best, I end up looking good because I'm the leader and it's my department or it's my organization and I didn't do it for that. It's funny. If you try not going to happen because you're going to be a command and control, the secret is not trying, it's focusing on others. So what else then? So we're focused on the other. So what do we do?
Speaker 1:I think I've got three other, just quick hits. The first would be and it's kind of related, but it's create opportunities for other people to lead right. Create little teams or initiatives, ask for insight. Create those opportunities, because the reality is you're going to be in a context and we talk about the most effective Christian leaders multiply, they create other leaders, and so we want to create context where those leaders can grow and to be developed. The first time in a seat of leadership cannot be when they're in a position permanently overseeing all of these things?
Speaker 2:It's just not going to work.
Speaker 1:You've got to give these little opportunities for people to begin practicing that leadership.
Speaker 2:That is awesome. You know, what that brings to my mind is I've worked on the mission field for 10 years and I've received teams from churches all over that came to help us build or to help us do children's ministry as mission teams do, of course, and it was very interesting, and it wasn't always, but in a lot of these teams you had a lay person.
Speaker 2:Somebody who was a member of the congregation was appointed the leader of the team and the pastor came, but the pastor was part of the team. He was not the team leader and therefore the pastor was always under the leadership of that, allowing that person to lead over him or her being the pastor. Another example that came to my mind is something that's going on right now in our staff. We have three teams that are studying some possibilities and initiatives for us and the people. I'm on one of these teams and the person leading I'm not. I'm the highest ranking quote unquote highest ranking person in there, as you are on a team but but we're not leading the teams.
Speaker 2:We're not leading the teams. In fact, one of our producers is leading one of the teams. That's right. He's right behind the camera there, justin that's right and uh, and that is, that is. It creates such a great and it creates great culture. That's and and that's the the idea of creating a culture of trust, of empowerment and camaraderie. And that is built and it starts with a type of empathetic leadership.
Speaker 1:Well, and so, again, we got to create those opportunities for people to lead. Another thing that I think goes with that is, once we've created that opportunity, there's going to be ups and downs. People need to see in us as a leader that we have a sincere dependence on God. If they look, we live in a day and age where sincerity can be sniffed out with a hyper degree of sensitivity. If you're fake or false or inauthentic, it is so unbelievably clear. So, as a Christian leader, as an empathetic leader, as a person who's trying to step into those roles, we have to demonstrate for our team a sincere dependence on God. That's going to remind them that that's where their source of dependence must be as they practice leadership, and it's also going to help them see the humanity, that we're not perfect, that there is opportunity for us to grow and that we know that even ourselves. And the last thing I'll say just quickly and this is a real like you know, this is probably the most practical what can I apply today? If you're a Christian leader out there and you're trying to navigate, what can I apply from this kind of concept today?
Speaker 1:It's really simply this have a conversation with someone that doesn't have an agenda. That itself actually creates a context where Norval, I think people see that they feel that they know there's not an agenda, which means this isn't transactional. This is us just trying to know each other, to know and be known, and in that knowing and being known we build and foster deeper relationship. We live in a world where it can seem like we know people because we have information about them. Right, Social media is great at giving us a perception of knowledge, but, just like we talk about, our relationship with God needs to be intimate, because it's not about just a head knowledge, but it's actually about a relationship that exists. Exists when we create a space for conversations to take place that don't have a defined agenda or initiative or transaction. At the end, it creates the space for relationship to really grow and be nurtured.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people talk about it as relational capital. It's like when you're saving, you're putting money away that you might need one of these one day or you might just you know, if you never need that which is saved, you're going to give it away or you're going to let it your children inherit it, and so the same thing. You're building this social relational capital. Yeah, at one point you might need to cash in on some of that Sure or not, or that just accumulate riches there and you have a rich and beautiful relationship with the people you lead.
Speaker 1:Well, I remember reading somewhere once a good name is more precious than rubies. Right, and we do. We have the privilege of building those kinds of things and I think it's important, just like you noted earlier. Look, it brings all of these blessings. We want to be intentional in our process. We're not doing it for these things. We want to be intentional to love and care for people. We're not doing it so that we can build up the capital to then, you know, exchange it later, because we know we're probably going to, you know, fail here. Here we just want to, like Christ, love people and be intentional in the ways that we're doing that. I think that's the kind of shift that empathetic leaders really need for today and that really differentiate it from what we see from Taylor in the 1880s, right, that huge shift from command and control to empathetic leadership today, and I think that's the foundation for what leadership is required of in this moment and for the foreseeable future, for sure.
Speaker 2:And, if I might add just two small things, practical things in this whole process, please, one of them is the active listening. To practice active listening, and it's to listen, put away devices, put away thoughts. You talked about how people can spot manipulation and fake. People can spot when you pretend to listen, and so practicing that ability to look into the eye and listen and engage and ask questions and ask and I've read somewhere this too don't ask one question, always ask follow-up questions that can go deeper into the issues, into problems, into things like that. So listen, it's interesting because it's almost like a circular you listen and then you ask questions, but then you have to listen again and hopefully keep asking questions, and the questions will do two things the questions will help us identify issues and problems, but the questions sometimes are a coaching tool. By asking questions, you help people encounter solutions to the issues that they're facing. So that empathetic leadership with that compassion what can?
Speaker 2:I do for you, but exercising this circle of listening and asking questions, and listening and asking questions. Jesus did a lot of that and I guess we should do it too.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know, I think any time we can conclude with hey, jesus did a lot of this and we probably should too that's a good place to stop.
Speaker 1:That's a good place to hold it up. I love it. Hey, listen leaders, thanks so much for being a part of just this journey with us as we try to think through what does it look like to be an effective Christian leader in our current context, culture and world? I know that the struggles of leadership today are not insignificant, and you probably face a million pressures and struggles along the way. I want you to know that at the International Leadership Institute, we long to see you living a life that is full of the thriving that Christ promised, the joy that Christ promised and, ultimately, that results in all of us accomplishing his mission and vision that all people would hear and know the name of Jesus, the kingdom would expand and advance and that God would be given all the glory that he is so richly deserving of.
Speaker 1:If you find this resource helpful, I think you'll love some of the other resources we have available. If you would go ahead and hit the like button or the subscribe, you might find some great resources connected into that YouTube or Spotify or wherever you're listening to this. That will help you in your life and leadership. You can also go to iliteamorg and really just kind of pay that forward, right. There are countless men and women who are engaging in the eight core values of the most effective Christian leaders. There's a great opportunity for you to plug in and help them along in their journey, just like somebody came alongside and helped you at some point too. So thankful for you guys listening today, norval as.