As younger generations reshape the workforce, emotional intelligence and empathy are emerging as critical skills for conscious, values-driven leadership. Leaders today face a monumental shift – not only in who makes up their employee base but also in what that base expects and needs from them.
Millennials and Gen Z alike prioritize purpose and meaning in their work. They expect leaders to connect work to a larger societal purpose beyond profits. Additionally, technology has increased access to information and the opportunity to collaborate across geographic barriers. As a result, these generations see themselves as global citizens first and organizational employees second.
According to Dillon St. Bernard, the Gen Z founder of Team DSB, a purpose-driven creative collective, “Leaders have to understand that motivation has fundamentally changed. Perks and paychecks aren’t enough anymore. Employees want to believe in the mission behind the work.”
St. Bernard recognized this shift early on. He now serves as a coach and advocate for leaders seeking to build trusting and sustainable cultures focused on purpose over profit. His insights bridge progressive concepts like a conscious business with research-backed leadership strategies centered on self-awareness, integrity, and a commitment to collective well-being.
Conscious Leadership Built on Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence creates fertile ground for conscious leadership to take root. As leaders tune into their own inner landscape and improve self-regulation, they can then focus on understanding others’ perspectives with empathy and compassion.
Self-awareness and self-mastery allow leaders to walk their talk with integrity. By taking responsibility for their own triggers, blind spots, and unskillful patterns, conscious leaders model accountability firsthand. They create psychologically safe spaces for vulnerability and authentic relating across the organization. When employees know leaders won’t punish imperfection, creative expression flourishes along with innovation.
Decades of research support the emphasis on emotional intelligence as a critical leadership capability. Studies show leaders strong in emotional intelligence foster greater creativity among team members along with faster adoption of new ideas and more ethical decision-making. Their teams consistently report higher job satisfaction, deeper trust in leadership, and lower turnover intentions.
Cultivating Empathy and Vulnerability
Beyond self-mastery, conscious leadership requires surrendering the myth of invulnerability and embracing shared humanity. When leaders open up about their own struggles, fears, and weaknesses, it gives permission for others to do the same.
With support for risk-taking and compassion for failure built into the culture, the masks come down. People collaborate more effectively and speak up early with concerns when problems are still easily solved. They know they won’t face shame or blame for exposing vulnerabilities.
Through courageous modeling, conscious leaders co-create environments where empathy, emotional intelligence and collective care enable sustainable success. While initially uncomfortable for many, the rewards of vulnerable, transformative leadership ripple through teams and communities, yielding innovation, accountability and purposeful results.
Committing to the Collective Well-being
At its core, conscious leadership recognizes the interdependence underlying organizational life. Individual and collective well-being intertwine through a web of mutually supportive relationships. By focusing first on understanding shared needs with empathy and compassion, conscious leaders realize sustainable returns across metrics.
They understand that helping people reach their full potential grounds business success over time. Supporting those motivated teams to perform at their best then achieves outstanding, ethical results that honor collective caretaking across all stakeholder groups.
Instead of quick transactional wins, conscious leaders play the long game – investing in individual growth and organizational evolution. The payoff down the road is tenfold. Their people, partners, shareholders and communities all thrive in harmony through conscious leadership devoted to the greater good.
Achieving Values Congruence
According to St. Bernard, “I continue to see organizations talking the talk, but fail to go beyond that.”
When leaders focus purely on results without regard for people and ethical considerations, they often implement systems and rewards that undermine core values. Resentment follows quickly in such misaligned environments, along with turnover.
Alternatively, conscious leaders create structures and processes designed intentionally to reflect core values in everyday experiences. They empower teams to align their individual purpose with organizational purpose. By linking personal fulfillment to a shared mission, conscious leaders realize a powerful motivational synergy.
St. Bernard built Team DSB’s success around partners and projects embodying their values of courage, empowerment and radical inclusion. He says he only accepts work that is in alignment and declines the rest.
The result is a thriving creative collective whose purpose-centered business model has realized sustainable growth for over a decade. St. Bernard firmly believes conscious leadership makes values congruence attainable through a commitment to the collective benefit over self-gain.
The Blueprint for Conscious Leadership
For leaders feeling the urge to evolve as younger generations reshape the workforce, St. Bernard provides a blueprint for growth. He stresses that the journey starts from within. Do you know what you stand for and what gets you out of bed each morning? Do you have mastery over your emotional landscape?
Self-inquiry lays the groundwork for conscious leadership to take root. From there, co-creating purpose in partnership with employees breeds shared buy-in. Welcoming vulnerability across all levels then fertilizes the culture for ongoing evolution through radical transparency and trust.
Leaders hoping to sustain conscious growth further commit to perpetual improvement guided by accountability and compassion. Constructive feedback gets embraced, not punished. Setbacks become teachable moments that strengthen collective wisdom. And people develop through encouragement, not criticism.
According to St. Bernard, “The formula is simple, but not easy. Do the self-work first. Walk your talk. And lead with empathy.”
Through emotional intelligence, integrity and purpose over profit, conscious leaders transform workplaces. They unlock higher potential in themselves, their teams, and their organizations in service to the greater good.