Leaders Who Walk in Others’ Shoes
If you are the leader of an organization,you have many opportunities to show compassion. You can address the challenges of others, offering hope and encouragement. You can be true to your values and put practical measures in place, protecting the health and welfare of your workforce. You can find ways to keep your employees going financially and spiritually. And you can structure your company, making sure that all receive their fair share.
By carefully choosing your words and actions, you also improve the quality and equality of life, and ensure the planet’s survival. You can send empathy and compassion rippling into the future and create a new framework for future generations. |
I found the leadership section of Walk in My Shoes especially inspiring. It showed us that the practice of empathy and compassion is important and practically useful not just for humble people like me but also for people of great influence and power who are campaigning for major changes to make the world a better place.
~ David, Worcester, Massachusetts
Our best leaders are champions of humanity and kindness. They ask us to move beyond our petty grievances and come together for a common purpose. To turn to the future with hope and optimism, no matter what we have endured.
Joseph Campbell once observed, “A soul that carries empathy is a soul that has survived enormous pain.” When I first encountered Campbell as a fledgling psychology student in the early 1970s, his knowledge of life seemed ultra-human. “You must be willing to leave the life that you planned in order to find the one waiting for you,” he counseled, urging us to follow the hero’s path—to voluntarily go down into the underworld and bring back some important wisdom. Campbell was an enlightened being who studied the Bhagavad Gita, one of India’s most famous epic poems. The message of this work is this: "We can’t rid the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy."
These following leaders have done that and helped to create a more compassionate world.
Joseph Campbell once observed, “A soul that carries empathy is a soul that has survived enormous pain.” When I first encountered Campbell as a fledgling psychology student in the early 1970s, his knowledge of life seemed ultra-human. “You must be willing to leave the life that you planned in order to find the one waiting for you,” he counseled, urging us to follow the hero’s path—to voluntarily go down into the underworld and bring back some important wisdom. Campbell was an enlightened being who studied the Bhagavad Gita, one of India’s most famous epic poems. The message of this work is this: "We can’t rid the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy."
These following leaders have done that and helped to create a more compassionate world.
I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it.
~ Maya Angelou
When she was eight years old, Maya Angelou was raped by a family member, then he was beaten to death by her uncles. Blaming herself for this tragedy, she did not speak for almost five years. Eventually, she found her voice and used it to inspire the powerless.
In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Angelou shared her strength of character and her battles. At President Clinton’s inauguration, she recited her poem “On the Pulse of the Morning.” |
The Rock cries out to us today,
You may stand upon me, But do not hide your face. Angelou had every reason to hide from others. Instead, she had the courage to reach out and inspire others with her writing and her teaching. Her story can give us all a rock to “stand upon” and the courage to walk in each other’s shoes. |
A governor can be a very good friend to people. A governor can be a formidable force.
~ Andrew Cuomo
When the pandemic hit our shores, New York was the epicenter of the virus in the United States. Millions of people found hope and comfort in Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily briefings, as he voiced his concern for his eighty-eight-year-old mother (“Her life is not expendable.”) and his “little brother” Chris, the CNN anchor who was stricken with the virus and valiantly continued reporting from the basement of his home.
Cuomo stepped forward to become one of the most trusted voices of reason and hope for all of America during the COVID-19 outbreak. He came to the pressroom daily to quell people’s fears and ask them to stay calm. While emphasizing the need to close schools and businesses, he encouraged people to stay in touch with their loved ones, and he stood up for his people, borrowing supplies and medical equipment from |
other states and begging healthcare workers to come to New York City and help relieve the burden on its healthcare system. When the pandemic moved on to another area of the country, he promised he would pitch in and do the same.
For the first responders, Cuomo had high praise: “Something is more important than their fear: their passion, their commitment, for public service and helping others. And that’s what makes them, in my book, just truly amazing, outstanding human beings.” Among the other achievements for which Cuomo is noted: legalizing same-sex marriage in New York, creating the United States Climate Alliance, and passing the strictest gun-control law in the nation. |