Describing herself as an idealist who wants to change the world, Kahina Ouerdane is a lawyer by training who worked for several years in international law. “In my career, I noticed a dissonance between what large organizations said and how they actually acted,” explains the woman who now holds the position of Vice President Culture and Organization at GSoft , a department she set up. All of this led me to take an interest in vertical leadership development. I took training and worked a lot on myself, in therapy and coaching. I quickly saw the positive impact on my teams.”

Humanism and business are often contradictory, Kahina Ouerdane has often observed over the course of her conversations. “However, empathy is an essential skill in business. It’s a muscle: if we train it with our internal teams, we’ll be able to do it more naturally with customers to better meet their needs.” A change in mentality that is taking place even among more traditional business people, Kahina Ouerdane firmly believes.

Six actions “tested” at GSoft

Here are six empathetic leadership actions implemented at Gsoft, explained and commented on by Kahina Ouerdane.

1. Check-ins. “I do them in all my team meetings. When we log into a virtual or in-person meeting, I ask everyone how they are “arriving” today. What's in your heart? What's on your mind? This exercise allows us to settle down, to understand what is inside us. We allow ourselves to be completely ourselves. How often do we interpret non-verbal communication without knowing what is really happening? The stronger the bond of trust, the deeper and more sincere the check-ins are. It's an empathetic way to break the ice.”

In his more succinct formula, Kahina asks participants to summarize in one word how they feel. "If everyone answers: tired, it gives you the pulse of the group and you adapt. Some people will not speak at all during the meeting, so this moment allows them to exist."

2. Train your team in conscious communication (better known as non-violent communication or NVC, according to the approach of psychologist Marshall Rosenberg). “In two days, the training offered by external consultants aimed to increase our skills to better communicate and resolve issues. In four easy steps: we learned to observe, express our feelings, formulate our needs and formulate our requests. This approach was very revealing. We developed a common language, a shortcut between us. We improved our emotional intelligence. For example, we defined the difference between expressing a real emotion and blaming. Conscious communication facilitates exchanges, allows us to de-dramatize. It resolves recurring conflicts in the workplace. It nourishes the bond of trust between people and saves a lot of time interpreting messages!”

3. Train your managers in “power skills” . “We developed internally and offered all managers in the organization training around major management themes. Spread over a year at a rate of three hours per week, it focused on coaching skills, strategic planning and inclusive leadership. We were asked “powerful” questions and allowed the answers to emerge. We improved our empathetic listening and our ability to solve problems. The data collected from both managers and their teams, at the beginning and during the program, was unequivocal: not only did they confirm their sense of belonging to a community, an essential benefit in this year of pandemic, but they all agreed on the evolution of managerial maturity that resulted from it.”

4. Create awareness campaigns . “On the major and broad topic of diversity and inclusion, last year we ran an awareness campaign on everyday discrimination. This took the form of animated videos broadcast over a certain period of time that focused on small everyday things with the aim of raising employee awareness of these major issues, a communication channel on Slack called Vivre ensemble where staff could express themselves freely, and respectfully, on issues that affect them.”

5. Monthly one-on-ones. “The manager meets with his employees one by one monthly. They are the ones who fuel the meeting and come up with the topics or projects they want to discuss. The boss’s role in these meetings is to be empathetic and open-minded.”

6. Personalized surveys. “The Officevibe software that we developed allows us to do this. For example, last fall, we conducted a survey on the stress level of our teams. We implemented an action plan based on the results. It is an excellent tool for measuring team well-being. Through this exercise, we realized that recognition was a very low metric at GSoft. And we see that this is also the case in the tech industry. A second survey will therefore aim to deepen our understanding of recognition: what do employees mean by it? What are their needs?, etc. Understanding the underlying problem will then allow us to develop the right action plan.”