Warmth is a leadership superpower.
I’m working with a Chief Revenue Officer on a one on one basis. Last week we met for a session. Of the 90 minutes we were together, he spent 30 of them in tears.
It’s unusual to have this level of raw emotion in a session like this, but it’s not unusual for senior clients to feel like they’re coping with a lot. For this guy, this included a difficult relationship with the CEO, pressure from investors, and team members either not performing or not behaving well.
We didn’t solve it in the session. What he needed was somewhere to put it down for a moment. So we sat with it together, sometimes in silence, sometimes just talking it through.
I listened, and when we parted I let him know that whatever happened next, I believed he could succeed, and ultimately, would be ok.
He felt better. Not 100% of course, but a bit better.
That session stayed with me. Because what made the difference wasn’t expertise or insight or a framework. It was something simpler. And something most leaders have been trained to unlearn.
Why warmth gets left behind
The higher you go, the more the job asks you to perform strength. Decisiveness. Certainty. Composure under pressure. These are real and valuable qualities. But over time, the performance of them can overshadow something equally important.
Warmth feels risky, it can seem like weakness, like losing control, or not having all the answers. So leaders suppress it.
And the cost stays hidden until it suddenly isn’t. Teams don’t feel safe enough to be honest. Individuals tell leader what they want to hear. And a culture that just pretends to be aligned instead of actually being aligned.
Why warmth is a superpower
Warmth isn’t softness. The warmest leaders I work with are often the most direct. What warmth looks like in practice is presence, genuinely listening rather than waiting to respond, sitting with someone in their difficulty rather than rushing to fix it, telling someone you believe in them when they’ve forgotten to believe in themselves.
Warmth builds trust. Trust builds honesty. And honesty leads to better decisions, better culture, and better results. It’s not soft. It’s the foundation of everything that actually works.
The CRO left our session feeling better. Not because we solved his problems, we didn’t. But because he felt heard. That’s warmth. And it’s more powerful than most leaders realise.
C-suite leaders often have nowhere to go to take some of the weight of what they’re carrying. That’s what I’m here for. If you’d value a thinking partner who understands the c-suite from the inside, I’d love to have a conversation.
