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
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 o
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