Office Hours: How Much Should Leaders Care?

Leadership is often associated with taking care of others – supporting teams, fostering a sense of belonging, and helping people navigate challenges. But when can caring become counterproductive? In this Office Hours Q&A, Jeanine Turner, Annette N. Shelby Chair in Business and Leadership Communication and professor of management at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, explores the tension between compassion and accountability, and how leaders can support others while maintaining the boundaries and discernment needed to lead effectively. She pulls insights from her book chapter, “Paradox of Caring Too Much as a Leader,” in Leadership Lessons from the Jesuits, which examines how the Ignatian principle of cura apostolica can redefine leadership and recenter organizations.

You describe a “paradox of caring too much” – that the more deeply we care about a mission, the harder communication can become. Why does that happen, and what can leaders do to overcome it?

Many leaders join mission-driven organizations because they are motivated by a deep passion to make a difference. Because of this intense passion, they often develop very strong personal beliefs about how the mission should be carried out. This intensity works great for motivating leaders, but it also means they can be very emotionally involved when facing disagreements over strategy or execution. Ironically, this intensity can make it harder to be strategic and objective when communicating. For example, a CEO of a nonprofit might find it hard to listen to challenges voiced by staff because they are so focused on the implications for the community they serve. 

For this reason, leaders need to work toward building a communication infrastructure that both collectively supports the mission, which in the Jesuit tradition is known as cura apostolica (care for the mission), and is also sensitive to the tension created by recognizing the unique contributions of everyone in the organization, cura personalis (care for the whole person). Leaders can embrace this tension by recognizing that it is an indicator of how much the community cares about the mission. Facing this tension with empathy and curiosity is critical and requires attention to the social presence leaders are creating in every conversation and interaction with their stakeholders.

Your discussion of the “three stories” framework offers a way to understand how people experience the same situation differently. How can leaders use this framework when navigating conflict or disagreement?

In every situation, and especially in conflict situations, stories help us understand an action or event. The three stories framework was created by the Harvard Negotiation Project, which helps us to understand how people experience situations of conflict or passion. It touches on three themes: 1) what happened, 2) the feelings, and 3) the identity stories. 

The “what happened” story focuses on the concrete details of who said what to whom, when, and how. The “feelings” story focuses on the emotions and underlying feelings that are connected to these actions or events. And the “identity” story connects these actions and events to how we view ourselves as a leader or a member of the team. 

Communication has both content and relationship dimensions, and these stories help to reveal the elements of that communication. For example, a colleague can say something that doesn’t bother you, but someone else could say the same thing, and it does. This difference is reflected in the way communication is intimately connected to what we do, how we feel about what we do, and how our actions reflect how we see ourselves and others. The three stories framework is a helpful reflection tool for leaders to think through the multiple perspectives that their team may have during a conflict. It can help spark curiosity rather than judgement to channel the team’s collective energy back toward the common mission.

In an increasingly digital and distracted workplace, what does it mean for a leader to be truly “present”? How can leaders be more intentional about when and how they engage their teams?

Social presence describes the feeling of being connected to another person in a conversation, whether in person or using digital tools, synchronously or asynchronously. Because digital tools consistently interrupt our conversations, we find ourselves distracted by our devices or engaged in multiple conversations at the same time. These distractions make it impossible to be truly connected to any one conversation. Being truly socially present requires a leader to actively, on a moment-by-moment basis, consciously choose how and who they are engaging with. 

Leaders should leverage the theory of attentional social presence, which offers a framework for making conscious decisions about how we manage our technology in a conversation and how we approach interactions where other individuals are also distracted. The framework recognizes four types of social presence: budgeted, entitled, competitive, and invitational. 

• Budgeted presence: describes the multicommunicating that we found to be an almost ubiquitous practice in organizations where we are spreading our attention across multiple conversations at once (e.g., on a Zoom call, while also texting and emailing). This type of presence is efficient for routine communication but can leave team members feeling left out or ignored when discussing important concerns. 
• Entitled presence: involves mandating how others will use their digital devices (e.g., requesting all cameras be on in a video conference or demanding an in-person meeting). This form of presence can be helpful for controlling the environment, but if it is overused or not used effectively, it can create resentment. 
• Competitive presence: pulls on the traditional role of persuasion to sell or reinforce the mission of an organization. In today’s world, we are constantly competing for the attention of our stakeholders – the need for leaders to actively reinforce how individuals fit into the broader mission has never been more important. 
• Invitational presence: requires an undivided focus on the other person with the goal of understanding. Here, social presence is centered on creating dialogue. This type of social presence is most at risk of extinction because people are always multitasking or multicommunicating. But invitational presence is most important for building community and connection in an organization.

You argue that organizations need to embrace conflict rather than avoid it. How can leaders create an environment where people feel safe challenging ideas while still working toward a common mission?

Creating an environment where people feel safe to engage in conflict is at the heart of invitational presence. The only way we can have both diverse and inclusive organizations is to facilitate productive conflict where everyone feels heard and comfortable speaking up. In order to feel included as an employee, you need to be able to share an opinion that people hear and listen to, even if they don’t agree. Similarly, you need to hear statements that you may not agree with. Without this commitment to active listening and dialogue, fresh perspectives and innovation cannot emerge. 

Conflict should be seen as an energy and spark for new ways of thinking rather than a problem to be avoided. An organization without conflict is an organization that cannot grow. Three critical pre-conditions that build invitational presence are safety, value, and freedom. Leaders need to create environments where people feel safe to express diverse opinions and free to respond to those ideas in an authentic way. Critical to this expression is for individuals to feel valued by the leader and the team. The more a person feels like their ideas and opinions are valued, the easier it will be to communicate those ideas and opinions. 

Leaders should remind themselves that tensions and conflict are a natural byproduct when people have shared passions for the mission. By focusing on the “North Star” or primary mission of the organization, leaders can build on the energy created by conflict to find creative solutions.

How can leaders balance cura apostolica – care for the mission – with cura personalis – care for the whole person – especially when the two seem to be in tension?

Leaders can feel a natural tension between cura apostolica and cura personalis, but living out this tension constructively is what builds the long-term health and success of the organization’s mission. Balancing both approaches means leaning into the tension rather than trying to eliminate it. Leaders need to identify opportunities for invitational presence by providing the space for deep dialogue and empathy. This dialogue can be fueled by a recognition of the three stories each team member brings to a conversation, which contribute to the broader stories of the organization. Additionally, leaders need to intentionally create competitive presence to inspire and frame the overall mission, so each individual understands how they can contribute. This balance requires grace, empathy, and curiosity. In this way, leaders can advocate for organizational priorities while actively fostering direct, trusted individual relationships.