Key Takeaways
Heart-Centered Leadership (HCL) may sound like a vulnerable way to go about business, but it is in fact the ultimate strategy to lead a team to success. In fact, in her book Dare to Lead, researcher and social worker Brené Brown states, “We desperately need more leaders who are committed to courageous, wholehearted leadership and who are self-aware enough to lead from their hearts, rather than unevolved leaders who lead from hurt and fear.”
Learn how integrating empathy and purpose — the core of heart-centered leadership — with powerful smart tools like Salesforce can transform your operations, growth, and customer loyalty across your entire business. Let’s find out how to lead with heart and run your business with trust.
What is Heart-Centered Leadership (HCL)?
Heart-Centered Leadership (HCL) is emerging as one of the top well-balanced business strategies for startups and small businesses, representing a paradigm shift in management and growth. This innovative approach moves beyond traditional, top-down leadership models, to integrate empathy, compassion, and authentic connection into the core of business practices.
HCL recognizes that sustained success is not solely a product of financial metrics, but also a result of building a thriving environment where individuals and teams feel valued, understood, and inspired. By prioritizing people , HCL aims to cultivate stronger relationships, enhance team engagement, and ultimately boost innovation and resilience.
What does it mean to lead with heart?
Leading with heart is a leadership approach rooted in empathy, compassion, and a genuine concern for the welfare of every individual within an organization — not just shareholders. It manifests through empathetic decision-making, authentic communication, empowering and supporting employees, cultivating interpersonal connections, and demonstrating resilience and compassion during adversity.
Start with SMB Basics
One of the key figures in the heart-centered leadership movement is Brené Brown, renowned author and speaker. Her quotes on leadership sum up leading with heart best:
Key quotes on leadership by Brené Brown
- “I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential.”
- “Leadership is not about titles or the corner office. It’s about the willingness to step up, put yourself out there, and lean into courage.”
- “The courage to be vulnerable is not about winning or losing, it’s about the courage to show up when you can’t predict or control the outcome.”
- “Empathy has no script. There is no right way or wrong way to do it. It’s simply listening, holding space, withholding judgment, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of ‘you’re not alone.'”
- “Who we are is how we lead.”
Applying Heart-Centered Leadership across your business portfolio
Heart-Centered Leadership encompasses the entire business portfolio, across sales, marketing, service, commerce, and operations. It embeds an empathetic approach and purpose within the operational backbone of the business, which is customer relationship management (CRM). This focus allows businesses to achieve growth while staying true to their core values.
To achieve this, we recommend starting with a business management tool that scales with you as you grow. Here are a few ways to scale with CRM and lead with heart.
Scaling your heart-centered strategy
To truly embed a heart-centered approach within your organization, it’s essential to move beyond individual initiatives and strategically scale these principles across all levels and departments. This involves a deliberate and thoughtful process that touches upon leadership development, cultural integration, operational adjustments, and consistent communication. Let’s dig in.
1. Team connection and championing
A heart-centered strategy must originate from the top — that’s you. As a startup founder or small business owner, you need to not only understand but also passionately champion this approach. Your visible commitment, through words and actions, are the core foundation for inspiring and motivating your entire workforce.
Leaders at all levels must embody heart-centered principles in their daily interactions. This includes demonstrating empathy, active listening, fostering psychological safety, and prioritizing employee well-being. To kick it off, you could offer workshops on mindful team connection, conflict resolution, and compassionate communication to your team.
2. Scaling by example
Gandhi said it best, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” In this strategy, you are the heart-centered role model. You can do this by articulating how heart-centered principles align with and reinforce your core values. This helps your team understand the “why” behind the strategy and how it connects to their work.
- Involve your team: Ask your team for input on the co-creation and implementation of heart-centered initiatives. This fosters a sense of ownership and ensures that the strategies are relevant and impactful for them too.
- Create a recognition reward system: Develop recognition programs that acknowledge and reward behaviors aligning with heart-centered values. This demonstrates your commitment to lead with heart.
- Open communication channels: Create safe spaces for open dialogue, feedback, and vulnerability. Encourage your team to share their experiences, concerns, and ideas without fear of reprisal.
3. Operationalize heart-centered principles
Review and revise human resources (HR) policies to ensure they reflect a heart-felt approach. This includes fair compensation, flexible work arrangements, comprehensive benefits, and supportive leave policies. You can shift performance management from a purely transactional focus to one that emphasizes growth, development, and well-being.
Review your own day-to-day processes and try to find opportunities to embed more human-centric approaches. This could involve checking in with your team on how they’re doing, simplifying workflows to reduce stress, or designing customer journeys with empathy in mind.
It goes beyond your team as well. Extend heart-centered principles to interactions with customers, partners, and the broader community. This can lead to stronger relationships, increased loyalty, and a positive brand reputation.
4. Lead with data and storytelling success
While qualitative aspects are important, be sure to find measurable ways to track the impact of your heart-centered strategy. This could include employee engagement scores, retention rates, well-being indices, customer satisfaction, and even productivity metrics.
Set up regular reminders to gather feedback from your team, customers, and other stakeholders and use this to identify areas for improvement and adapt your strategy as needed. (The heart changes, so strategies do too.)
You can also share stories of how heart-centered practices have positively impacted individuals and the business — this reinforces the value of connection and inspires others to embrace it. This storytelling strategy is a beautiful way to connect through transparency and connection.
And remember, a heart-centered strategy is not a one-time implementation but an ongoing journey of learning and adaptation. Be prepared to continuously refine and evolve your approach based on new insights and changing circumstances.
Empowering every business function with CRM
For startups and small businesses seeking a foundation for growth, technology must support a human-first strategy. Salesforce offers Starter Suite, which is the CRM suite designed specifically for small businesses.
Starter Suite and Slack provides the necessary tools for collaboration, helping small businesses manage their core operations:
Kickstart your SMB with Starter Suite
See results from day one with a CRM designed for SMBs — the all-in-one suite for productivity. It all starts with Starter Suite.
- Sales: Sales capabilities are designed to build genuine connections and lasting relationships with customers, supporting growth and a compassionate sales strategy.
- Marketing: Marketing tools are built to empower teams to create meaningful campaigns and cultivate authentic relationships with their audience.
- Service: Service capabilities ensure small businesses can provide empathetic, effective support and build trust with every interaction.
- Commerce: For businesses engaging in online sales, Starter Suite offers commerce tools that facilitate ethical and customer-focused transactions. Resources are available on how to create an online store with integrity in 7 steps or less.
- Team Productivity: Businesses can use small business productivity tools with Slack to nurture a connected and efficient team.
Embrace Heart-Centered Leadership with your whole heart
Building a well-balanced business strategy requires strong leadership and the right tools. By focusing on Heart-Centered Leadership and leveraging the unified capabilities of the Salesforce, leaders can achieve growth while staying true to their core values. You can begin your journey by exploring Salesforce for Small Business on Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform.
Start your journey with the Free or Starter Suite today. Looking for more customization? Explore Pro Suite. Already a Salesforce customer? Activate Foundations to try out Agentforce 360 today.
AI supported the writers and editors who created this article.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Heart-Centered Leadership (HCL) is identified as a well-balanced business strategy because it integrates an empathetic approach and purpose with the operational backbone of the business. This focus allows businesses to achieve growth while staying true to their core values.
Heart-Centered Leadership requires discussing the business portfolio perspective. To successfully lead with the heart, businesses must connect their empathetic approach to operational areas, including sales, marketing, service, commerce, and productivity.
Business management tools such as CRM for small business are important for operationalizing and scaling a Heart-Centered Leadership strategy. It provides the tools to manage sales, marketing, service, commerce, and team productivity, ensuring that empathetic approaches are consistently applied across all teams.
Small businesses and startups can effectively adopt HCL by focusing on leadership championing, team empowerment, operationalizing heart-centered principles, and leading with data and storytelling success.
A heart-centered approach builds strong relationships by prioritizing empathy, understanding, and genuine connection. For teams, this leads to increased engagement, retention, and a positive work environment. For customers, it builds trust and loyalty, resulting in enhanced satisfaction and a stronger brand reputation.
