Leadership experience should be more than a biography
At EmpathyWorks, our approach is informed by three things: experience, evidence and application.
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We bring extensive senior leadership experience from complex and high-pressure environments, but experience alone is not enough.
We combine what we have learned from leading people and organisations with academic study, evidence-based leadership thinking and our continuing work with leaders, teams and organisations.
Most importantly, we are interested in what works in practice.
Leadership tested in demanding environments
The leadership philosophy behind EmpathyWorks has been shaped in environments where leadership has real consequences.
Across our careers, we have led organisations through operational pressure, crisis, cultural change, organisational transformation, performance challenges and periods of significant uncertainty.
That experience has reinforced something fundamental to the way we work today:
People and performance cannot be separated.
Strong organisations require clarity, accountability and high expectations. But they also require trust, relationships, development and leadership that understands the human experience of work.
Our work with organisations today is built around bringing those things together.
Academic and professional insight
EmpathyWorks combines operational leadership experience with continuing professional and academic learning.
Steve Robertson holds a Master of Studies in Humanitarian Leadership from the University of Cambridge, bringing together the study of leadership in complex environments with decades of practical senior leadership experience.
His work on leadership, culture and organisational practice has also been published in the Prison Service Journal.
Neil Lavis brings more than three decades of leadership experience across the UK and internationally, alongside professional development in areas including trauma-informed practice, organisational change and staff engagement.
We continue to draw upon leadership research, organisational learning and emerging practice while remaining focused on one question:
How does this help somebody lead better in the real world?
From evidence to application
We don't believe organisations need more leadership language.
They need leadership that changes something.
That is why our work is designed to move from understanding to action.
- A diagnostic should create insight.
- Coaching should influence behaviour.
- Leadership development should strengthen capability.
- Organisational culture work should change what people experience.
- And consultancy should help organisations make better decisions and create sustainable improvement.
Evidence matters to us, but so does application.
Because leadership only becomes meaningful when people experience the difference.
Building our evidence
As EmpathyWorks continues to work with leaders and organisations, we are committed to demonstrating the impact of that work.
This includes gathering appropriate feedback, evaluating leadership development, understanding changes in organisational experience and capturing examples of where our work has helped leaders, teams and organisations move forward.
Where clients are comfortable for us to do so, we will share case studies, testimonials and examples of our work.
Not as marketing decoration, but as evidence of what effective leadership development can achieve.
Experience. Evidence. Application.
Leadership that works where it matters most.