Empathy is the key to successful leadership: Women in Leadership Forum
Female life sciences leaders share their experiences and discuss the skills and attributes needed these days to become a successful leader and empower teams
In order to be successful, leaders in business need to display and exercise the key skill of empathy; that was the message of a recent Women in Leadership Forum at the CPHI Festival of Pharma virtual event.
The session, sponsored by Emergent BioSolutions, featured several women who currently work in the pharmaceutical sector sharing their own experiences and insights from their own careers.
“Good leaders refer to their teams as teams as every member is being part of being something together, it’s something collaborative and serving a bigger purpose,” said Catherine Hanley, Vice President, Marketing & Customer Experience, Emergent BioSolutions. “They look out for every team member; they mentor or coach rather than belittle and embarrass when something needs to change, and I believe great leaders truly enjoy that mentoring piece of their jobs.”
She added that in her view, the secret to a successful, productive team is for leaders to not enforce or micro-manage; and instead form a collaborative group with a shared understanding of mission, objectives and trust that empowers everyone on the team to be valued for who they are.
“When people feel trusted, they are strong, they are focused on the work at hand and they work together rather than against one another,” she said. “Empathy is a key contributor to this trust in the workplace. Leaders lift up the team by understanding their needs, their working styles, their life experiences. And looking back at that definition makes sense: our ability to understand and relate to the feelings of others.”
Frances Zipp, President & CEO, Lachman Consultant Services, said that one issue is that leaders in business are bombarded with the notion that being emotional is a sign of weakness and instead, they are taught to be logical and to be able to compete only on an intellectual level.
“We’re expected to be strategic, rational, tough, bottom-line businesspeople who focus on results; we need to put the softer part of us apart. But I learned very quickly that successful leaders are those who exhibit empathy,” she said.
Zipp added that it is important to make the distinction between compassion and empathy: “Compassion is an emotional response to sympathy and a desire to help, and it has its place. Empathy is our feeling of awareness towards others in an attempt to understand how they feel – to imagine a situation from someone else’s point of view.”
Sharon Cunningham, co-founder of oncology-focused female-led start-up Shorla Pharma, said that, from her previous experience working at a multinational pharmaceutical company, over time more women were promoted and she observed first-hand the positive change in the dynamic that occurred as a result.
“Ultimately it led to a more female-friendly corporate culture with maternity benefits and flexible working conditions that were never there before,” she said.
“We all know that women bring different perspectives; we tend to be naturally strong in emotional intelligence and having women leaders lends itself to having a more empathetic environment,” she added.
Related News
-
News More to celebrate at the CPHI Milan Pharma Awards 2024
The CPHI Milan Pharma Awards, which are now open for nominations until 18 May 2024, celebrate the innovators making a difference. This year, two new categories have been added to further honour the contributions of a diverse range of pharma professiona... -
News On Track at CPHI NA 2024: Sustainable Futures with Thermo Fisher Scientific
On the 7-9 May 2024 in Philadelphia, CPHI NA will be presenting an unmissable agenda, filled with content across 4 main tracks. In the following interview the Sustainable Futures Track sponsor, Thermo Fisher Scientific gives an overview of what to expe... -
News LEAP-ing into the future of pharma – the CPHI Middle East Vision
On March 6, 2024, the CPHI team hosted the Future of Pharma Forum at LEAP 2024, Saudi Arabia’s premier destination for tech leaders and innovators to meet and collaborate. -
News CPHI Middle East 2024 – What do we have to look forward to?
We’re bringing CPHI to the Middle East in December 2024. CPHI brings together the pharma community from all over the world, creating a platform for education, collaboration, and progress. -
News CPHI Pharma Awards 2023 – Packaging & Machinery Winner: Gasporox
After another year of impressive nominations for the CPHI Pharma Awards our winners were announced at CPHI Barcelona in October 2023. In this series of interviews, we speak to the people and teams behind the award-winning projects, concepts, and techno... -
News Unpacking what we learnt: Key Pharmapack takeaways with L.E.K. Consulting
After another successful Pharmapack show, we sat down with Karin von Kienlin, Senior Partner at L.E.K. Consulting, to discuss the biggest takeaways and surprises from 2 days of intense discussion and collaboration. -
News Key takeaways from Saudi Arabia's National Biotechnology Strategy
In January 2024, Saudi Arabia released its National Biotech Strategy, an ambitious plan to localise biomanufacturing, incentivise R&D and establish the Kingdom as the regional biotech leader by 2030, and an internationally recognised hub by 2040. -
News Pharmapack Awards 2024 Packaging Innovation Award Winner – Nissha Europe GmbH
The 2024 Pharmapack Awards celebrated the best in innovation and design for the pharmaceutical packaging and drug delivery industyr on January 24, 2024.
Position your company at the heart of the global Pharma industry with a CPHI Online membership
-
Your products and solutions visible to thousands of visitors within the largest Pharma marketplace
-
Generate high-quality, engaged leads for your business, all year round
-
Promote your business as the industry’s thought-leader by hosting your reports, brochures and videos within your profile
-
Your company’s profile boosted at all participating CPHI events
-
An easy-to-use platform with a detailed dashboard showing your leads and performance