Philippa White on a people-first approach to leadership

This episode's special guest is Philippa White, author of Return on Humanity: Leadership Lessons from All Corners of the World, and together we discuss a people-first approach to leadership. Philippa is a global thought leader, social innovator and the Founder and CEO of UK-based company TIE Leadership and host of the TIE Unearthed podcast. For over 20 years she has been dedicated to unlocking the potential of corporate leaders and their companies by igniting the power of a people-first approach to business. Philippa shares what she considers the three pillars of being more human as a leader: self-awareness, interdependence and interconnectedness. 1) Self-awareness means knowing who you are, what you are good at, what your purpose or compass is and what makes you happy. 2) We are interdependent, because we can't make decisions on our own. We need other people, we can't make decisions in a vacuum, we need other sectors and other regions of the world. We need voices from outside communities to help us find solutions. And to create an environment where the people needed can collaborate in a cohesive way, we need human competencies such as empathy and understanding how to gain trust from people who are very different to ourselves. 3) Our interconnectedness means business can't be only about shareholders, it needs to be about all stakeholders. There needs to be an understanding of our place in the community and how what we do impacts all other aspects such as our customers, civil society and the environment. The more human a business culture is, the happier people are and the more successful it becomes and this is a 'Return on Humanity'. We learn about her aunt and uncle's activism in apartheid South Africa and how it motivated her to create her leadership programmes at TIE and to write the book. This episode is hosted by Anna Mullenneaux and Paul Skinner, co-founders of the MarketingKind community.