Human Leadership

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Listen to this week’s podcast episode, Ep.194: Empathy, Connection, and Dignity; Human Leadership, with Annabel Smith, using the player below, or click here.

Leadership Lessons From the Classroom

Before becoming a leadership coach, Annabel Smith spent 30 years in education. Three decades working with young people in all their moods, talents, and potential. If there’s one environment that reveals the truth about leadership, it’s a classroom: you can’t fake it, and you can’t inspire through control.

That experience shaped Annabel’s understanding of leadership in a way that few corporate roles ever could. It taught her that leading people isn’t about hierarchy, job titles, or having all the answers. It’s about connection, helping others to learn, grow, and feel seen.

In our conversation this week, Annabel shares how her time in teaching gave her the foundation for human leadership, a style built on empathy, connection, and dignity.

Dignity: The Missing Ingredient?

When we talk about leadership qualities, words like confidence, resilience, or strategy often dominate. Dignity doesn’t often make the list. But for Annabel, it’s at the centre of everything, a lesson taken from her Master’s in Human Rights.

Dignity in this context isn’t just about being polite or treating people well (although you absolutely should do those things!), here it’s about seeing the worth in every person you interact with, whether they’re your peer, your employee, or your manager. Recognising and appreciating that.

It’s a simple but powerful shift. When leaders treat people with dignity, they create an environment where trust and honesty can grow, building to mutual respect and the all-important psychological safety we often discuss. People feel safe enough to speak up, share ideas, and admit mistakes; the foundations of any healthy culture.

But dignity also works both ways. Annabel encourages leaders to apply the same principle to themselves. Too often, managers carry the weight of expectation until they forget that they, too, deserve respect and compassion.

That’s why one of her recurring themes is self-awareness, noticing when you’re stretched too thin, or when you’ve started to measure your worth solely by output. Human leadership begins by treating yourself with the same understanding you try to give others.

Empathy in Practice

Empathy has become a buzzword in business, but for Annabel, it’s not about being endlessly kind or agreeable. It’s about being curious, genuinely wanting to understand another person’s perspective without immediately trying to fix or judge it.

She spoke about how leaders often feel pressured to have solutions for everything. But in reality, most people aren’t looking for an instant fix, they’re just looking to be heard.

Sometimes, the most powerful thing a leader can do is just to sit with someone in their experience. To say, “I see you. I get that this is hard.” That alone can change how people feel about their work, their team, and themselves.

Annabel’s teaching background comes through strongly here. In education, empathy isn’t optional; it’s a daily requirement. You can’t inspire learning through fear or command. The same holds true in leadership, people thrive when they feel valued and understood, not when they’re managed through pressure. The age-old carrot vs stick argument!

Your Relationship With Work

One of the most thought-provoking parts of our discussion was Annabel’s perspective on our relationship to work. She sees it as one of the defining relationships of adult life, one that shapes how we see ourselves and how we experience the world.

For many people, that relationship has become strained. The pandemic blurred the boundaries between home and work, and the culture of ‘always on’ productivity has made it harder to disconnect. Annabel often works with clients who find themselves burnt out, unfulfilled, or disconnected from the sense of meaning that used to drive them.

Her advice isn’t to quit your job and go live in a cabin (even though that may work for some…). It’s to pause and reflect on questions like:

What are you getting from your work?

What are you giving to it?

And does that exchange still feel fair?

That kind of honest reflection takes courage, but it’s also where growth starts. Once you understand what work means to you, then you can make choices that actually align with who you are, not just what’s expected of you.

For leaders, that reflection matters even more. Because if your own relationship with work is unhealthy, it’s almost impossible to create a healthy environment for others, which is absolutely one of your jobs as a leader (more so the more senior you become).

Reframing Success

A recurring theme in Annabel’s work is redefining what success looks like. After three decades in education, she’s seen how metrics and assessments can distort what actually matters. The same thing happens in business, when leaders focus only on targets, KPIs, or quarterly outcomes, they can easily lose sight of the human stories behind the numbers.

Annabel believes real success is measured in how people feel about themselves and each other at work, whether they feel safe, purposeful, and proud of what they’re creating together. Whether they look forward to work on a Monday morning.

She also challenges the idea that leadership should always feel confident or decisive. Good leaders don’t need to be unshakable, they need to be real. Vulnerability isn’t weakness, it’s honesty.

In practice, that means admitting when you don’t know the answer, asking for input, and showing that you’re learning too. That’s human leadership.

Lessons for Leaders

From our conversation, here are a few ideas worth carrying into your week:

• Lead with dignity: See and honour the worth of everyone you lead. And yourself too!

• Connect before you correct: Relationships come before results.

• Practice empathy, not rescue: Listen without needing to fix everything.

• Redefine success: It’s not about control or perfection, it’s about growth and belonging.

• Stay human: Leadership isn’t a mask you wear; it’s how you show up.

I’ll leave you with this… Humanity Is the Hard Skill

Annabel’s message is both simple and deeply challenging: leadership is human work. You can automate tasks, delegate decisions, or outsource strategy, but you can’t outsource empathy. You can’t fake dignity, connection, humanity.

In a world obsessed with optimisation and efficiency, her reminder feels vital. People don’t follow systems, they follow people. (One day we might all be following the Prime A.I. or taking orders from Robots, but we’re not there yet!)

The best leaders don’t try to be superheroes, they try to be decent humans who consistently show up, wanting to make it easier for others to do their best work.

And as Annabel said, perhaps the greatest leadership lesson of all is remembering that you’re human too.

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We went pretty deep into some big leadership topics in this conversation, thanks again to Annabel for being so generous with her time. Here’s the link to the audio version again: https://smartlink.ausha.co/leading-with-integrity/ep-194-empathy-connection-and-dignity-human-leadership-with-annabel-smith-leadership-podcasts

Or if you prefer video in 4K technicolour, then you can also watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/0KZ_zN_SUPM

Next month is a landmark month for me, 6 years in business and 200 episodes of Leading with Integrity. There will be some extra special episodes coming (watch this space, more info. on the podcast next week). Tune in next week for Ep.195 when I’ll be welcoming back a favourite guest from the past: Dave Bates. We’ll be chatting about his take on ‘Leadership Posture’ and other key concepts from his new book, Engineering Wisdom: A Practical Guide To Building Leadership That Lasts.

Thanks for reading, see you next week.

Be a Leader Not a Boss,

- David

In case you don’t know me that well, I’m David Hatch and I’m here to help new managers and first-time founders with their leadership skills, so they can become leaders not bosses, lead with integrity, and build happier, higher performing teams, more effective organisations, and, ultimately: successful businesses.

Become the leader you wish you’d had, come join my online leadership community. If you have a healthy love of sci-fi and want to learn more about leadership, then this is the community for you. Solopreneurs also welcome. 😉

Here’s the link: Integrity Leaders: Community membership and learning, for new leaders or first-time founders.