Tenacious compassion: Leading through the storm

When the stakes are high, how do you motivate and inspire your team?

In the midst of the high waves and the fast winds of the storms of crisis, [leaders] figure out how to dial that down by making themselves thoughtful, resilient, broad-looking and emotionally aware and forbearing individuals in all that, and guess what? The friction around them declines, and their effectiveness in achieving a mission increases. - Nancy Koehn

Friction can be a useful tool to motivate your team, but it requires a level of emotional awareness. By looking inward and using fear, anxiety and emotional adversity as a mirror of self-reflection, leaders can overcome their own weaknesses and limitations and inspire those around them.

On this episode of the FRICTION podcast, Stanford professor and organizational psychologist Bob Sutton is joined by Harvard Business School historian and leadership coach Nancy Koehn to discuss how transformational leaders slow down and harness their emotions in order to lead others to success.

You can listen to FRICTION on iTunes, Stitcher, and Stanford eCorner.

The FRICTION podcast is a deep dive into Stanford Engineering Professor Bob Sutton's research on the causes and cures for organizational friction - that phenomenon that frustrates employees, fatigues teams and causes organizations to flounder and fail. Packed with raw humor, sage advice and candid stories, the FRICTION podcast unveils tactics to improve the way we work. FRICTION is produced by the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.