How next-gen leaders build high performance through empathy, culture and influence
- Wendy Chin
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
A reflection on a conversation with Clodagh Logue, EMEA HR Director at Eaton Energy Solutions, and Ryan Shanks, Director of Strategic Growth & Partnerships at the IMI.
We're operating in a world of compounding complexity. AI, geopolitical shifts, competing priorities, and the relentless pressure to perform. All at once. So when I sat down recently with two leaders I deeply respect, I wasn't surprised that our conversation kept circling back to one core question: how do next-generation leaders actually lead through tension, without breaking?
Here's what stayed with me.
Why empathy is a high performance leadership strategy
Next-gen leaders don't choose between humanity and performance. They integrate both.
Clodagh has been in the room with best selling author Brené Brown twice, once at Microsoft and again just last year with Eaton's top 200 leaders. Two very different organisations. Same lesson; empathy and vulnerability are essential in modern leadership.
Empathy and high performance are not in conflict. Honest conversations, strong debate, holding standards. None of that has to be hostile. Emotional intelligence is what makes it land and stick.
Being clear is kind.
Ryan described a coffee meeting with a senior Accenture leader where she gave him her complete, undivided attention. No clock-watching but a genuine curiosity for him. Ryan left feeling invigorated, and when she needed something years later, he was there without hesitation. Empathy pays back in large dividends over time.
Clodagh also raised something worth noting: vulnerability doesn't land the same way in every organisation. In precision engineering, it carries a literal danger connotation. Building this kind of culture rooted in empathy, curiosity and vulnerability takes real courage, and leaders need to meet their organisations where they are.
How organisational culture drives team performance and execution
Culture is the system behind execution. And every system has parts that aren't written down.
Ryan introduced a concept that sparked a lot of nodding: the hidden script.
Every organisation has its formal values: collaboration, innovation, trust. And then there's the way things actually get done. Who has real clout? What behaviours actually get rewarded?
His point was sharp: you can tell people to collaborate, but if the performance system incentivises individual output, people will figure that out fast. When the formal and informal are wildly out of step, that's a serious problem.
The takeaway: name your hidden script. Make it visible. And ask honestly whether your formal systems are reinforcing or undermining the culture you want and how you want or expect things to get done.
From operator to enterprise leader: the hardest leadership shift
Next-gen leaders are architects. They design the systems, clarity, and environments that allow people to perform at scale, across the enterprise, not just within it.
Ryan's article for the IMI framed it well: the shift is from operator to architect. From firefighting to redesigning the conditions so fires become less frequent.
Leaders need to be architects vs operators
Clodagh put it in terms I use myself: moving from vertical impact to horizontal impact. The skills that made someone exceptional as a functional expert, problem-solving, deep knowledge, being the go-to person, can become a liability when the role requires leading across an enterprise.
At some point you have to stop solving today's problems and start designing the conditions for others to solve tomorrow's. That unlearning is genuinely hard, and it's one of the most important conversations in succession planning right now.
Why trust and vulnerability are the foundation of effective leadership
By the end of our conversation, everything had looped back to one thing: trust.
Ryan made a point that has stayed with me. Low workforce engagement isn't just a management problem. It reflects a wider erosion of trust in institutions across the board. And as leaders, we will only change and evolve at the speed of trust. That's built through human connection, doing what you say you'll do, and taking a genuine interest in people beyond what they deliver.
And then he said something that brought the whole conversation full circle: you can’t have vulnerability without real trust. Equally allowing yourself to be vulnerable will strengthen feelings of trust. Vulnerability is what makes trust necessary, and empathy is what makes it possible. The two are inseparable. They're not the soft edges of leadership. They're the core of it.
These conversations remind me why I believe so strongly in peer learning at this level. Clodagh and Ryan brought lived experiences, not theory, and the insights that emerged were exactly the kind that don't show up in a leadership model. Watch the full episode below.
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