In the face of climate change, rapidly advancing technologies, misinformation and polarization, empathy has never been more important to democracy and the future of humanity.
Meanwhile, high-performance organizations that care about sustainability, EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion), and psychological safety are being expected to embrace empathic leadership.
The good news: Humans are born to empathize, empathy has been a part of our successful evolution as a species, and extending empathy is good for us.
Drawing from neuroscience, leadership studies, and positive psychology, Anita Nowak, PhD explains why humanity’s survival depends on purposeful empathy. She also offers a blueprint to becoming a more empathic leader, having a happier, healthier and more meaningful life, and contributing to positive change in the world.
There’s been an enormous workplace shake-up and empathy is emerging as one of the most important leadership skills.
In this 1-hour keynote, Anita describes how empathic leadership can help tackle five of today’s most pressing workplace challenges, reviews a powerful six-step practice, and explains how becoming a more empathic leader improves health, happiness and performance.
In this talk, she will answer:
In this 90-minute workshop, Anita unpacks her Purposeful Empathy framework. After participating, the audience will understand:
Anita Nowak, PhD is an empathy expert, author, keynote & TEDx speaker, podcaster, award-winning educator, certified coach, and founder of Purposeful Empathy by Design, a boutique advisory firm that helps purpose-driven organizations create cultures of empathy and social impact.
Passionate about mentoring the next generation of changemakers, she teaches Leadership, Ethics in Management and Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation at McGill University in Montreal, where she was named Professor of the Year in 2014 and 2019.
For the past fifteen years, Anita has held various leadership roles in higher education at McGill University. She teaches Leadership, Ethics in Management and Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the Desautels Faculty of Management. She was named Professor of the Year in 2014 and 2019 and recipient of the David Johnston Faculty & Staff Award in 2021.
She is the author of Purposeful Empathy: Tapping Our Hidden Superpower for Personal, Organizational, and Social Change (Broadleaf, 2023).
She also hosts a podcast & YouTube series by the same name (115+ episodes, 20K views), dedicated to amplifying the voices of people from around the globe who understand the world needs more empathy – and are doing something about it.